Locked down and forgotten in Mumbai

By
Team Mirror

A day after thousands of migrant workers protested at the Bandra station, Mirror spoke to some to find out how their lives have been devastated by the closure and what help, if any, they have received.

The protest of thousands of migrants stranded in Bandra Train Station Tuesday night was another reminder of how the national closure It has been harder for the poorest of us. It also exposed holes in the government's repeated claims that it has been providing food and other essentials to those who need it most.

The news of the protest almost immediately led to political disputes between the government and the opposition, an indication of how difficult it has been for migrant workers to get politicians to stop their leadership and just listen, even during a pandemic.

It is not only the pleas of the migrants that have fallen on deaf ears; those who have taken up their cause have been ignored, according to Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), a group of 73 volunteers. He has interacted with 640 groups comprising 11,159 stranded workers across the country, including 291 groups comprising 3,992 migrants in Maharashtra.

SWAN, which has been trying to obtain food and other essential elements of government for these groups, said that not a single group of migrants that their volunteers met at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region has received any help from the government. "We have made repeated calls to government help lines and have contacted them on Twitter, but no rations have finally been delivered. None of the groups in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region that we met have received any help from the government, ”said one volunteer.

Damningly, his report on the matter states that 71 percent of immigrants interviewed in Maharashtra said they had enough rations for a single meal a day. The figure for Karnataka was 36 percent.

On Wednesday, Mirror reporters met with migrant workers in various parts of Mumbai, including Durga camp on Antop Hill, Shastri Nagar in Bandra East and Adarsh ​​Nagar in Worli, and asked about the difficulties they have faced, what What they need and what support, if any, they have received from the government. Read on to find out what they said.

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CASE STUDY 01:
"I'm running out of people to borrow money"

Shankar Shahu (32)

Zone: Durga camp near the church on Antop Hill

Approximate number of migrants: About 100 migrants in the area are trapped

THE PROBLEMS THAT FACE

Shankar Shahu, who makes a living installing and repairing tiles in houses and offices, said his family, a wife and two children, has survived on one meal a day for the past two weeks. He said: “I have been running the house on borrowed money. I have taken food grains from stores on credit and asked people I know for money. But now I'm running out of people to ask for help. We have been eating only one meal a day because there is no money to buy enough rations for the family. I haven't even paid rent on my house in the last month. "

Shahu, originally from Bihar, has been living in a fight on Antop Hill for the past 12 years. He said he used to earn a decent amount, enough to feed his family and send his children to school, but now everything has changed.

"I doubt if things will return to normal in the near future. I don't think my job will restart immediately after the lock is lifted. No one has money to spend on anything. I am concerned about the future and education of my children, "he said. When asked if government officials or any NGO has reached out to help him, said no. “No one came to help us nor did I try to flee the city. There is so much uncertainty [around travelling long distances on foot during the lockdown] and didn't want to get caught in the middle. There are at least 100 people like me in this area. We are trying to support each other mentally, ”he said.
– Raju Shinde

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CASE STUDY 02:
‘I have no reason to be here; I should be with my family

Masum Ali (24)

Zone: Shastri Nagar, 2nd lane, Bandra (West)

Approximate number of migrants: 7,000 to 8,000 migrants in the area are trapped

THE PROBLEMS THAT FACE

Masum Ali, who has been working on construction sites across the city for the past seven years, witnessed Tuesday how hundreds of migrants took to the streets near the Bandra (west) train station. Ali's family is in West Bengal while he lives in Mumbai with other immigrants. His sick parents and his two sisters depend economically on him. He said "I don't know exactly what happened [on Tuesday]. Large numbers of people who wanted to go home began to gather at the station. We all have no jobs or money and, until two days ago, we had no food. Only in the last few days has someone sent us food twice a day. I have no reason to stay here. I live in a small room with 10 others. At least I would like to go back to my town and be safe with the family. "

Ali said he was concerned about the extension of the closure and that it would be impossible to continue like this until May 4. "I can't stay here alone with food packages. I need work and money too. If the situation does not change quickly, I will not be able to survive. Even my family can't go on like this, ”he said.

The BMC said it started supplying food to migrants in Bandra and has distributed 50,000 food packages since March 28. After Tuesday's incident, the civic corps sent 4,000 more food packages and made toilets and other sanitation facilities available to migrant workers.
– Shruti Ganapatye

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CASE STUDY 03:
Please let us go … please ’

Zone: Baiganwadi, Govandi

Approximate number of migrant workers: 100

Most of the migrant workers in Baiganwadi are from West Bengal, and some are from Bihar and Jharkhand. Most of them work at a local mid-size shoe manufacturing factory and earn around Rs 10,000 a month. Many of them came to Mumbai in their teens looking for work, and settled in dingy rooms with a capacity for ten to 15 of them.

