INTERNAL MIGRANT WORKERS IN INDIA
Unskilled and semi-skilled internal migrants in India
Some of them take to the roads but for most, the Indian
Railways is the only option.
Indian trains have an unreserved class, also called the ‘general
class’, offering cheapest fairs, and almost no amenities. Anyone who is even
slightly capable of meeting some ends would never want to board these ‘general
class compartments’ of any train.
Most of the Indian trains are notorious but the general
class compartments can effectively be put in the ‘horrible journey
experience’ category when they chug from and to the poorer or poorly
governed states; states providing the rest of the India with unskilled or semi-skilled
manpower. Most of them are daily wage earners. Unorganized occupation units
like construction, private transportation and small time vending employ almost
of the lot.
Though the labour law sets rules of engagement but it is
never followed in such manpower sectors. People, for whom the law is enacted,
can’t read even the newspaper properly. Their only concern is to survive the
coming day. It is silly to expect that they would raise voices to say that they
are not being paid the basic minimum wage as defined by the statute.
And they pack the general class of these Indian Railways
trains which are devoid of even the basic amenities.
Take a walk on a major railway station like Delhi, Mumbai
or Howrah and you can see the large queues struggling to enter the general
class compartments of the trains heading to the states like Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and some other poor states. Police force
is employed to manage the swelling crowd that overcrowds the trains packing
them many times beyond the capacity. Some stampedes in past have killed many.
But they have no other option than to board these compartments.
For them, life is restricted to the environs of the
general class compartment of the Indian Railways trains – neglected, marginalized,
overburdened, and ignorant!
And this symbolism continues with their lives in the big
city India
They do carry hope when they board the train but it is not
the kind of hope that the passengers boarding the air-conditioned coaches of
the same train carry. Their hopes, most of the time, don’t fall even in the
category of the hopes carried by the reserved sleeper class passengers, a class
having slightly better amenities than the unreserved general class.
Also, the sleeper class is known as ‘second class’ in common
man’s terminology. That, invariably, leaves the ‘third class’ notion and
‘treatment’ for the ‘general class passengers’. Isn’t it?
These internal migrants of India
Yes, they carry just one hope, the hope of survival that
they would be able to find something to do there, to earn, and to live further.
Their agenda of life is limited to a day or set of a few days only and keeps on
changing. The glitzy metros with their blitzy environs are just like the
air-conditioned class of the train they just pass through but do not even
notice while heading to the cramped ‘general class’ compartments with ‘third
class’ amenities.
They toil on the city roads and in the city environs
during their working hours and head to the city slums or look for a corner on
the road pavements to complete their day for the next day.
It is a dark aspect of the internal migration in the sovereign,
socialist, secular, democratic republic
of India
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
