ABSTRACT

Covid-19-induced curbs on movement and social distancing, imposed by governments around the world brought transportation and the economy to a standstill in many nations. In India, with its billion-plus population, it severely exposed the problems of the poor, especially millions of internal migrant workers working primarily in unorganised sectors as daily wagers (Umanath, 2020) with little or no culture of savings. When the Indian government announced its first lockdown on March 24, 2020 – factories, construction sites, offices, institutions, organisations and the sort immediately suspended all activities indefinitely, nullifying the migrant labour force’s ability to earn a living and pay bills as they were forced indoors. Then began India’s biggest migration since partition (Ellis-Petersen & Chaurasia, 2020), when millions of these migrant workers based in India’s big cities began their march home to distant villages. This manuscript reflects on this sudden reverse labour migration, demystifying the reasons for this exodus .

摘要

世界各国政府对 Covid-19 引发的行动限制和社交距离限制使许多国家的交通和经济陷入停滞。在拥有 10 亿多人口的印度，它严重暴露了穷人的问题，尤其是数百万主要在无组织部门工作的国内移民工人，他们每天都在打赌（Umanath，2020），他们很少或根本没有储蓄文化。当印度政府于 2020 年 3 月 24 日宣布首次封锁时——工厂、建筑工地、办公室、机构、组织等立即无限期暂停所有活动，使移民劳动力在被迫时无法谋生和支付账单的能力在室内。然后开始了印度自分裂以来最大的迁移（Ellis-Petersen & Chaurasia，2020），当数以百万计的印度大城市的农民工开始向遥远的村庄进军时。这份手稿反映了这种突然的反向劳动力迁移，揭示了这种外流的原因。