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A viral video of a cat has surfaced on social media and it is "saddened to see India's migrants stranded in the cities and desperate to return to their villages".

With a 'heavy heart', Billooji's open letter on the recent migrant crisis is actually a 2-minute long video.

The video starts with the cat 'meowing' at humans."These are the most uncertain times of life," Billooji says.Talking aboutthe plight faced by these migrant labourers at large, the cat says with the lockdown they have been left without jobs, wages and will soon run out of ration.

The cat also takes a jibe at the government for doing little to help better the condition of the hundreds of the stranded migrants. The feline then says, "The governing and the non-governing hoomans (humans) have also had a catfight about who is going to pay for your journey home."

At the end Billooji says, "I am an atheist so I can't pray for you." However, the feline assures that every migrant is in its "meows, my growls, my yowls, my breath and my spirit." It signs off in its avatar: "Yours Billoji."

The video that has been uploaded on YouTube reads, "A Letter for the Moving Hoomans or 'Migrants'".

Meanwhile, one of the survivors of the Aurangabad train accident on Friday said the group of migrant workers had applied for e-transit passes a week ago but decided to walk towards their home state after not receiving any response from authorities.

Sixteen workers were killed on Friday morning after they stopped for rest on the railway tracks in Aurangabad. They had walked 45 km from Jalna to Aurangabad, and were going towards Bhusawal, another 120 km, on foot in hopes of catching a train.

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WATCH: This Cat Has an Open Letter to Humans on The Migrant Crisis in India - News18

The idea of Nepalis working in foreign countries has always been anathema to our communist parties. The 1949 manifesto, the very first from the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal, had called on Nepali women to demand the return of our sons and husbands in foreign imperialist armies, the last being a reference to both British and Indian. While the call for the end of Gurkha recruitment became a staple over the decades, with the advent of the changing labour market in the 1990s and the rise of foreign employment, that unease soon metamorphosed into a sense of indignity that Nepalis had to work in other countries.

Unfortunately, apart from cosmetic moves here and there, little was done to end that situation and we got caught increasingly into the remittance-dependent trap that many countries before us had found themselves in. For, reversing the flow of workers requires visionary leadership to create competitively remunerative employment in the country. Yet, all we have got over the years are a bunch of stirring speeches about the need to build our country and nothing else.

That became most evident after the 2015 earthquake, when those running the state, including Prime Minister KP Oli in his first stint at the top job, spoke in rousing terms of calling on the expertise of Nepalis spread around the world to help rebuild the country. That our politicians found the time, in the midst of the devastation all around them and the imperative of drafting a new constitution, to haggle over and delay the establishment of the National Reconstruction Authority by more than half a year after the earthquake says a lot about where their actual priorities lay. The idea of reaching out to expatriate Nepalis remained only thatcheap talk infused with a good dose of nationalism.

Return to nationalism

Once the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) came to power in 2017-18, it was no surprise to see nationalism making a comeback, particularly since it fit in neatly with its election promise slogan of stability and prosperity. Given that foreign employment had never sat so easily with the nationalist discourse, the sector was expected to be affected in one way or another. Thus, it was announced that the Foreign Employment Promotion Board would be provided with a mandate different from just promoting employment abroad. But when the name change actually took place in March 2019, apart from dropping promotion to become the Foreign Employment Board, absolutely nothing denoted that the Boards original role of promoting foreign employment had changed. That was so typical of this governmenthigh on rhetoric; nothing on action.

The irony is that the former Maoists who are now part of the current dispensation themselves were partly responsible for the rapid rise of foreign employment as a livelihood strategy. Records with the government showing the number of labour permits issued for those seeking employment in countries other than India began in 1993-94, with 3,605 permits issued that year. In 1996-97, the year the insurgency began, there were actually fewer labour permits handed out: 3,259. In 1997-98, figures had crept up to 7,745, and the next year, coinciding with the infamous Kilo Sierra Two police mop-up operations against the Maoists, the numbers rose nearly four-fold, to 27,796. In 1999-00 and 2000-01, a few thousand more were added, to reach 35,543 and 55,025, respectively. And, in 2001-02, with the escalation of the fighting after the army was pulled into the conflict, the numbers doubled to 104,736; we have not looked back since.

If the Maoist conflict was a major push factor, its impact was amplified by the governments own actions. As the migration scholar, Jagannath Adhikari, reminds us, in the course of the Ninth Plan period (19972002) the government developed two policies related to the promotion of foreign employment. One was to send 200 workers for foreign employment from each election constituency, numbering 201 constituencies at that time, and the other was to provide a loan of NPR 100,000 to conflict affected and socially excluded groups so that they can take opportunity for foreign employment. As he writes, policymakers believed they could stem the flow of youths into Maoist ranks by encouraging them to opt for foreign employment. Of course, all that outflow also had the highly unexpected but fortuitous result of lowering poverty rates from 42 percent in 1995-96 to 31 percent in 2003-04, all the years of intense fighting notwithstanding.

