MIGRANT workers have been at the core of the Indian economy. People from villages work in cities and industrial hubs to send money back to their families. It is a complex equation between urban and rural, which has received little public attention until the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown resulted in tens of thousands of migrants falling out of jobs and making desperate efforts to get back home.
Chinmay Tumbe, who teaches at IIM Ahmedabad, has for long studied migration in India closely. He has also been a member of the Working Group on Migration set up by the Union. . .