 Hello and let's talk about the flight of migrants from the big cities in India to their homes. Ever since the lockdown was imposed in India and the last week of March, we have been receiving reports of a mass exodus of migrants. A few days after the lockdown was imposed, we saw horrific pictures from the bus depot in Delhi where migrants were packed together trying to find a way home. We also saw pictures from the road across the country as without food or water they tried to somehow make their way to a place which they could call their own. However, this was not just a one-off reaction to the announcement of a lockdown. This flight of migrants has continued, people have died on the way, people have been struggling with hunger and starvation and the attitude of most of the state governments and definitely the central government has been one of apathy. There has hardly been any facilities provided and what is worse when finally trains were announced for them, these trains were provided with no amenities at all, there was no food, there was no water, the bathrooms were in a horrible condition and many of the trains even got lost. The migrants truly feel that they have been completely left to their own ways. We talked to Bhasha Singh who has been travelling through Delhi and Uttar Pradesh talking to migrants, talking about their situation, talking about what they expected from the government and what they finally got. Here is what she had to say. Thank you so much Bhasha for joining us. So you have been travelling in Uttar Pradesh for the past couple of days. You have talked to a lot of the migrants who are continuing to live, leave the big cities to their homes where they hope that they will be able to survive. You have also talked to migrants who have travelled by train. So could you tell us what is the overwhelming feeling among the people who are leaving the big cities? Basically it is very disheartening and it was across from Delhi to Lucknow or to the rest of the places, Aligarh, everywhere just in one line they were saying that there is no government. The government has left us. In Hindi they were saying that they have been offered by the government and the second thing which was very painful that they were crying and they were telling that they are workers. They went to have a better life. They are not beggars and they were forced to leave the capital, either it is Delhi or it is Surat or it is Bangalore everywhere because they were treated as beggars. There was no respect for them and the very important point they were making that they waited for the government. It is not like this that the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown, immediately they started moving back to their homes. It took 50 days, 40 days, 45 days, 55 days and still they are walking. So they said that they believe that something will be done for them and when they started feeling that these cities don't belong to them, they don't have Russian cards. Even those who have Russian cards, they were not getting it and the most horrible thing about the kids, everyone was traveling with their small children and they were saying that the government is just offering some rice, some dal but they are not thinking about the kids, how they are going to feed them and to all of them the fear of dying with starvation, dying from the hunger was the biggest challenge for them. They said that we will not die from the corona, I don't know but before that we will die from the hunger and the deaths have started and those who were traveling with their trains, they said that we spent so much money, we waited for the government and when they started, many in many cases they were saying that initially we started walking then the police stopped them and then they asked them to go back and there will be trains. So there were many cases where they went back, just believing in the promise of the government that the trains will be there and some facilities will be there and the narration of those people who traveled in the trains, if you just hear, you will not believe that India is in 2020 where they are saying that toilets were horrible, there was no water and there was no food, they traveled for more than 20 hours without any basic facility and they said that we survived, it's a miracle, otherwise the whole system was as if they were waiting that we should die and one lady said that basically it's a planning by the people in the park to kill us, they don't want to see us. So those were the very heartbreaking narrations which were coming out and they are entirely hopeless, the whole democratic setup and the government has made them that nobody is there, only there is some hope that they will go back to their village and they will get some support. When I ask them that there also you will have to face the quarantine for 14 days they are saying that they will be kept. So they will say they are saying that okay we have survived so long, we survived for the 50 days and even if we die in the quarantine it will be near our villages. So at least somebody will be there to do the last rites, if you die in the city, who is there? Nobody so far has come up to, so these are a different kind of reactions and responses which was overwhelmed everywhere it was, we can't measure the degree of their pain. And could you talk a bit about the situation especially of those migrants who are travelling by road or who are walking, so what is the, were there any kind of facilities at all, how would they manage in this summer heat, how could you talk a bit about how they were travelling? Yeah, so you see that now all the roads are highways, there are flyovers so and there's not a single tree on the highways, so it's so torturous for them to travel on the highways and there's no other way and so they opted to walk in the night. So generally they are walking throughout the night and whenever in the day they get some kind of a shade they are lying down there and in many places they started walking and then it was very difficult police was beating them, then they collected, then they had some kind of money and I've seen many flooded in autos in small trucks, they managed, they promised that whenever they reach to their villages they will be paying the money, so that's how it is going on because it's, we can't say in the daylight if you see you will not find them in the walking because it's almost impossible for them to walk but still in small groups and they are not now walking on the highways because they know that the police, only one work the Indian state is doing either it's a yogi government or the Delhi government, Delhi police, they don't want to see them on the roads, they want to avoid that they should not become visible, they should not become a news, so they themselves will tell that you go down, don't opt for the main road, you go by the lanes and people are opting for that, so a distance of 500 kilometers for a migrant worker has become a distance of 600 or 700 kilometers, so first thing that the Indian state is just visible in form of police which is beating them, which is taking a bribe also, I have seen from the truck drivers who are carrying the migrant workers and many truck drivers, the migrant workers were also saying that they came as a god, they helped them, they were beaten severely in UP, the police is beating the truck drivers, the auto drivers very mercilessly but still those truck drivers when I had a word with them they were not ready to talk on the camera because they were so afraid but they said that I can't see them dying on the road, so I thought that okay if I can carry you to the 50 kilometers I am able to carry you to the 100 