Foreign employment figures have continued to tick upwards, with the exception of a dip around the time of the financial crisis in 2008-09, reaching a record of more than 700,000 in 2014-15. The numbers have gone down progressively every year since then. Yet an excess of half a million permits were issued in 2018-19. These are the kind of figures we need to contend with as the country contemplates its next big step vis--vis the Covid-19 pandemic. The issue of internal migrants has somehow been resolved, and enough has been written about it to bear repeating here. With the focus now solely on the insufferable conditions migrant workers outside Nepal find themselves in, the clamour to bring them back is not something the government will be able to ignore for long.

Tough task ahead

The main problem facing us right now is that we do not know how many Nepalis are where at the moment, particularly when it comes to labour migrants. Lets take the example of one of the most popular destinations for NepaliQatar. The Nepal Labour Force Survey (NLFS) 2017-18 puts the number at 437,009; one recent source working with figures provided by the Department of Passports said there were 406,917 Nepalis in Qatar in 2018-19; and at a recent parliamentary committee hearing, the Foreign Employment Board provided 351,872 as the number of Nepalis in Qatar at present. These variances are pretty wide but what is clear is that we are dealing with a large number of Nepalis abroad.

In the short term, the main challenge will be how to safely bring back Nepalis and keep them safe. According to the Foreign Employment Board figures cited earlier, there are 127,000 Nepali migrant workers who need to be brought back immediately while, as of May 12, we had a total of 49,490 quarantine beds in all of Nepal. We do not know how many of the 1.2 million Nepalis in India (according to the NLFS) are also trying to get back either. Given this massive shortfall in quarantine facilities, a staggered evacuation of Nepalis abroad seems to be the only way out, and how to make that work well will require careful planning but is still within the realm of possibility.

In the long run, though, the government will have to deal with the immediate consequences of jobs having dried up in destination countries, and further losses as these economies slow down over time. Thus, in a perverse sense, the ruling party will finally have been given a chance to live up to its dream of keeping everyone at home and in the service of the nation. Even without the pandemic, one would have serious doubts whether it would have been up to the challenge. With the ongoing health emergency, that will prove to be an impossibility.

***

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Nationalism, migration and the impending job crisis - The Kathmandu Post

Written by Anju Agnihotri Chaba | Jalandhar | Updated: May 13, 2020 12:16:01 pm A group of migrants cycling back home. (Express photo by Anju Agnihotri Chaba)

We have been feeding ourselves using money sent from home. At the railway station, police cane ussome even demanded moneyto let us board the train even though our registration was complete 12 days ago. With no way out, we decided to go home on a bicycle. Not sure if we will reach home or die along the way.

As Brij Kishore (21) expresses his fear and helplessness at Punjabs Phagwara, he had already travelled 150 km, with nearly 1,500 km yet to cover to reach his home in Bathani Tola village of Bihars Bhojpur district.

Kishore, who worked at a thread mill in Amritsar district and was part of a group of over 29 migrants on cycles, said, My father borrowed and sent Rs 1,000. I used Rs 800 to buy a second-hand bicycle. I have been riding for the past three days and it will take 12 more days to reach my village. Our feet are badly swollen

Santosh Kumar arrived in Phagwara from Hoshiarpurs Tanda town in a group of 100 migrants on bicycles on their way to Bihar.

No trains are being run from our district. We are not even aware whether they would run We walk 10 km daily to the DC office to enquire about the train, and the police send us back to our rooms without any clarification. Now we are going home on cycles, said Santosh, who left Hoshiarpurs Tanda town on Tuesday morning.

While Shramik trains have been running from Jalandhar and Amritsar districts for over a week, migrants from all eight districts of Doaba and Majha regions were found walking and cycling to their homes in UP, Bihar, and Jharkhand in large groups.

The entire stretch from Kartarpur in Jalandhar to Phagwara was full of such migrants on Tuesday.

Whatever we had with us here is finished Our families back home had been supporting us by sending money. So is it not better to go back rather than asking them to send money, said Vikas, another migrant who left Beas in Amritsar for his home.

Ram Nivasan from Bihars Saharsa district said, When no one is telling us anything with clarity, how long can we wait here in uncertainty? no one was helping us, so we started our long journey to home.

Police caned me when I went to the railway station to enquire about the train from Hoshiarpur. After such treatment, I decided to start on my own, said Bholu Ram, who came to Punjab to work as a construction labourer.

