“The only certainty is uncertainty,” Pliny the Elder reportedly said. Though all historical times are full of uncertainties, some seem more so than others. This is one of those times.

A major slowdown of the Indian economy was brewing and completely spilled over when I got to India in September 2019 to start my dissertation fieldwork on Indian women construction workers’ experiences and conceptualizations of Human Security. Wages stagnated. Consumer spending fell. Construction, real estate, and other industries were sent reeling. Construction workers’ livelihoods were teetering on the brink. Uncertainty became the backbone of their existence.

Then the country was rocked by the central government’s continuous assaults on Muslim Indians. After the Citizen Amendment Bill was passed, poor Indians (of any religious background) who often do not have much documentation attesting to their existence could no longer rely on being considered “citizens.” More than 60 percent of low-income Indians are born at home. So they have no birth certificate. Without proof of citizenship, people could be put in one of the detention centers being built by the Indian government or deported outright.

While the signs were accumulating that India was on the path to coronavirus crisis, construction work still continued. Because construction workers labor in close proximity with one another, social distancing is impossible on work sites. Most construction workers often lack even simple safety gear. They have no masks, no hand washing stations, and no sanitizer. 

And then coronavirus hit. The entire country ground to a sudden, complete halt.

Lockdown

The 21-day lockdown was instituted in Mumbai first. Everything, except essential services, ceased. The lockdown happened so quickly, with just four hours’ warning, that many construction workers—most of whom are migrants from rural parts of Maharashtra or other states—got stranded in Mumbai. Because virtually all transportation was shut down (both within India, as well as to and from India), and Maharashtra had closed interstate borders, the workers could not get back to their villages.

Right next door to me here in Mumbai, one of the buildings in our compound was being renovated. Yet the work did not cease until the lockdown made it absolutely impossible for workers to continue. Now the workers are stuck here, living in the gutted building. Their employer is paying them enough money to get basic food supplies, but not their wages to which they are entitled by Maharashtra law. Those who support families back in their villages are unable to support them now.

Humanitarian Crisis

When the nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Modi, what happened to the men working next door was mirrored across the country. Even worse, a migrant crisis took shape. Thousands upon thousands of migrant workers in other states started fleeing for home—no matter how far away. Since there was almost no transport, many opted to walk hundreds of kilometers to get home. Government officials sent contradictory messages. Some organized buses for migrants. Others told migrant workers to stay in place. The migrants who did get on buses were literally stuffed into them and piled onto roofs.

The government efforts to control the pandemic led to a humanitarian crisis as migrants tried to return home, often by foot. People are getting sick and dying along the way. Some struggle with hunger. Meanwhile the virus is spreading because of the close proximity of the people in this mass exodus. Even if they do reach their villages, they may be turned away or forced to self-quarantine under trees outside the village. This chaos is a result of not only the coronavirus, but also the government response to it. This migrant crisis is an epic failure of governance.

Informal Workforce

The government seems so haphazard, so surprised by crisis upon crisis. But how is that possible? Some 450 million internal migrants live in India, according to the 2011 census. Most of India’s workforce (92 percent) is informal, including our domestic servants, our construction workers, our vegetable vendors. And many of these informal laborers are internal migrants.

How could the central government be surprised by what’s going on with 450 million people? That’s 35 percent of the population. These are not fringe elements of society or some small underground, shadow economy. The informal economy, fueled largely by migrant laborers, is India’s economy. 

Government Response

As the migrants scramble to outrun their own starvation and the coronavirus, state and central governments are scrambling to put in place provisions to rescue them or imprison them. It’s mostly the latter. As this Indian Express editorialist writes: “Governments converted highways to shelters and issued orders to turn stadia into ‘temporary jails,’ at a time when other countries are turning them into hospitals.”

The government distributed additional rations of rice and pulses, and some cash for a small share of India’s vast population of poor people. This cash hand-out, at 500 INR per month, is low. Let me put this in perspective: Most women construction workers I have interviewed make about 400 INR per day, which equals US$5.27. They still can barely afford basic living expenses. I can’t even buy two cups of chai at Chaayos, a popular chain cafe, for the amount these women workers make in one day. And as a commentator in The Hindu newspaper wrote: “The rest of the ‘package’ can be described in many ways, the most polite of which would be to call it disappointingly inadequate.”

The prime minister has started a PM-CARES relief fund. As usual, Modi is leaning on individuals to do what the government is supposed to do. It is yet to be seen how effective the fund will be in protecting internal migrants from even more hazards. From this vantage point, it looks grim.

The coronavirus crisis makes extremely uncertain lives in India’s economy even more uncertain. This insecurity is significant, but the construction workers with whom I have been speaking for many months now live with it. How they rise from the rubble of this pandemic is yet to be seen, but if what I have seen of their tenacity thus far is any indication, they will rise in some way.