Man ostracised after Covid-19 screening, lives on a hillock for seven days

shanmughasundaram.j @timesgroup.com

Chennai: 

For the last one week, 28-year-old Shamim Ali has spent days and nights on a hillock on the outskirts of his village, Kannagapattu in Thiruporur. A guest worker from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj district, he had taken up loading and unloading work at the Koyambedu market and was taken for Covid-19 screening in the first week of May. As he was not infected, he was advised home quarantine, and that was when reality set in. His villagers refused to allow him to stay at home forcing him to spend seven days on the village outskirts amidst trees and shrubs. 

Ali had made MGR Nagar in Kannagapattu his home for four years after arriving in the state in search of a job. A father of four children, he and his family was residing in a single-room house with asbestos roofing. He was working in a papermart until the nation-wide lockdown to prevent Covid-19 spread rendered him jobless. As a result, he found his way to the Koyambedu market to load and unload vegetables for a few days. 

However, the emergence of a Covid-19 cluster with Koyambedu market at the epicentre not only left him without a job a second time, but also led to his ostracisation. “Officials traced me along with three others from the same locality as we worked in the market. We were screened and advised to stay at home. When I returned, the locals feared that I might be carrying the virus and could spread the infection. They told me to stay away from the village,” Ali said. 

With no place to go, Ali took shelter near a temple on a hillock in the vicinity. The villagers did not stop with this. They dissuaded his wife from visiting him. His younger brother, Khalil Ali, who is living with his family in the same vicinity, dropped food for him a few meters away from the place he stayed from May 10 to the morning of May 16.

Finding it difficult, Ali got in touch with his friend, Chand Ali, to help him get back to his family, “I, with the help of a volunteer, Rahul, contacted revenue officials and sought help for Shamim Ali,” Chand Ali said.

Revenue Inspector of Tiruporur N Pushpa Rani along with police officials reached the village on Saturday morning. “We spoke to the villagers and tried to ward off their fears. We convinced them to allow him to stay at his home. Later, he returned home,” she said. 

“It was very difficult for me to stay away from my children. I missed them a lot, and I was very happy to get back to them,” Ali said. Despite the government trying to create awareness among the public on Covid-19, people like Ali continue to face social stigma in the state./eom/shan/

Guest workers take the weary journey, only to be dropped back

Shanmughasundaram.j@timesgroup.com

Chennai:

Sathish Garg and 10 of his friends started their homeward journey by foot on May 14. Losing his job as a carpenter post-lockdown, Garg decided to walk to his hometown in Kanpur from Redhill where he had worked for nearly three years. But Garg and his friends were ferried back not once but twice after they were spotted by Andhra Pradesh police; the first time at Tada, and the second time at Sullurpeta.

“We reached Tada on May 15, a day after we started to walk. The AP police put us in a truck and dropped us back at Redhills. Where can we go? So, we started to walk again as we had no choice. But again, we were stopped by the police at Sullurpeta on Saturday, and we ended up at a government shelter in Gummidipoondi,” Garg, a father of two children, recounted.

However, this was not a case in isolation. For the past few days, several migrant labourers, who walked for several kilometers, were made to return in trucks once they entered AP and are spotted by the police.  

Like him, Rohith Kumar and two other guest workers - who worked in Ambattur Estate - walked for three days and nearly 300 kms to reach a point near Vijayawada from Ambattur on their journey towards their hometown in Uttar Pradesh. However, hours later, they along with several guest workers were ferried back in trucks to TN and dropped near the inter-state border of TN-Andhra Pradesh near Gummidipoondi in Tiruvallur district. 

Braving the soaring mercury levels, many of these guest workers start their journey on foot after there were no signs of help from the government. Left penniless and fighting starvation, they trudged along National Highway 16 only to be stopped by the AP and brought back to TN border. 

Kumar said they were abandoned on the road with no direction on how to continue their journey. 

A few days ago 200-odd guest workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, UP and Himachal Pradesh were dropped at the border.  On Sunday too, another group of 200 labourers were stopped from proceeding further at Sullurpeta and dropped back in a lorry near Redhills. 