The allegation of money being demanded to let migrants board the trains was brought up by another worker from Amritsar. We went to the railway station after getting a message and there they are demanding Rs 500 to Rs 700 to board the train. We dont have even a single penny said Amrish Sahu, who reached Phagwara, cycling to Bihar from Amritsar.

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Migrant crisis: Not sure if well reach home or die on way - The Indian Express

A migrant woman and her daughter lost their lives in a road accident while heading home under the lockdown. The image of the mangled auto in which they were travelling has found its way to social media, yet again putting the focus on the plight of the migrant labourers in India who are desperate to get home. I would rather die of the virus at home than die in a place I dont know, is what you hear migrants say. A painful reminder of how desperate the situation is. At the centre of the migrant crisis are heartbreaking stories with women, especially young mothers at their centre. Heres looking at some images of migrant women battling distance, heat, lack of amenities and braving a lockdown, in their bid to get back home.

A woman with her six-year-old daughter who was a part of a group travelling from Maharashtra to Jaunpur in Eastern Uttar Pradesh died in an accident. As reported by NDTV, they had travelled 1,300 km in an auto-rickshaw for three days, when they were hit by a truck, in Fatehpur UP, just 230 km away from their hometown.

In another incident, a speeding car in Haryana killed a migrant worker from Bihar and injured one more. Another migrant, cycling home was killed in Rae Bareli.

An SUV hit two migrants who were walking ona road at Ambala Cantt in Haryana. One of them died on the spot while the other has been severely injured. Two migrants were also killed on their way home when the truck they had taken a ride in overturned in Gorakhpur district.

Also Read:Migrant Workers On The Move: Harsh Reality Of COVID-19 Lockdown

Even though the government has launched trains, those on the move are now not able to access those facilities. They are walking. Some are walking alone. Some with children on their heads.This image showing a woman carrying her two kids on her shoulders went viral and it really did send out a loud message of this crisis especially on mothers day. It again highlights the plight of the underprivileged lot. They do not have enough food or means to survive in these urban areas. But they also do not have the means to reach their homes safely.

In whats a powerful picture of the misery of families and workers trying to get home, this tweet by Rashmi Tiwari shows a group struggling to climb a truck with a baby hanging along its father (whose bones show as he musters all energy to latch on the rope) and mothers trying to find room to get for themselves. Could we have stopped this situation to come, Rashmi asks while sharing this.

In another incident,a group of 20 people was seen walking from Ghansoli in Navi Mumbai to their village in Buldhana in Maharashtra, a journey of over 480 km. The group included a 7-month pregnant woman.

I sit once in a while, said Nikita, the pregnant woman, as she walked on the road wearing a saree. The woman, who started her walk at 7 pm yesterday, said she had been on the road for the last 12 hours. A young man walked behind her, carrying their belongings on his head.

What will we do staying here? There are no arrangements here for our food and water, she told NDTV.

A migrant worker Shakuntala risked walking a distance of 1,000km -fromNashik to Satna, in the ninth month of her pregnancy. The woman gave birth to the baby on the roadside, rested for an hour and continued the journey with her newborn. A woman needs weeks to recover after childbirth, but, as the Times of India report says, helplessness forced the woman to walk over 200 km soon after giving birth to a baby. She is a hero indeed but its so tragic she was forced to be in this situation. A failure of our nation to address this migrant crisis, these stories of apathy and crisis outcome are heart wrenching.

Several people and even some news channels were seen talking about how these incidents defy social distancing and the rules of the lockdown. But how can we fail to notice the misery and helplessness of these people? As a young woman in 21st century India I ask myself where is our empathy? What else are these people supposed to do to survive? For the political parties, fighting over the credit and money of these peoples train tickets, this is merely an issue. They see their political gains and that who gets the credits. I feel every migrant worker who dies in such accidents, to news and politics it just might be a number to use in their mentions. As a young woman this lockdown has been so significant in my understanding of our worlds and how we are so tremendously disconnected.

I havent been able to get this out of my head. 14 men were mowed down on a railway track, with Rotis strewn all over the railway track. Dead because they were so tired that they slept on the tracks. Why are some lives more equal than others? These are some questions we need to ask ourselves. And those sitting in power.

Also Read:Bengaluru: A Dentist Helps Migrant Worker Deliver Baby

Ayushi Aggarwal is an intern at SheThePeople.TV

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At the centre of Indias migrant crisis are mothers & young children, hungry and desperate to reach home - SheThePeople

Written by Radhika Jha | Updated: May 12, 2020 9:10:14 am Migrants very often travels from poorer parts of the country to different states in order to earn an income, and have come to be known as migrant workers.

