COVID19: an Unequal World for Migrant Workers

Four weeks into Nepal’s Covid-19 lockdown, my family and I are at home, catching up with long-lost friends online, finishing off the books we bought ages ago, and, every day, obsessively reading news reports and social media to try to understand this world-changing crisis. Like many readers of The Kathmandu Post, we are fortunate to have the comfort and cushion of being safe in our homes, free of hunger and poverty. Meanwhile, just outside our country’s border, thousands of our fellow citizens are trying desperately to get home.

On March 24, Nepal introduced a lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic; two days later, India followed suit. Since then, Nepal has extended its lockdown to April 27, and India until May 4. Meanwhile, 1,100 migrant workers from Baitadi, Bajhang and Darchula districts find themselves in quarantine camps in Dharchula in India’s Uttarakhand state, on the other side of the closed Mahakali river bridge. Their despair is heartbreaking.

That desperation drove 11 Nepali migrant workers to jump in the Mahakali on April 13 in an attempt to reach the Nepali side. Seven were captured by members of India’s border force, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), but four were successful, and Nepal’s Darchula administration has kept them under quarantine. Jeevan Damai, a Nepali citizen who has been held for over two weeks in Dharchula’s quarantine camp, said he called on the Government of Nepal to open the bridge and let them in. Like many other Nepali migrant labourers who work in India, he had been expecting to be with his family on the Nepali New Year’s Day, but instead, he had to spend it in the Indian camp, hundreds of kilometres away.

We have all seen the troubling images of the huge homeward exodus of migrant workers, both Indian and Nepali, that began when India locked down. This exodus is terrible proof of failed social protection systems, both in India and Nepal. As a society and as fellow humans, we see how greatly we have failed migrant workers when we hear them say, ‘We will die of hunger before we are killed by coronavirus’. There are already reports of a man dying on his journey home, owing to him falling off a suspension bridge in Dhading. We can call these workers brave, but in truth, they have no choice: it is a matter of survival.

In Dharchula’s quarantine camp, reports suggest that conditions are probably as good as can be expected, given the scale of the undertaking. The local administration and police have set up five areas to quarantine Nepali migrant workers, with medical inspections carried out every other day. The practice of social distancing is a priority overall, although limited resources and space mean it is difficult in practice. Entertainment sessions are provided, including awareness-raising on Covid-19, motivational talks, and singing Nepali songs and dancing. Understandably, however, the workers are adamant that they want to go home.

The NHPC Dhauliganga Power Station just outside Dharchula has taken on the responsibility of providing food, water, accommodation and medical services for the past 10 days to 336 migrant Nepali workers housed in a sports stadium and 32 more who are staying at Nigaalpani Fire Brigade. One of the Nepali workers, Gangaram Tamta, observed, ‘The Government of India has given us everything. We are getting everything so far; they are even making food for us. The only thing missing is that we want the bridge to be opened so that we can meet with our family members’.

The conservative approach taken by both India and Nepal in responding to the coronavirus pandemic is aimed at ‘flattening the curve’ of rates of infection and naturally focuses on precautionary measures to prevent infections spreading in areas with poor healthcare provision and weak infrastructure. What is urgently needed in both countries is direct economic support for those who need it most. As for the Nepalis who remain stranded across the border in the Indian camp, now that lockdown has been extended in both countries, it is time for the local government of Nepal’s Darchula district to make arrangements to accept the migrant workers and facilitate their journeys home without jeopardising the health of local populations.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, to which the Nepal government has committed, have the promise to ‘Leave no one behind’, and they have revived the global interest in inequalities and the role of social protection in promoting social inclusion. The Nepali men left behind at the Indian border whose return home will be dogged by economic uncertainty, and the unseen Nepali women who remain abroad carrying out essential but underpaid care work, need more than just emergency responses to a terrible pandemic. What they need most are comprehensive social protection mechanisms that will strengthen their capacity to cope with shocks and escape structural poverty traps. These policies will benefit not only them but all of Nepali society, even those of us who are already safely at home.

This op-ed was first published in the The Kathmandu Post

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.