More than a number

Let me begin by confessing my failures. The failures that haunt me, each night, when I retire to bed . . . the decisions that I had made and subtly pushed back into the depths of my memories. For my days have been a fervid blur of solving problems. Disaster management is essentially engaging in triage. One quickly decides on priorities, does the best one can, and moves on. For every case that I act on, there are ten more demanding my attention. But, in the quiet of the night, my conscience haunts me . . .

The first email stated: “Sapan Kumar is asking for Rs. 70,000/– for medicine and help with rent.” “Out of the question,” I dismissively responded. Having taken the responsibility to check and help in the welfare of 98,000 stranded migrant workers from Jharkhand, I was not going to dole out 90% of the funds at my disposal on this one, single case. But then my dogged team of volunteers, networked across different cities, persisted. Someone physically checked on him and reported that Sapan Kumar had brought his aged father who was suffering from cancer to the Apollo Hospital in Chennai in March for treatment. His plan was to go back home to Jharkhand after the chemotherapy session and then come back in a month’s time for the next treatment. But then, without warning, there was a lockdown imposed by the government on March 25 and the family was stuck in Chennai, paying Rs. 1000 rent for a small room. In a tale that is familiar, first the money ran out, and then the food. But with a chemotherapy session also due soon, Sapan was desperate. Even his relatives pleaded on his behalf, saying that even if they were to liquidate all the capital of Sapan’s street-food stall back home, Sapan would not be able to meet his expenses. I spent less than an hour on the case-made enquiries about free shelters in Chennai where an older cancer patient could be safe or an NGO that could lend Sapanat at least part of the money, but when no one replied to my queries, I moved on, deserting Sapan to his plight.

Or, rather I tried to move on, despite the persistent whispers in my head of the sheer injustice of it all. There were more such cases. Many more. 9,000 patients from Jharkhand in Vellore alone where the Christian Medical Hospital offered good medical services at subsidised prices. Again, it was the tariff of the rooms that crippled them, for even though the treatment was over, they could not go back home. One such patient was my first case:  Abdul Ansari, who was stuck there with his wife and 12-year old girl, begged me for some cash, as the promised cash handouts from the Jharkhand Government had not arrived. I politely demurred. Paying for rent was out of question. I simply did not pick up the phone when I saw Abdul’s number, and after a while he stopped calling. 

I rationalized it to my team of 30 or so crowd-sourced volunteers: “Look, at the most, we can try to provide food. Or perhaps a bit of cash for anyone who needs to buy medicine or cannot recharge his phone. Nothing else please. Don’t feel the need to answer their calls. Just keep going down your list of 50 cases each.”

The cases, the requests for help, each day, came thick as flies, and we dealt with them as best as we could. In Chennai, where we had some logistical help on the ground, we would pass the requests to a local team and they would deliver the food. In other places, our only option was to call the government official, the Tehsildar of the block, or the local police in charge and ask them for help. Every day there was a challenge to be dealt with, a fire to be put out, and as May rolled in, the stranded workers were hungry and tired. In Thoothkudi, there was a clash between hundreds of factory workers staying at one camp and the police. The mistrust of the workers of the police or their employers was not always justified, but often high, and in Thoothkudi, Tiruppur, Chengalpet, we had to speak to both parties to calm them down and work out arrangements so basic needs of food and shelter could be met. Sometimes we failed or were simply not quick enough.

One such group started out on foot from Chennai city, but they made it only to Perangaluthur, on the outskirts of the metropolitan area before they all got detained by the local police. My ace volunteer Rakesh, and not for the first time, had to negotiate till almost midnight to ensure that the basic needs of the group could be met. There were several episodes to this particular incident before it was finally resolved with the stranded workers being sent home in trains and buses after a few days.

Another group did make it all the way by foot to Jharkhand, almost 2,000 kms away. And when we called our contact whose number we had, all he wanted us to do was to look for his cousin who, after a police encounter, had been separated from the group. It took another round of calls before we located Yadav and ensured his safety.

There were days when I refused to even accept pleas for food. Late one evening, Mita texted me in agitation saying that the case she had brought to our notice a few days ago had gone unheeded. Given the deluge of challenges that poured into my inbox each day, I could not immediately place her request of help. But when I heard it was a group of 60 people in Tiruppur who had apparently completely run out of food, I ruled out cash handouts, saying that what I could give would barely last a day. Luckily, Rakesh could save the day again, getting the Tehsildar to take care of the group. Rakesh only asked for Rs. 1000 for a woman in that group who was due to deliver a baby within a week. I felt guilty thinking Rs. 1000 will hardly suffice to ensure natal care under lockdown, but the couple was so touched to receive this small donation . . . they said they would manage with that amount and would not need more. I was humbled by their response. I felt it was we and not they who had received a gift.

