Bali Ram had given up hope. “I have stopped calling up people to ask if there will ever be a train to take us back home,” he says with a tinge of impatience.
As the trains leave Hosur station to return migrants in thousands to their home states, the Gondi tribal people of Sirisguda village in Jagdalpur division of Bastar district in Chhattisgarh working the granite quarries of Kelamangalam here are inching towards desolation. There are 52 of them working in the granite quarries. And unlike the migrants from the other states, their numbers don’t add up to flag a train.
On May 15, this group of people hailing from the left-wing extremism hit district of Chhattisgarh, marched 25 km from their quarry to Hosur hoping to leave home. They had trekked to Hosur after the supervisor of ‘7 Hills quarry’ allegedly ill-treated them – a charge denied by the latter. “We are not used to being treated like that. He threw us out and locked up our rooms. So, we left,” says Bali Ram, recounting the time they reached the railway station only to be chased out by the railway police. That was when the local media came to know of them.
Over the last week, Bali Ram was persistently calling people back home and also this Correspondent, to ask if there was a train to Chhattisgarh.
As the past week witnessed a steady departure of trains ferrying not less than 1,500 migrants each day to their home states, it was slowly sinking in that these tribal people hardly stood a chance to demand a train from their home State.
Theirs is a seasonal migration for work. But, now was the time to leave. Back home, their lands await them to till and cultivate. “We grow paddy and corn,” says 22-year-old Munna.
“We cultivate our own land, we eat from it. We sell our produce to buy some other produce,” says Bali Ram, trying to explain why they had to leave before the farming season began. Our families are worried. We are the labour for our family-owned farms,” says Munna.
Sambarthi, along with six other young women, had travelled down with the men for the job at the quarry in February.
While the men drilled, these young women stuffed the drilled holes in the stone quarries with chemicals to explode the rock face. The men got paid ₹700, while women got paid ₹300 per day.
Asked if he will ever come back, Bali Ram says, “never”. But they also know, they will never see the money they make here. They make between ₹17,000 and ₹22,000 a month.
The quarry supervisor Venkatachalapathy, however, says he treated them well. “Ask them if I had cut down on food or supplies during the lockdown. Last night, they called to tell me the cooking gas was over. I sent a cylinder through someone at night,” he says. “They wanted to walk 1,500 km and I told them it was a bad idea.”
For now, the workers want a transport back home. “This is a moral responsibility and should be borne by the granite quarries association and the industries association,” says Sridharan, district president, Democratic Youth Federation of India. “Workers are sourced as labour from the country’s deep interiors by the contractors for the sake of the industry. When the government is unable to find a train, the industries association should help fund the transport,” he contends. Similarly, there are a few hundred workers from Tripura and Assam. There should be ways to send them home, despite their small numbers, he says.
