Lockdown Impact: ‘Lost my wife as well as my mother during lockdown’

Though migrants have been coming to Punjab in search of jobs for decades, they never witnessed so much distress as they are doing these times. The complete lockdown caused by the COVID-19 crisis has literally left them “penniless”. Some remember that even during the time of militancy, when migrants were targeted by Khalistani terrorists, the situation was not so bad.

According to Punjab police, before the lockdown was announced, five lakh migrants out of 17 lakhs living in the state, left for their respective villages. The bigger question is what else could they do, even if they chose to stay back? Dinesh Kumar Yadav who works at Khalsa Auto factory says, “We neither have enough ration, nor money”. Dinesh Kumar has lost both his mother and wife during the lockdown. His wife was suffering from tuberculosis while his mother was a cancer patient.

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“Due to the lockdown and curfew, I could not manage medicines for them. As a result, my wife died on April 2 and 12 days later my mother passed away on April 14,” said Dinesh. Saying that somehow with the help of local help groups he managed to perform their last rites, Yadav said, “I do not want to stay here anymore”.

Two days after, when Chief Minister Amarinder Singh directed police commissioners to prepare a list of those who want to go back, nearly five lakh migrants expressed their wish to go back. Expecting the rush, the Punjab government had to appoint 23 IAS and IPS officers to tackle the migration of the migrants. A senior official, posted at the CMO told on condition of anonymity that most of the applicants were from UP and Bihar.

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As far as cities are concerned, most of the applications came from Ludhiana, followed by Jalandhar, Amritsar, and Batala. What is more worrisome for businessmen and farmers is that migrants are leaving cities with their belongings which means their return is very unlikely in the near future. A Ludhiana based industrialist, Onkar Sinh Pahwa said that the pandemic had broken the backbone of his business.

“Our business cannot sustain without migrants as they are the one who works on the machines. Don’t know how will we restart” Pahwa said. Reverse migration of migrants have not only caused a headache for industrialists but farmers also. Somehow farmers managed to harvest the wheat crop, but paddy- sowing seems extremely difficult. Punjab’s farmers have been dependent on migrants for paddy- sowing for years.

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Nirmal Singh Barar, a farmer from Mand village in Jalandhar said, “Out of 100, only 14 migrants chose to stay back with us. Rest went back to their states despite our repeated appeals. Everyone seems to have been convinced that this crisis is going to last for a long time. For me, it is a huge loss as local workers are not skilled enough.” 60-years old Naresh Kumar, who has lived in Kapurthala for decades, also wants to go back to his village.

He came to Punjab in search for a job when he was still a young child. His employer Sardar Sampoorn Singh does not want him to go back but Kumar is insis- tent. Singh says, “He is like my son. I have tried my best to stop him from going back but he is reluctant. How can I stop him, even though I want to?”

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