One of the factory workers, Iqbal Sheikh, 36, says he came to Mumbai when he was only 20 years old and had never felt so helpless. “The factory has been closed and we were unable to return home due to the closure. We haven't eaten anything in the past few days. Many of us are losing hope, we are becoming increasingly frustrated, "says Sheikh, asking if we can organize food for them.

Over the years, Baiganwadi has become one of the most densely populated slums in Mumbai. And like most slum colonies, it lacks basic services like toilets, sanitation, and adequate roads. Sheikh, who lives in a small room with eight other people, says that he and his roommates called the BMC Helpline Number On several occasions, but did not even get a proper response, I neglected the food. Please, let's go back to our villages. Please, we don't want anything else, "he says.
– Shruti Ganapatye

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CASE STUDY 04:
"When hunger strikes, we drink water"

Zone: Lohar Khata, way to the shipyard

Approximate number of migrant workers: 200

As its name suggests, Lohar Khata is the center of the metal industry in Mumbai. Rows and rows of cast iron and nut and bolt manufacturing units, and small rooms that house hundreds of hard-working people in these units, are housed in one of the oldest towns in Mumbai. During the time Mumbai was Bombay, every worker who came to the city in search of work was said to land first in Lohar Khata.

Now that these factories have been silenced by the coronavirus, migrant workers are trapped in no-man's-land: there is no money or food here, and there is no transportation to return home. One of those families, Mehbub Ali Chauhan, his son Sameer, and his fierce brother, arrived in Mumbai from Rajasthan just days before the country was declared to be closed on March 24, hoping to win in Mumbai after losing everything. what they had at Mehbub and Feroz's father. cancer treatment. Thanks to some acquaintances in the city, the three managed to find refuge in a 150-square-foot office in Lohar Khata, where they had found work before it closed.

Mehbub, her son and brother have not eaten in two days. "We drink water when hungry," he says. “After our father's death, my brother and I decided to come to Mumbai and win something. We have nowhere to go now, ”he says.

The situation is precarious at home too. “My widowed mother, my wife, and my daughter don't have much to survive. We desperately want to go back to them, "says Mehbub.
– Payal Gwalani

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CASE STUDY 05:
"How are we going to survive without work?"

Areas: Poison and malvani

Approximate number of migrants: 4,000

Poison at Kandivali East and Malvani at Malad West, could be the separated twins at birth. Poverty, high crime rate, slum lines and one-story structures that primarily house people from North India who work as car and taxi drivers, in dazzling salons, in shopping malls and restaurants, and a lot of people just looking for a job. The blockade has hit these people hard.

Sunil Sharma, 28, from Gounda in Uttar Pradesh, who makes a living through carpentry in Mumbai, says there is now nothing to do but watch movies on the mobile phone, and when that is too tiring, play to letters with his roommates. “We cook every time the owner of this room hands us over. Sometimes an NGO or a political party delivers food packages, "he says.

The situation is worse in Malvani, which has been sealed after some positive cases emerged for Covid from the town. A resident, Mohammad Alam, says that he and 13 members of his family are surviving in a sack of potatoes, onions and rice that they had stored a few weeks ago. "Some days we get food packages, but they often don't come," he says.

Another Malvani resident, Jamil Shaikh, a tailor, says the entire town is scared. “We win day by day. How are we going to survive without work? ", Question.
– Shashank Rao

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CASE STUDY 06:
There is no space of its own

Zone: Colonia Janta, Worli

Approximate number of migrants: More than 1,000

Randeep Senapati, Dushmanta Behra, Sushant Shetti, Prasanjit Senapati, and Sitaram Behera enter their 6X8 square foot room. The discomfort on their faces is palpable: there is no room to stretch and the heat is suffocating. Every night, before going to sleep, they have to stack their bags on top of each other to make room, Randeep says. Odisha's five daily bets have been without work since the shutdown began, and food rations are dangerously running low. "We have to send money to our families. We have already exhausted the small savings we had and can no longer afford to eat three times a day. We will skip meals until the bull run is lifted, ”says Randeep, adding that if arrangements are made for them to return home, the five will leave easily.

His next-door neighbor, the Ghasmares, tried to leave last weekend. The family of four, which includes two children, ages 11 and 13, left on foot to cover the 40 km distance from their village, Revdanda, in the Raigad district. But they had to return after police personnel at the Vashi Naka toll gate refused to let them cross. Rajendra Ghasmare, employed as a delivery agent for an electronic vendor who has not worked a day since the closing began, says the neighborhood alley is so narrow that a passerby has to enter his home to cross it. He says many residents have started skipping meals to survive. "Vegetables and non-vegetarian food are off the plates because no one can afford to buy them. We survive on rice and dal only, ”he says. "I don't know how we are going to survive. After my children go to sleep, I cry every night."
– Alka Dhupkar