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It was a lockdown that unlocked millions of Indians. As India receded into homes in the last week of March, a section of Bharat hit the streets defying the order to stay indoors. For the next few days the India-Bharat contrast played out in the open India hiding at home scared of coronavirus and Bharat out on the streets gripped by a fear bigger than the virus. Over a month into the lockdown, the contrast keeps showing up at Bandra station in Mumbai, Yamuna bank in Delhi, on the streets of Surat

For Indians who witnessed the March exodus closely some images lingered for days an old woman walking with a stick taller than her and struggling to keep up with the family ahead, a teenager breaking the plaster on his leg so that he could walk faster, a girl with a limp crying because she could not keep up with her mother walking ahead with a younger sister.

Collectively, they were more anxious than fearful, felt more abandoned than angry, were lacking security not courage and were dispossessed by the cities they had been working in with a dream to build a better life. That a lockdown could shatter migrants dreams so completely proves how little most of India knew them. Questions people asked initially betrayed their ignorance: Why are they walking? Can they really walk 500 km? Do their bags have all they owned? all signs of discomfort among those with creature comforts.

Poverty line to dignity line: People desperate to leave cities were poor in assets, not in aspiration and self-esteem. They were earning a livelihood not living on handouts. They were poor, but not in the way most people think of the poor and thats because the popular understanding of poverty is badly outdated. Especially in a country where you can drive from one of the planets largest slums, Dharavi, to arguably the worlds most expensive residence in just 20 minutes.

For most people, the yardstick is the official poverty line. When last estimated in 2011-12 nearly 22% Indians were below that line. Since then the countrys GDP has almost doubled and the population has risen less than 10%, implying that the number of poor should be less much less than they were a decade ago. How less? We dont know for sure. But that did not blind us to the migrants plight. Our real and growing blindspot is about the millions who float just above the official poverty line and forever live in danger of falling below it again (see illustration).

An illness, a job loss, death of an earning member is all it takes for a family in this zone to plunge back into poverty. An economic setback of the kind triggered by the coronavirus can push thousands of families down to the line and beyond. The downward spiral could also pull in people who are vaguely defined as lower middle class, especially the self-employed. The rapid expansion of the gig economy (Ola and Uber drivers, courier delivery boys ) in recent years means there will be job losses that wont show up as job loss. Thats because these jobs exist somewhere between the official definition of employed and self-employed.

One way to track poverty in all its dimensions is to replace the poverty line with what McKinsey calls the Empowerment Line. Its a line at which everybody has access to 8 basic needs of life with some dignity drinking water, education, energy, food, healthcare, housing, sanitation and social security. In 2014, when McKinsey did the study, 56% of Indians were estimated to be living below the empowerment line. The migrant crisis would not have been half its size if most Indians were above this line.

Right help at the right time: No doubt social welfare schemes now reach far beyond the officially poor. The JAM trinity (Jan Dhan account, Aadhaar number and mobile phone) has helped target the needy far better. But the exodus tells us what needs to be done next delivering the help in real time.

If most migrants were reached on their mobile with instructions on where they can find a safe shelter with food and income support, or information that their employers and landlords will be paid to take care of them during the lockdown, they wouldnt want to stream out of the cities in such despair.

One way to do this is to build an Aadhaar Plus platform. An optional layer built on top of Aadhaar where people voluntarily put in their job status, income, assets, access to amenities, residence and contact number. This will help identify and grade beneficiaries and deliver help to them just when they need it and in the form they need it sometimes just a text message saying assistance is on its way.

The Aadhaar Plus database will also help build a vulnerability index that could, eventually, replace all other poverty measurements. Policy makers will be able to see precisely where families are along different shades of poverty and help them accordingly. As it turns out, the labour ministry has been working on creating something loosely along these lines called UWIN. Its progress should be made public.

The migration should serve as a vision correction for those who were unable to grasp Indias growing urban underbelly. People have wondered why migrants arent listening to governments. They are, but they arent convinced that governments can walk the talk. Isolated and jobless, they are relying on their faith (lack of it, actually) more than any reasoning. This is happening in a country where budget after budget has been dedicated to the face of the poorest and the weakest person finance ministers have seen. And that should make everybody rethink their faith and understand why migrants have stopped taking words seriously.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Why millions defied the lockdown: Stranded or marching, migrants have exposed our ignorance of what poverty in - Economic Times