Author: Sadan Jha

Sadan Jha is a historian and Associate Professor, Centre for Social Studies, Surat. His publications include Reverence, Resistance and the Politics of Seeing the Indian National Flag (Cambridge University Press), Devnagri Jagat Ki Drishya Sanskriti (Rajkamal Prakashan) and Half Set Chay ( Vani Prakashan). For the last few years, he has been working on issues like migrants’ belongingness and migrant subjectivities.

June 4, 2020 /

There is a kind of myth making going on in the media that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home. The question is what choice these migrant workers had. They did not start their journey from the cities out of love for their homeland and relatives. They had to leave their homes in the cities. We conveniently/unconsciously switch this compulsion to leave cities for a phrase ‘love for the home’. Those who had some means to stay deferred their journey.
To say that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home/natives is to absolve ourselves from looking at harsh conditions which forced them out of city boundaries and left them walking in extreme conditions or undertaking arduous train journey.