Factories open, but migrants worker pick seeing family first over work

Eagerly waiting in the queue for his turn to take a seat a bus leaving from Noida’s Botanical Garden to Dadri railway station, Abu Hasan said he forgot the hardships

Eagerly waiting in the queue for his turn to take a seat a bus leaving from Noida’s Botanical Garden to Dadri railway station, Abu Hasan said he forgot the hardships he had endured in the lockdown as soon as he received a text message confirming his seat on a train leaving for Bihar.

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Hasan is enthralled that he will be able to celebrate Eid with his kids. A resident of Saharsa district in Bihar, Hasan worked at a garment export house in Noida with his friends Sarfaraz and Mujib, also from Saharsa, who are joining him in the trip. Despite resuming operations, the export house could not hold them back and keep them in the city where they lived in a shared rented room.

“I am a tailor at an export house that has now started working and our owner had called us a few days ago to resume work, but I going home and celebrating Eid with my family rather than joining work. Lockdown had tested us, starved us, and staying indoors for so long had started to mess with my head, and I really need to see my children. My family had been calling me for days and after my registration was confirmed I just want to go home. I don’t know when will I return,” Abu Hasan said.

Balancing a large bag on his head Sarfaraz said, “All my mother wants is for me to come back home. I also don’t want to stay in the city anymore. We have all our lives to earn, but family comes first,” as he showed a text message he received from the UP government portal confirmed his seat in a Bihar bound train.

Asked how would does he plan to come back after Eid, Sarfaraz said, “If they will arrange a train like this, then I will return otherwise, I will only return whenever things get normal. I am in no hurry to return here”.

Shashi Bhushan Yadav, Brijendra Yadav, and Ram Vilas Yadav, three brothers from East Champaran district in Bihar who worked at a mobile factory in Greater Noida, were among many others who were leaving the city despite factories opening again.

“All we want to see now is our home. Our supervisor had called us a few days ago and asked us to return to work, but we prefer to go home. We had stayed indoors for far too long,” said Shashi Bhushan.

Anju Kumari, who is also from Champaran, Bihar worked as domestic help in Noida while her husband worked at a food processing factory, had the same story to share.

“No one cared for us all during the lockdown.We had to stand in long queues for meals, received no ration nor any support from the people we worked for. My family and I had to endure a lot. Now even after my husband’s factory has opened, I would rather go back home and staying with family for some time at least,” said Anju.

According to the experts, while staying indoors for long does affects people emotionally often leading to frustration or restlessness, migrant workers are being affected by more than just that. Experts say that the behaviour of ‘going back to the roots’ is expected from people especially after staying indoors for a long time and being having lost social security.

“We have to understand that humans are social animals and the concept of social distancing is not our natural behaviour. We are wired for needing an identity and some social security. People have been locked indoors as they lost their social security, regular food, earnings, savings. So now they are in a state of shock: they came to the cities to work, and yet they had to go through so much. At this time going back home or family, which means going back to the roots is something they need to stay emotionally well,” said Dr Nand Kumar, professor, psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.

For the past three days, thousands of migrants from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh have been coming to the Botanical Garden Metro Station from where special buses ferry them to the camps set near Dadri and Dankaur railway stations. After screening at the camps, the migrants board the special trains arranged by the district administration. According to officials, about 84,000 migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh registered on the portal—jansunwai.up.nic.in —alone to go back home.

“Between 8.30 am to 11am, over 1,800 migrants had been sent to camps at Dadri and Dankaur, and this will continue till 8.30pm in the night. Total 40 buses are playing the people to the camps,” Pramod Kumar, Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) official, supervising the process said.

According to the administration, total of eight Sharmik Special trains left the city on Tuesday.

“We are calling each migrant worker a day before the journey to avoid the excessive crowd at stations. Today eight trains were scheduled, three for Uttar Pradesh and five for Bihar,” Rakesh Chauham, district information officer, Gautam Budh Nagar, said.