Insight, Legitimacy and Politics of the Plight of Migrant Worker in Lockdown

Vanshika Kasturi 
Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, India

Volume III, Issue III, 2020

Migrant labourers have been amongst the most awfully affected people in India due to the lockdown. As the manufacturing and building activities are at a standstill, lack of money and food has compelled lakhs of distressed, abandoned, deprived and desolate migrants across India to reach for their homes on foot in the nonexistence of apposite conveyance. The current attenuation in labour laws has led to a decisive shift in the way the plight of the worker-migrant has so far been implicit in the foreground of the COVID-19 prompted lockdown.

In India the State has principal duty to shield the right to live with human dignity as fundamental rights of each citizen. Constitution has not given any unambiguous provision about human dignity. Article 21 of Constitution of India the right to life it has wider meaning which includes the right to life with human dignity. Where is the dignity? Why they are treated worse than beasts of burden? Where is the Right to Equality (the prohibition of discrimination), Where is the   right to Protection of Life and Personal Liberty? Where is the   right to practice any profession or occupation? Where is the Right against Exploitation?

 

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