The ramshackle settlement of migrant workers along the Trikampura Patiya canal in south Ahmedabad was, unsurprisingly, a dismal sight. Black, dirty water stagnated in the canal, emitting a foul stench. Birds fluttered overhead, dipping their beaks in its foetid waters.
Along the canal, in makeshift sheds, lived about 220 families who had migrated from their villages in Dahod district of Gujarat. They had worked as agricultural labour back home but work was scarce and the money inadequate. Some had been marginal farmers with tiny, unviable plots of farmland.
They had brought their children with them. If the elders at. . .