Corona Daily 456: The Journey Home

Dhan, Nirlesh, Buddharaj, Rabendra, Dharmendra and Pradeep were siblings or cousins, all belonging to the Singh Gond family. The family hailed from Umaria in India’s state of Madhya Pradesh. Aged 22 to 35, they were all married, and four of them had children. With frequent droughts, large families can no longer survive on farming. The young men had bribed a middleman to get themselves a job in SRJ Steels at Jalna. Jalna is about a 1000 km from Umaria. Returning home once a year, the Sing Gond cousins had become part of India’s 40 million circular migrants.

They worked at the steel factory, but not for it. The steel factory avoided employing them to stay clear of all labour laws. A contractor paid each of them a daily wage of Rs 450 (6 $). Twenty of them rented a room, and tried to save something to send to their families regularly.

On 24 March, India announced a lockdown for three weeks. The next day the steel factory closed, and the daily wages stopped. On 1 April, the slum landlord demanded rent. The lockdown became chronic, only changing the end-date every time. The cousins kept assuring their wives they would return home. There was nothing to do in Jalna.

All trains and buses had stopped plying. The media was full of horror stories of migrants walking for miles on India’s highways in the blistering April heat.

Umaria was 1000 km away, and the Singh Gond cousins, though fit and young, wouldn’t contemplate walking that distance.

In May, the government announced special trains for labourers. The train from Aurangabad would take them to their village. And Aurangabad was 60 km away. Buddharaj, the only tech-savvy cousin, tried to apply for e-passes. But there was no response.

Their contractor disappeared, both his phones disconnected. That is when the Singh Gond cousins and their co-villagers decided they had had enough. If they must live without jobs and money, they were better off being with their families. On Thursday, 7 May, they called their families to give the good news.

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Twenty of them started walking on the railway tracks and covered 40 km in the night. Why rail tracks? You can’t lose your way, if you go the way the train goes. Living on survival food for a month, they didn’t realize how exhausting the journey could be. At three in the morning, they decided to take a nap. Aurangabad was another 20 km away. They would get up in the morning, and walk the rest. Well in time to catch the train. They slept on the wooden planks between the rail tracks. There was no chance of a train coming. No trains had run for more than six weeks.

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They never woke up. An empty goods train ran on the same track at 05.15 that morning. Three of the group had slept away from the tracks. They survived to tell the story. 17 died. 

India’s Prime minister tweeted his anguish- in English. BBC and CNN reported their deaths. The states offered Rs 1.5 million ($ 20000) compensation. On 8 May, their lifeless limbs were taken to their villages – by the same train they had tried so hard to catch.

Ravi