On March 24, 2020 the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national lockdown. The lockdown was announced unilaterally without consultation. This led to a massive crisis of hunger, loss of livelihood and acute distress among the millions of migrant workers in India. Several individuals, civil society organisations and government officials came together to alleviate the distress faced by migrant workers. The union government’s response was not only delayed but woefully inadequate. The response from the judiciary was also weak. This video is a short recap of the migrant workers crisis.

Directed by: Rajendran Narayanan

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:20 - Migrant Workers' Crisis
00:54 - False Claim 1: Denial of Starvation
01:28 - False Claim 2: Migrant Workers Were Well Supplied
02:03 - SWAN: Stranded Workers Action Network
02:59 - How Did Govt and Judiciary Respond?
04:25 - Critiquing Critics
05:25 - Inconsistent Data
06:01 - Hardly Any NREGA Work, April 2020
06:28 - Conclusion

LINKS

• EPW paper ‘Of Denial and Data’ by Aman, Thejash G N, Krushna Ranawara, Kanika Sharma: https://www.epw.in/journal/2021/23/in...

• First SWAN report: 21 Days and Counting released on April 13, 2020: https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/libra...

• 2nd SWAN report released on May 1, 2020: https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/libra...

• Link to the 3rd SWAN report: To leave or not to leave. Released on June 5, 2020 https://ruralindiaonline.org/bn/libra...

• Link where Tushar Mehta says ‘negativity, negativity, negativity’ by Rekha Sharma: (In a rare display of combativeness, he described those who contested his claim as prophets of doom. He alleged that these critics were spreading “negativity, negativity, and negativity”.) https://indianexpress.com/article/opi...

• Labour Commissioner Claims & 8 crore worker estimates by Priscilla Jebaraj
https://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...

• Hardly any NREGA work in April, 2020 by Priscilla Jebaraj -- https://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...

• State of Working India report by Azim Premji University (2021) State of Working India 2021: One year of Covid-19, Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University. https://publications.azimpremjiuniver...

Inputs from SWAN for this video: Anindita Adhikari & Navmee Goregaonkar