The Road I wish I less travelled — Migrant Worker’s Travel Diaries
24 hours, 1450 km, lakhs of migrants. First hand experience watching India’s biggest migration from Mumbai to Lucknow during peak Covid-19 times.
8:00 am, May 15th
Early morning, we get a call from Lucknow about my cousin being on ventilator. It was since last 10–15 days he was being treated for typhoid and lung infection. Covid-19 negative, but still couldn’t get proper treatment on time. We were in Mumbai, 1400 km away from Lucknow wishing and praying for him. But couldn’t wait anymore because there was only a relative running pillar to post to get all the help, medicines, reports, and handle the situation.
4:00 pm, May 15th
I along with my parents decided to leave for Lucknow. We applied for Mumbai Police permission, got checkup and certificate from a doctor, and got official letters from Uttar Pradesh government to move. This was a medical emergency we couldn’t avoid, we had to move, as quickly as possible, taking all precautions, keeping extra masks and sanitizers. My mom took food for the journey, my siblings got dry snacks. We left exactly at 10:00 pm from Powai, Mumbai.
While we left, the only thing on mind was my cousin’s critical condition and reaching hospital safely asap. However, during the journey, we discovered a battle every migrant worker in India was fighting (which we knew about but had not seen it)
10:00 PM
Initially till Thane toll naka (which is the official Mumbai border) we just saw few workers walking on the highway with their luggage. It looked like a normal scene you must have seen on social media and news channels. What unfolded after toll naka was dreary and mayhem, it was a blow to social distancing and completely a lawless situation.
Bhiwandi — To give a brief for people who don’t know about the place, Bhiwandi is Mumbai’s neighboring Industrial town, famous as the warehouse hub and textile manufacturing. Majority of the workers here are migrants from Uttar Pradesh/Bihar.
After the toll naka, the number of people on highway increased dramatically and then we started finding bikers flocking 3 people at a time. Further, umpteen trucks and tempos were standing in huge queue on the highway, waiting to board people. It seemed as if people there had never heard of Corona Virus, but sadly that was the exact reason they were there. Social Distancing was a distant dream.
The picture above was a normal scene. Imagine the nation under lockdown, Mumbai being the hotspot and having highest number of Covid-19 cases and here we have more than 20K people stranded, trying to move out of the city. There was literally no law and order, no cops anywhere, people were moving freely with their family, luggage, and being charged ₹5000–7000 to go back to their home states in transport vehicles along with 40–50 other people. Kids, women and senior citizens, everyone were taking the biggest risk of their lives. Now imagine, one person, just one person being infected. What we saw here was no less than India’s biggest spreading center. This will affect country like no other thing. I couldn’t click more pictures as I was driving. The latest report says 6 lakh migrants have left from Bhiwandi, if I include Mumbai city than the figure would go beyond 15 lakhs, at least.
While I’m writing this, India today recorded highest number of Covid-19 cases, almost 5000 and Mumbai’s toll has crossed 20,000 cases, highest in the country.
As we moved ahead, we continuously were finding tempos, truck and trailers, transporting humans. This was a commercial form of human smuggling, unofficially authorized by state governments. This is how it started, this wasn’t migration, it was inhumane crises that should have been handled and managed with all efforts, but sadly, both state and central government failed. There was a huge traffic in Bhiwandi and to cross the first Mumbai-Nashik toll it took us around 30 mins due to huge vehicle movement. Don’t forget, we are under national lockdown. Maharashtra administration failed, terribly, to maintain law and order situation. A basic health check with registration should have been done in the first 30 days of lockdown. What’s happening will prove very costly for the entire nation.
Over next 300 km, as we moved past Nashik and Dhule, saw unlimited vehicles, Mumbai’s kaali peeli taxis and auto-rickshaws were too a part of this herd. People chose petrol pumps to take halt, sleeping at night. It was in Malegaon we saw people distributing food packets at 3:00 am. Also it was another gathering and boarding point for migrants. There were many on bikes again, flocking the crowd, I guess these were the brokers who were arranging and coordinating the movement.
I took a break from driving around 4:00 am and took a nap, when I was up we had entered Madhya Pradesh and early morning scenes were no different than previous night. All the dhaba areas became a stoppage point for them. Dhabas and shops remained completely shut, it gave migrants a place to halt, eat something and take rest. 40–50 together in one tempo turned into 200–300 here. While Urban India is sitting in their apartment and taking all measures even in their building, here a parallel India was running and living their lives. The risk of infection multiplied. While the world is implementing and taking all social distancing measures, the lowest strata of our society here were not just being exposed, but also, risking the spread to untouched places by Covid-19, the rural India.
We took our first break in Indore, to fill petrol and have breakfast. At the petrol pump we saw one auto from Mumbai, out of curiosity my dad asked him where were they headed to, his reply was Amethi, another 900 km from Indore. Imagine a family with luggage traveling 1400 km in auto rickshaw, I was wondering if it could get any worse and Why are the migrant workers so desperate to move ?