Not all want our help. Some are angry and brusque on the phone and turn down our offers, saying that they have managed to survive so long without the help of any NGO or government. and they can do so now. They are tired of being called, of being repeatedly questioned, with succour arriving too late or never. Even then, we do not close the case, for who knows, if the lockdown gets extended again, even these self-respecting workers that the system has beggared may need to reach out to us again. 

We do not see the migrant workers as victims or beneficiaries. In the Coast India app that we use (developed for this cause), they are called help-seekers. And some of my team members have developed a deep friendship with the people that they reached out to. One confessed that a young boy, one of those who had dared to start on the long journey home by foot, is her saviour: whenever she feels down and overwhelmed, helpless, she calls him and his youthful optimism never fails to cheer him up. 

It is that human touch, and my team’s joy at every little achievement or sorrow when we fail, that makes this job worthwhile. For behind the number of the 120 million migrant workers stranded all over India, or the 98,000 from Jharkhand that have been stranded in Tamil Nadu, is another human being. And a genuine conversation, stripped naked of all socio-economic standing, religious or cultural differences –  a simple call to enquire how the other person is coping –  is one of the most meaningful things in life.

Part Two: The Digital Discrimination

Shortly, after we had started our work, we were informed that the Jharkhand Government had developed an app, Sahayata (meaning “help”), and all stranded migrants could get Rs. 1000 by sending their details on this android app. The app was announced on Apr 16 and had a deadline of April 29 for people to apply. Shortly after its release, the app crashed. The Government fixed the glitches and on April 29, we heard that the deadline had been extended till April 30. I worked overtime, crowd sourcing over 100 volunteers and asking them to spread the word by reaching out to 20 migrant workers each. The Kafkaesque catch was that the workers had to first uninstall the previous version of the app, delete the cache, install the new version, upload their Aadhar card, and then take and upload a selfie with the GPS on to verify their current location. In those early days, I was brimming with good-willed enthusiasm. I used Google-Translate to translate all these instructions into Hindi and my dedicated team of volunteers send the message out through WhatsApp. But till date, I have not got confirmation from a single person that they actually received money by applying through the Sahayata app. They called us back, perplexed, asking when they would get the money. We had no answers to give.

Expectations were again high that day of April 29th, for the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued a government order that allowed for the movement of workers back home. Even with Google at our fingertips and resource persons across India connected on WhatsApp, it took hours to decipher the complex orders issued by each state government. If you were stranded in Tamil Nadu and wanted to travel back to Jharkhand, then you had to fill a detailed application form on the government portals of both states. The Jharkhand portal often crashed. The Tamil Nadu portal worked better, but you had to be literate in either English or Tamil in order to use it. Again, a group of volunteers made videos in different regional languages, showing step-by-step, what to fill in on the Tamil Nadu portal. 

And then, after a few weeks, it turned out that even if one filled in the registration requirements of both state governments successfully, there was no guarantee that it assured one of a place on the train. Trains were highly infrequent and their operation schedules guarded as defensively as a national secret. Every now and then, officials in Chennai would take recommendations from our Coast India volunteers as who to include in the train, but that meant another round of getting information from the migrant workers. This time, we asked them to write down their personal information on a piece of paper, photograph it, and send us an image, which we then entered into an Excel sheet for the government. Persistent dinosaurs in the information age that we are, we collated information of over 2,000 workers and successfully sent them home.  But it was all the luck of the draw. And desperate migrants would lose faith in the system and start walking back home in the searing heat, sometimes without even chappals on their feet . . .

The work continues . . .

Meantime, the connectivity of the digital age allowed Coast India to expand almost overnight to connect over 250 organizations working all over the country. Our work is with Jharkhand migrants in Tamil Nadu, but typically our contact numbers would get passed around, and we would get calls for help from Odisha or Chattisgarh migrants stuck in our state. Now, being part of a national network, I could just pass these cases on to other volunteer organizations to resolve them. Connected over a WhatsApp group, we could now recommend to migrants which route to take and at what towns they would find food, water, and shelter. In some states, government agencies and NGOs operate shuttle buses and relay services on the highways. But every now and then, migrant workers who were wary of check posts and the police would leave the highway and go off on back country roads. And sometimes I lost track of them. This was the case of Arjun Das. The last conversation I had with him was that he was somewhere in the wilderness in Andhra Pradesh. I begged him to send me a picture of his location, of any sign that he saw, or if he could to tag his GPS location. But then he said that his phone battery was running out of power . . . I never heard back.

I still wait, however, for his call. Hoping against hope. For I do not want him to be another disastrous statistic. He was somebody I knew, someone I “walked” with, for a brief time, and someone that I still care for and want home, safely reunited with his family. Even as the work relentlessly drives us on, I still wait for that one call. 

All names of help-seekers and volunteers have been changed.