Akshay Jain, one of the volunteers who has been distributing food to migrant labourers near Sullurpeta, witnessed the incident. While they were distributing food, police rounded the labourers and took them away. “We followed the labourers and took a video. The police, in fact, lied to the workers promising to take them to a transport registration spot at a local revenue office in Tada but instead took them across the border,” he said.

Deputy Collector of Tiruvallur district Panneerselvam, who is handling issues related to migrants, said that the district administration has opened 12 shelters to accommodate the migrant labourers. “We have been housing the migrant labourers dropped at the TN-AP border in the government facilities in Gummidipoondi and surrounding areas,” he said. The authorities are making arrangement to send the labourers in batches and two specials trains operated to Bihar and Odisha on Sunday from Tiruvallur, he noted

A police officer attached to Tiruvallur district said that neither the TN nor the AP police were allowing guest workers to cross the border. Police personnel from either side have been deployed at the integrated check post at Elavur on the AP-TN border. “However, there are several porous routes along the inter-state border and the migrants have been using them. They were stopped at multiple spots along the Chennai-Kolkata NH in Nellore district and sent back into TN. On an average, the (AP) police brings back 300 to 350 labourers, who are stopped at several places,” he said. /eom/shan/

Migrants’ plights: Many guest workers stuck in Tamil Nadu fear they will lose precious time to start cultivation back at home

Many guest workers stuck in Tamil Nadu fear they will lose precious time to start cultivation back at home

J Shanmugha Sundaram
Chennai: The kharif season is two weeks away and hundreds of guest workers, who are also seasonal farmers, are stuck in Tamil Nadu due to the lockdown. These seasonal farmers, who own small pieces of land back in their villages in Bihar and Jharkhand, are unable to go back home and start farming.

According to 2017 economic survey, there are 100 million guest workers in India. On an average, nine million people migrate between states every year. “Around 50% of these nine million people are seasonal migrants, mostly farmers. They migrate to prosperous states to work as casual labourers during the off-season,” said Umi Daniel, regional head of migration thematic unit, Aide et Action International (South Asia).  

Ashok Singh, 55, from Adhaura village in Bihar’s Kaimur district, said, “Hundreds of the young farmers and agricultural labourers from my village and neighbouring villages are yet to return home. They are stuck in Tamil Nadu and other states where they worked as daily wage labourers during the off-season.” 

Ashok’s nephew, Gopal Singh, who is stuck at Sriperumbudur’s SPICOT industrial estate in Chennai, said, “I came here to earn some money and invest the same in agriculture this Kharif season, but all my plans have gone down the drain.” 

Like Gopal, Yogendra Chaudhary from Dewal village in UP’s Ghazipur district and Upendar Kumar from Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district are also affected. The duo usually work as guest labourers for eight months in a year and go back to their home town during monsoon to take up to farming. 

These farmers return home in mid of April and take up harvest of wheat and vegetables crops like brinjal, tomato and beans. They spend an entire month (May) to prepare the field to sow paddy for the monsoon month that sets in mid of June. 

 “We are still here,” Gopal said and added, “Though my parents and elders back home would manage the harvest, it would be difficult for them to prepare the field for kharif season.” 

Yogendra said, “What we cultivate and harvest is only to save our family from starvation till the next season. For families like mine it would be tough to meet our financial needs.”

Another guest labourer cum farmer Kumar, who is the father of two daughters said, “I took a piece of land on lease for wheat cultivation. I came here to earn some money to invest in my farming this monsoon season, but the lockdown has destroyed my dreams.”

While several hundreds of small and marginal farmers migrate to Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and other metro cities to work in the construction and manufacturing sector. 

National general secretary of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and two-time MLA of Bihar assembly Raja Ram Singh said, “The government has failed to look into the plight of these small farmers and peasants before announcing the lockdown.” 

He further added that the Centre was busy in playing political games at the beginning of the year and failed to prepare a strategy to protect the migrants and farmers, who are the worst affected. The farmers are the food providers and backbone of our nation. They have been suffering a lot and are unable to return home on time.

While these farmers have already lost three weeks to prepare their lands for cultivation, even if they return home by next week they would be home-quarantined for 28 days.