kilometers then I will help you like that and from Delhi and other places also, this is one thing and the other phenomena which is very strange that you will find multiple private bus operators who are charging, I had a word with a few migrant workers who are staying in Delhi in Mayur Vihar area, they hired a bus for 1,030,000, 30 of them asked the money, taken money on the loan somehow they managed and then they traveled, they hired that bus and they were going to the Vihar, so this is a very strange situation, the government knows that the private buses are going, definitely those buses, many of them I had a word with the operators, they said that we are getting the e-passes, so my question is that when the private buses are operating why the hell the government buses are not operating, taking the migrants to their homes, so you will find that they are going by cycles, a lot of migrant workers are going by cycles, we had just one story of the Jyoti who traveled, she cycled from Gurgaon to Vihar and you will find that there are hundreds, hundreds of them going in groups, they are cycling in the night and everyone has taken loan, either second hand by cycle like the Jyoti or many other, which footage news click has also shown when I covered them, so you will find that everyone, it's almost they are desperate that they want to go back, so who if they are staying in group in the slums or in the busties, then they are hiring private buses and huge number of private buses throughout the highways flooded with the migrant workers with no food and with no water and the best part is that the villagers which are staying a little at a little distance from the highways, they saw for one or two days that these are going and it's in a very terrible condition, they themselves organized for the longers, they are making foodies, parathas, even providing milk to the children, kids, so that shows that finally those who are surviving is because of these Indian citizens who came for the help and the Indian state is completely out of the picture, they just left because they could have made on the way they have made the shelters for the police, police is staying in the shelters, they have discovered there's a water, but the migrant worker can't go there, they are not offering them anything, so this is the condition till now which I find. And what are many of these workers thinking about the future as in do they think that at some point they will be able to go back or do they fear that it's going to be staying at home for the next couple of months? I think right now they are thinking that they will manage somehow because they are very horrified with their experience in the cities, everyone is saying that there was no help in the cities, they would have died and what is the biggest irony is that they are saying that we have been working for the city, but when we were in the crisis the city has not come and they are saying that from last 50 days we have been offered only the rice and the dal, nothing else has been given us to eat, so they are saying that how we can survive like this, the Indian state has not started thinking anything and they are saying that you are saying that we should go back or we should stay, but there is no hope because and everybody was working in an organized sector, majority of them, they are saying that industries are shut and their owners are asking them to go back and the owners are continuously saying that we are not sure when they can come back. So you will find that they waited for Indian state, for the businessmen to respond for this crisis to come save them at least 40 days or 50 days, that's a huge long period for them and when they were completely out, there was nothing and they are saying that they don't have any hope now that the cities or the industries which where they were working, they are going to call them back and very interestingly they said that now Yogiji made a very strange comment, they have become our boss, so which industry will ask Yogiji to give us Yogi, that means the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath whose recent statement has come that the rest of the states have to take the nod of the UP government before they hire their laborers, so they were saying that that will make our movement much more complicated even if we want to go, so right now there is no hope for them and I think they are thinking that somehow they will adjust into the structure of the ruler economy, somehow they will be doing something and for next six months at least, I think unless and until something happens in there and the economy revives because it all depends on how the economy is going to revive and they are very particular about it, they are saying that at least the Indian state should have given them some cash, they are saying that how the everybody is saying that work from home, but how we can work from home, who is going to pay us, our owner is and many came honestly that our owner is also not so rich that he can offer us some kind of a help, so and in Jandhan account also only the 500 bugs have gone and that to their account generally is at the ruler area where they stay, there they have opened the Jandhan account, so according to them from next six to seven months, they are not ready to come back because this experience of Indian cities has been very horrifying for them and especially those who are coming from the Suras, if you just hear them, they will say that how they have been curtailed, they have been lati charge, they have been Gujarat state government did everything to stop them from going back, so they are saying that they have made us criminal, so how the Indian labor has been criminalized has been made as to the beggar, so two extremes this lockdown has shown to us that we treat Indian labor as a beggar and secondly we have criminalized them the way we have criminalized initially the corona COVID patient, so same treatment we have done to the Indian workers, the working class of India. Thank you so much Basha for talking to us. In our next segment we look at what happens to a locality after an encounter, the Navakadal area of Srinagar on May 19 saw an encounter between the CRPF and the JNK police on the one side and two Hizbul Bujahati militants, the militants were killed but what was also destroyed on that day were the houses and the livelihoods of a number of people. Take a look at this ground report from NewScape. $30,000 was given to us in the upstairs room and all of us were burnt to death. There is a marriage hall in front of us, we are living in a hut. At least 20-15 houses have been destroyed, all of them. All of them have been destroyed, 20-15 houses. No, there is no response from the government. We have now found that in the ground, if we send it, then no one will give us 10,000-20,000. There is no response from the government, we are thankful to the Mollay committee, if we give our lives to them, that is also less, because they have also given us a shelter, they have given us everything, they have given us everything, they must have kept nothing missing, but this was the duty of the government, they are nowhere to be found. The father takes care of the son, he doesn't kill, they have given us a way to save us, what happened to them? Yes, I had 200,000 rupees cash in my house, the dowry of my wife is more than that, she is crying, that too is over, we have to make everything new, we have to make everything new. What we wore last night, we left in that only, that is the only thing left, nothing else. That's all we have in this episode, let's talk, we will be back tomorrow with the latest news of the day, until then keep watching NewsClick.