Write in your words about the sufferings of labourers/ daily wage earners, and their long march to their village on foot due to the corona
virus pandemic.
please...
Answers
Answer:
Blamed for leaving their homes in defiance of the lockdown, hungry, and cash-strapped, migrants struggle in packed shelters, while those who managed to reach their native places face hostility. Ajeet Mahale, Jatin Anand and Omar Rashid report on their plight
“In my 20 years in Mumbai, I have never seen such a sight,” said Gopal Das as he recounted his ordeal on March 21 at the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus. Gopal was among the sea of people who had attempted to board what would be the last few trains out of the city to their homes hundreds of kilometres away. Gopal, a construction worker, did not manage to board the train. And nothing had prepared him for what was to follow.
Gopal is from Bhagalpur, Bihar. He said he and his friends spent nearly four hours trying to get tickets. “A few people who had clambered on to the trains fell on the platform. A little later, we heard that all the trains had been cancelled. Since there was no public transport, we walked for three hours to our room in Bandra (East) with ₹250 in our pockets. We were still hoping they would start the trains. We didn’t think it would last this long,” he said.
Full coverage | Lockdown displaces lakhs of migrants
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Visuals of hundreds of workers wearing gamchas, carrying heavy backpacks and wailing children, and walking on national highways, boarding tractors, and jostling for space atop multi-coloured buses became defining images for days to come in India. To fight the novel coronavirus, States began imposing restrictions on the movement of people. Then the Prime Minister announced a nationwide 21-day lockdown. This tough measure was met with fear, anger and frustration in many parts of the country, including Mumbai.
Answer:
Tens of thousands of daily-wage migrant workers suddenly found themselves without jobs or a source of income when India announced a lockdown on 24 March.
Overnight, the cities they had helped build and run seemed to have turned their backs on them, the trains and buses which should have carried them home suspended.
So with the looming fear of hunger, men, women and children were forced to begin arduous journeys back to their villages - cycling or hitching rides on tuk-tuks, lorries, water tankers and milk vans.
For many, walking was the only option. Some travelled for a few hundred kilometres, while others covered more than a thousand to go home.
They weren't always alone - some had young children and others had pregnant wives, and the life they had built for themselves packed into their ragtag bags.
Many never made it. Here, the BBC tells the story of just a handful of the hundreds who have lost their lives on the road home.