Media Release
Mangaluru, Jun 12: The Department of Sociology, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Mangaluru, organized a National Webinar on June 12 with the theme 'Migrant Workers: A Long Walk Ahead!' the speaker for the Webinar was Derek O’Brien, leader of All India Trinamool Congress parliamentary party, Rajya Sabha.
The webinar started with the welcome address by Joan Rita O’Brien assistant professor and HOD, Department of Sociology, the convener and moderator of the national webinar followed by the opening remarks made by Fr Dr Praveen Martis SJ principal, St Aloysius College Autonomous, Mangaluru. In his opening remarks, the principal spoke about how the country had disappointed the migrant workers and they did not seem to exist when the decision of lockdown was being made.
Derek O’Brien who is one of Indian Parliament’s most recognisable faces and a leading and articulate voice of the opposition, with his speeches and writings on issues of national importance being discussed widely in the national and international media, addressed the participants by starting with what actually happened in short-term in March when 21-days lockdown was announced. He said that the first big problem was these workers were given just four hours notice without any planning. The solution back then could have been simply giving them some time to get back home. One of the practical solutions would be through Indian Railways which as per numbers in real could transport 5-6 million people per day and in about six days they could have transported 30 million of them to their destinations. Going by this between March 24-28 these workers could have been sent back to their homes and then the lockdown could have been announced.
He said that India announced its first lockdown when there were 550 cases and then did the unlocking when the cases were about 3 lac. This could have been thought out. The idea of trains occurred only in May. It was quite late by then.
O’Brien preferred calling the migrant workers as 'guest workers' or 'Mehman'. He spoke about the role of state governments during this time. The Centre wanted these guest workers to move and wanted their respective state governments to accept them and do the initial screening on entry, ensure home and hospital quarantine too. He admitted that a big blunder was made in the beginning by abandoning these workers. They were not only disappointed but devastated and more than 80 people died when they were packed into the trains back home.
He mentioned the MPLAD which is given to every MP for his constituency which has been suspended for two years. The suggestion was made to divert this money into the worker’s bank accounts as a direct benefit was suggested. Amidst all the pain and apathy he said there was still something positive. We actually got to know a lot about these migrant workers who would otherwise lead a life of invisibility.
O’Brien spoke about interstate and intrastate migration and went on to recommend to the students and scholars a book 'India Moving: History of Migration' by Chinmay Tumbe to understand migration in India. He said that there were three types of migrants: Short-term migrants who migrate for 2-3 months, long-term migrants basically the security guards, construction workers. The permanent migrants. The long-term migrants go back home during the monsoons. They keep the employers wondering when will these workers come back, certainly not before the Chatt puja in Bihar somewhere in September.
He presented a couple of facts stating that one in every four households in Azamgarh in UP has migrant workers. Ganjam in Odisha has a similar story where practically, members of every household have migrated to Surat. All of these migrations do not happen through agents but 70 per cent of them are through word of mouth. The three baskets of migration are Mumbai, Delhi and Surat where rural to urban migration happens. A good amount of urban to urban migration also happens from Pune to Bengaluru and vice versa. In fact, 30 per cent of Kerala’s GDP is from outbound migrations.
The good thing in all this he said was it was time for the Parliament to relook into the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979. Also, he suggested just like some states do a pre-departure training for migration abroad, a similar one could be done for inter-state migration too.
He also addressed the issue of what the migrants would do when they return to their home states. He gave the example of MNREGA in West Bengal where it has done a marvellous job and kept the state at No 1 position for the past three years. Although there are some issues with it the MNREGA will definitely perform for these workers (the per day wages need to be raised though).
He was very open about the fact that these quickie and dramatic announcements (just like the demonetization and the GST) did no good as there was no planning.
Derek O’Brien took questions from participants across the country: Odisha, Patna, Kashmir, UP, Bengaluru, MP, Nagaland, West Bengal, Hyderabad and closed the session by reminding the youth that, "Nobody is perfect. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We correct. There is nothing wrong in that. But most importantly there has to be humility in everything you do. It does not matter how big a politician you are." His humble request was, “Let us not be cynical. If we want to change something, let’s be constructive.”
He mentioned it was the first time where he was interacting with academia on such a platform and would like to do this more frequently with other universities.
The questions were raised to O’Brien through the convener and moderator of the programme. The national webinar closed with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr Alwyn D’Sa controller of examinations, St Aloysius College Autonomous, Mangaluru.
The national webinar received an overwhelming response of 1,424 registrations from across the country and participants joined in through Zoom and YouTube live streaming.