RANCHI/BHOPAL/PATNA: The worst nightmare has come true for a host of migrant labourers from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Jobless following the nationwide lockdown last year, they had just about started putting things together when the second wave of Covid-19 erupted. Hailing from villages in these states, they have been forced to rush back after employers told them they were shutting operations once again.
Most of them had gone back to their workplaces in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the National Capital Region or found something new, after the situation started looking better towards the end of 2020. Several of them are under pressure to repay loans taken to survive last year’s ordeals. Hoping that things were falling in place after having worked for a few months, they are back staring at uncertainty.
Mohammed Feroz is from Siwan and Aditya Kumar from Buxar in Bihar. They barely had time to catch trains from Mumbai and Delhi, respectively, after being told by their employers that another lockdown is on the cards. “I didn’t even have time to go to my shared accommodation. Headed straight for the station and luckily I got a ticket to Patna,” says Feroz, who had gone back to the barbershop he used to work in after being recalled by his employer last October. The 35-year-old with five dependents had borrowed Rs 2,500 when he went back to Mumbai. Finding a job, making ends meet and repaying the loan, Feroz has many questions and no answers.
Kumar returned to Patna on Saturday. He thought life had taken a turn for the good, when the owner of the garment factory he worked in before last year’s lockdown called him back in January. “He had promised support during bad days, but didn’t do anything when I reminded him of it. It’s better to sell vegetables in Bihar than to go to other states where employers stop behaving normally once talk of lockdown starts,” says the 25-year-old.
Sources of income are drying up for others as well. In Dhar district of MP, a group of auto-rickshaw drivers from Mumbai were spotted on their way to UP. “We’re returning home. There’s already a weekend lockdown and night curfew in Mumbai. We fear a complete lockdown soon. There is no business for us anymore,” says Jaan Mohammad. A resident of Farrukhabad district, his vehicle has a Maharashtra registration number. He and fellow auto-rickshaw drivers are ferrying some labourers too. Jaan expects this number to rise in the coming days.
Some of them could have fought the situation instead of going back home, but memories of last year’s lockdown nipped such thoughts in the bud. Working in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Delhi, Noida, Surat and other places, they were not willing to revisit thosee days
Flicker of hope drowns in second wave of coronavirus
With talks of another lockdown doing the rounds, they decided to return home at the first opportunity. Dinesh Ravidas was working as a cook in a Pune restaurant. “With the spike in Covid-19 cases, restaurants and other business establishments were closed. We lost our jobs and decided to come back before our savings got over.
Moreover, we didn’t want to face the problems we had last year, when we were without food for days. Had we stayed on for longer, we would have died of hunger,” says the 32-year-old from Jharkhand’s Madhupur district. Like Ravidas, Gulam Rabbani Ansari, Bablu, Altaf and Shahbudddin also arrived in Ranchi on the Pune-Hatia Express. Trains, and in certain cases auto-rickshaws, are carrying thousands like them to different places in Bihar, Jharkhand, and UP. Having seen a ray of hope disappear from in front of their eyes, they don’t know where the next ray of light will come from.