Indore, the city was sealed. As we headed though the bypass, we saw big relief camps providing food, tea, fruits, and people were giving directions for vehicles to stop by. Volunteers from all communities were there lending a helping hand. Let me remind you, this is the same city where an unfortunate incident happened which was communalized, and here we are, people from every community coming in frontline and helping the migrants.
Religion doesn’t define humanity, it is humanity which defines everything else.
For the next 50 km we saw around more than 20 camps providing food, tea, water and place to rest. These were all common caring citizens of our country, not from any political party or ruling government. What we saw was a civil aid and pure empathy. I wish I’d captured pictures but I couldn't. We stopped by at one relief camp and had our tea, they were wearing gloves and masks, they were all common people of Indore. I thank this city, because no where in last 600 and next 800 km we found any place/people so helpful. If you’re from Indore and reading this, please share it with someone who’d volunteered or is volunteering. Thank You!
Madhya Pradesh, in next 400 km we saw many camps distributing food on highways. Now this patch was the most uncomfortable one for everyone. It is May, peak summer season in India. Till now I hadn't seen open trucks and tempos but now I started seeing even those too. Open large trailers covered with plastic from all sides carrying people, can we imagine more pathetic state in our life.
Peak summertime, directly exposed under sun, a group of 40–50 people traveling together in one vehicle with a very high risk of getting infected by the most deadly virus which has brought world to standstill. I was shattered by now. The scenes of auto and taxis from my city was unending even after 900 km.
Of all that we were facing, the final nail in the coffin arrived, we got a call from our relative bringing another tragic news, which tore us apart. My cousin, for whom we were traveling, took his last breath that morning. My mom shattered, she was very close to my cousin, we were blank.
Life cannot bring more sorrow. Externally we were seeing our own fellow citizens and society fall because of a virus, internally we had lost a family member who had no connection to the same virus. Both ways, we lost.
I realized Covid-19 isn’t just killing infected ones, but a lot more and how our healthcare infra failed to save them. TK.
Uttar Pradesh, before we entered UP we had already seen a lot, lakhs of migrants, thousands of taxis, auto, tempos and trucks, we anticipated nothing better in the last leg of our journey. As we approached MP-UP border before Jhansi, we saw huge traffic. We entered the traffic, but immediately realized this is something unusual so we somehow took a u-turn, travelled back 2 km and got on the other side of road.
Next two minutes what we saw was unfathomable, more than 100 trucks stuck in the traffic and more than 10k people from different states entering their home state. After we reached the check point, we saw there was police checkup of every individual, their names and districts were bring recorded. There were many many UP state transport buses on the other side of the border waiting to transport people to their respective districts. This, this was the first time we saw some government in action, taking some initiative, and doing something on the ground.
We crossed the check point and headed to our destination. I randomly checked my twitter & internet and found out that, some time back there was a huge accident in Auraiya distict of Uttar Pradesh where 27 people died, they were all migrant workers traveling in a trailer full of soda-lime powder (Chuna). They were traveling from Rajasthan and Punjab.
I think every person in India, who has food, clothing and shelter, should feel blessed and very lucky. You’re a privileged one, don’t even think of complaining about anything in this lockdown.
The place that these people built — India’s infrastructure, the urban India they were serving, remains unaffected, and here they are, running from death by facing death. I don’t know what went wrong, who went wrong but I’d put my thoughts about the reverse migration happening here. Also, I’ve written more on how this has exposed our society and how it will disrupt Urban India.
After entering Uttar Pradesh, number of commercial vehicles transporting people reduced drastically. Maybe because the borders were sealed, maybe because we took state highway. But one thing is sure, this will remain as one of the biggest blot in the history of India’s 21st century. No doubt, the world was facing crises but we added another one on the top of it. Every political party and government of different states is responsible for this whole fiasco and failure, maybe the society and businesses as well are little responsible. If we had convinced our workers, made them understood the importance of not moving and provided them financial help, the chances of such deadly migration wouldn’t have happened. Urban India and the business community need to be ready for what is coming, we wouldn’t need fiscal or monetary stimulus, we’ll need human stimulus.
Accidents — We even saw some accidents, kaali peeli taxis, autos and tempos. One happened in front of us in Madhya Pradesh, thank god it wasn’t a major one.
Media Role — There are media reports correctly reporting ground reality but I personally feel they have contributed equally to this crises. I’ve seen none of them appealing migrant workers to not travel by revealing the hardships faced. Media has only blamed institutions, their appeal with such impactful journalism would have contributed positively, but sadly it didn’t happen.
45 days back, after the lockdown announcement, we had face a similar situation at Delhi-UP borders. I had written about it in a Facebook post.
We could’ve learned from our mistakes and planned it, at least to some extent, but I guess all the stakeholders failed, maybe because some didn’t care and some kept complaining and blaming, no one focused on why they are moving and how we should stop it.
Honestly, I could’ve captured more pictures, which were more painful and important for the world to see, but I couldn’t. I was myself disturbed and driving. Clicked the above ones randomly, when the journey was over, decided to write about it, first hand experience of watching India’s biggest migration.