India witnessed a tragic irony last week when 16 migrants, part of a group of 20 headed towards their villages in Madhya Pradesh and who were hoping to board a Shramik Special train, chose to rest on the rail tracks: They were run over by a goods train in Maharashtras Aurangabad district.

Ever since the lockdown was enforced on March 25, there has been ever-increasing uncertainty about the welfare, if not the basic survival, of the vulnerable sections of the society, many of whom depend on daily wages for their sustenance. This section of the population very often travels from poorer parts of the country to different states in order to earn an income, and have come to be known as migrant workers.

Opinion | Need a plan to help migrants

Right before the pandemic hit, the political discussion in our country was around the issue of illegal immigrants. There were protests in Delhi and elsewhere against the recently passed Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which provides citizenship to illegal immigrants who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India before 2014. Now, in an almost dystopian twist, the debate is around the living conditions of the migrant workers amid the strict lockdown. Articles in newspapers suggest that the migrants have been betrayed. But have they, really? Even a bare glimpse at the treatment doled out to the migrants in the recent past shows that this is how they have always been treated. The current apathy of the states and the Centre shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone.

While in countries like the USA, people are pushing for better living conditions for migrant workers which in their context would refer to immigrants, or people who have travelled abroad from less developed countries to the US in India we have been unable to provide a basic security net to even fellow Indians. Here, being Indian is not qualification enough to be considered as your own. From the Marathi manoos movement in Mumbai from the 1960s onwards to the 2012 exodus from Bengaluru of people from the Northeast, there are innumerable examples of the hatred and intolerance displayed by localites towards migrants. Here, there are several boxes that one must check to be included by locals of caste, class, religion and region none of which fall in favour of the so-called migrant workers, unfortunately.

Opinion | Can the migrant crisis lead to a breakdown of the society as we know it?

It would be unfair to put the entire blame on the government alone. If a government is a reflection of its society, then the current response of the government is only an indication of the position occupied by migrants in society. In a survey carried out by Common Cause and Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), the Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2018, with common people across 22 Indian states, 16 per cent of the respondents said that the police discriminates against people from another state. People in the cities were more likely to feel that the police discriminates against migrants, with 21 per cent respondents from cities agreeing with the statement. On the contrary, SPIR 2019, which was a survey with the police personnel across 21 Indian states, found that 24 per cent of police personnel strongly believe that migrants are naturally prone to committing crimes, while 36 per cent felt that they are somewhat naturally prone to committing crimes. In total, nearly 60 per cent of the police personnel held the opinion that migrants are naturally prone to committing crimes, in other words, they are born criminals. What this indicates is that even though the people, overall, may not to a large extent feel that the police is discriminatory towards migrants, the police, when asked a direct question, did indeed display a discriminatory attitude against migrants.

According to the 2001 Census estimates figures which are nearly two decades old there were 41 million migrants from other states in India. Yet, the percentage of inter-state migration in India is low compared to several other countries. A cross-country comparison of internal migration rates between 2000 and 2010 across 80 countries ranks India in the last place in terms of the rate of migration. While it has been established through several studies that migrants help improve the economic conditions of both the source as well as the destination, in India, there appears to be a conscious policy restriction which deters inter-state migration. A comparative analysis of seven states on migration-friendly policies, compiled in the Interstate Migration Policy Index (IMPEX) 2019, ranks popular migrant-receiving states on policy indicators pertaining to health and sanitation, housing, social benefits, identity and registration, political participation, childrens rights, education and labour markets. Of the seven states studied, Kerala ranks the highest, while Delhi ranks the lowest. However, even in Kerala, considerable improvement is needed, particularly in areas such as political inclusion and non-discriminatory access to housing, the study notes. The lack of policy measures to ensure the welfare of migrants coupled with discriminatory policies surface in the form of much lower rates of inter-state migrants compared to intra-state migrants (or migration within a state). A 2018 World Bank study found that households with some form of identification proof were less likely to have a household member migrate across states, thus suggesting that inadequate portability of identification documents for social welfare benefits deters households from sending migrants across states.

What remains, then, are poorly urbanised states with high levels of inequality and discrimination. Despite the high level of dependency on these very workers, first we disenfranchise them from coming into our cities and towns. And then, in times of crisis, we do not let them return home. While the states and the Centre bicker over who will bear the cost of the train rides for the migrants, the workers will continue to take the journey of hundreds of kilometres on foot, and will continue to die. And we, as a society, will continue to not care.

The writer is a research executive at Common Cause. Views expressed are personal.

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Migrants vulnerability is newly visible, but not new - The Indian Express