It started about a week ago, perhaps around May 11, 2020. We had been receiving calls into the live broadcast for several weeks, desperate calls, people asking for food, for help, for trains or buses to go home. For help in getting their held-back salaries. We would give out helpline numbers, nodal officers’ numbers, and links where people could register for transport. But many would call back and say, the helpline is not responsive, rations are not being delivered, their names are not being called for trains or buses. The desperation was climbing, as was our discomfort with being able to do little more than share information and try and connect our listeners with resources.
Finally, our patience gave out. I reached out to Sarika Panda Bhatt, of the Raahgiri Foundation and Latika Thukral of I Am Gurgaon for help. Sarika asked us to collate lists of migrant workers who needed rations, with their mobile numbers, and one person among them to coordinate the receiving and further distribution of the rations.
We started announcing what we call our “Whatsapp phone” number. This mobile phone is with our reporter Preeti, who herself has been locked into her village because it is a containment zone. She had also had a (false) Covid scare on April 10 which put her into home isolation. This mobile phone has pretty much become a helpline for people who need rations and those need help in registering for the trains and buses in which migrant workers are being sent to their home states.
As the number started being shared on radio, people started messaging and calling Preeti. For those needing help in registering for transport, she would forward them to an Agrasar (www.agrasar.org) volunteer Sakshi who had been requested to take on this task. For those asking for rations, Preeti asked people note write down a list of people needing rations, with their mobile numbers, and the name and number of one person among them who will coordinate the receiving and further distribution of this ration.
What started a week ago as perhaps as 20 or 30 names per day, has exploded by May 16, 2020 to more than 300 names in a day from a single village, Sarhaul. From morning to night, our reporters Preeti and Pooja (both working from home because of the lockdown) are collating lists, which are then sent to the District Red Cross team for ration distribution.
Sarhaul village is where the famous Maruti Suzuki factory is located. Surrounded by the industrial area of Udyog Vihar, workers live cheek by jowl in crowded tenements owned by local villagers. Men, women, children…suddenly made visible by a lockdown that has left millions starving and stranded.
To add insult to injury, the District Red Cross team has arrived at the conclusion that people are hoarding the distributed ration and there isn’t that much of a need. Which begs the question: if people are hoarding, who will they sell the ration to? To their fellow migrants who are without a job, without money, and without food? Or to their landlords, local Haryanvi villagers, with deep pockets and enough cash reserves to last out a lockdown of any length?
Our hearts are breaking every day that we receive these calls. Women are calling, rare in our society, and also an indication of just how desperate the situation is. People are distraught that where they once lived with a modicum of dignity, worked hard and earned their food and shelter, they now have to plead with landlords and beg for rations on the radio.
However, our resolve to be there to help in any way we can is being forged into steel. If we do nothing else, we can do this for our listeners. Be there to listen, be there to amplify their voices, be there to help them get food, and help them get home.
This document was last updated on May 16, 2020
It was first published on May 16, 2020 . Filed under: , #Covid-19
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