Chennai: What would have otherwise been a period of interning with law firms and lawyers, the COVID-19 crisis has turned many law students towards helping the marginalised secure their rights. In the past few months, alumni and law students of National Law Schools have offered legal and financial help to many, ensuring that migrant workers are fed and sent home. In a certain case, students have also fought to secure the jobs of sanitation workers.
‘RML Corona warriors’
When the lockdown was announced, 13 students from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University in Lucknow had to stay back at the hostel. The initial phase of the lockdown was spent chatting with each other, walking down the empty corridors, catching up with people through their phones and playing sports in the multipurpose hall. Soon enough, along with the rising COVID-19 count, the photos of migrant workers walking home populated their newsfeed.
On May 16, Sumant Dixit, one of the key persons in the initiative that was later christened the ‘RML Corona Warriors’, requested the college mess workers to pack food for around 200 migrant workers. He asked local NGOs to pick the food up and distribute it.
Students of Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University helped the mess workers prepare food for stranded migrant workers. Photo: By arrangement
Encouraged by the NGO’s feedback that the food packets had helped the migrant workers, the students then began ‘Mission Triple H – Hygiene, Health and Hydration’. The ‘RML Corona Warriors’ began packing sattu, glucose, sugar, rice, wheat, biscuits, bananas, water bottles and ORS. They realised that apart from food, female migrant workers also needed personal hygiene items such as sanitary pads, which they ordered in bulk. While the student group would sift through the relief supply and pack them into convenient wholesome packs, the university’s mess workers packed boxes of poori-sabzi, chole or rajma chawal.
“When we saw migrant workers walking home in the scorching heat with plastic sheets tied to their bare feet, we ordered 500 pairs of slippers for a mixed age group. We also got ration kits arranged for rickshaw pullers who had to go back home empty-handed after queuing up at public distribution centres all day long,” said Sumant.
When the RML Corona Warriors saw migrant workers walking home with plastic sheets tied to their bare feet, they distributed 500 pairs of slippers. Photo: By arrangement
On May 29, they arranged the return of 42 migrant workers from Lucknow to their homes in Ghazipur on a bus. Further on June 6, the students distributed ration kits to sanitation workers employed by their own university.
Donations poured in from fellow students, relatives, friends and alumni as everyone could see the work being done through a Facebook page. The support system grew stronger, starting with one NGO to eight more getting on board.
They soon added another H to their mission. “Those who didn’t have food, transport or anything in particular, could call up our helpline. Our legal aid committee would put them in touch with the appropriate NGOs,” said Sumant. By the end of May, the student team had fed and taken care of several thousand migrant workers.
NLUD: Workers-students solidarity
On December 27, 2019, the National Law University in Delhi sacked 55 sanitation workers without giving them prior notice. Most of them had worked at the institution for over a decade. Then began the relentless struggle of the university’s students, who stood in solidarity with the workers to help them get their jobs back. They cited unlawful termination and breach of constitutional rights. On June 15, after 163 days of battle, the sanitation workers were reinstated through an official move by the minister of labour and environment, Gopal Rai.
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It took five months for the student team to have a face-to-face meeting with the minister, along with representatives of the workers, contractors and the NLUD. The minister called for the immediate re-appointment of the sanitation workers and invalidated the contract signed between the university and the new contractor, Rajendra Management Group. The company had offered the services of only 36 sanitation workers, far below the actual need of the university.
The six students who led the NLUD Workers-Students Solidarity finally heaved a sigh of relief. During the past few months, they had approached the labour office, the university’s governing council and also had a meeting with the chairman of the Delhi Bar Council instead of taking the recourse of courts.
The students continued to help the sanitation workers with dry ration, medical expenses and counselling. When the lockdown was imposed, the sanitation workers and their families had to grapple with starvation, unemployment and poor health. Many of them were women and the sole breadwinners.
In the last week of May, the students helped the father of one of the sanitation workers get admitted to a hospital. The man was diabetic and succumbed to his illness. His last rites were taken care of by the students.
“We did feel hopeless at certain junctures in this battle, but we never let that affect the workers. We just wanted to keep them united. Uncomfortable issues must be raised in this culture of silence,” said Vidushi Prajapati, member of the NLUD Workers-Students Solidarity and a fourth-year law student.
NLUD students who helped 55 sanitation workers get their jobs back at the university after a relentless battle lasting 163 days. Photo: By arrangement
NALSAR for migrant workers all the way
When the students and alumni of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad got to know about brick kiln workers who had been stranded and jobless, they immediately got together to create a WhatsApp group, charting out the logistics to send them back home. On June 2, a bus for the families of nine migrant workers, including 20 adults and 25 children from Bhilwara in Rajasthan to Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh was arranged by NALSAR students with the help of a local NGO.
They managed to collect Rs 28 lakhs through crowdfunding and have kept everyone in the loop about the expenditure incurred through their website. “We figured that there wasn’t a major difference between air and bus travel, as bus prices had been hiked and there were several processes involved in getting permission for on-road travel, so we decided to opt for flights. Multiple civil society organisations and individuals helped us,” said a volunteer member.
On June 4, 174 migrant workers from Bengaluru were flown to Raipur, which included four infants. They were fed, given Rs 1,000 each and equipped with protective gear. By June 6, around 95 brick kiln workers were able to reach their hometowns in Odisha from Telangana. When Cyclone Amphan had hit West Bengal, the NALSAR team ensured their full support to community kitchens in the state.
Professor V. Balakista Reddy, Registrar at NALSAR University of Law, said that the initiative, NALSAR for Migrant Workers, was completely student-driven. “In times of crisis, every person’s help counts. Even the teaching community is all for volunteering work. We are proud of the student community that has risen to the pandemic,” he said.
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NLSIU students fly 1,600 migrant workers home
Talha Salaria, an alumna of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in Bengaluru and a volunteer at Mission ‘Aahan Vaahan’ spoke of the migrant workers’ disbelief when they were informed about flights being arranged to fly them home. “They thought it was a scam and couldn’t believe someone would do that for them,” she said.
On May 28, the NLSIU alumni funded and arranged a chartered flight for 180 migrant workers from Mumbai to Ranchi. The response to the first flight was colossal, reflected in donations from alumni across the world, NGOs and corporate comapnies. The initial plan was to arrange ten flights in three weeks. So far, they have flown 1,600 migrant workers to their hometowns in eight flights.
The alumni of NLSUI Bengaluru came up with Mission ‘Aahan Vaahan’ to help 1600 migrant workers reach their homes in eight flights. Photo: By arrangement
At the Bengaluru airport, Talha recalled helping the migrant workers categorise their baggage into hand and check-in luggage. “Their most precious possessions were sickles, hammers and tool boxes, reflecting their dire situation and insecurity. A woman was carrying numerous coconuts, maybe hoping to sell them in her hometown. Another woman had dozens of bananas in her bag. Among them was also a man, accompanied by his children, who had been trying to get to Jharkhand for two months. His wife had died due to an illness and he couldn’t afford to get her treated,” she said.
Another group of NLSIU alumni had been arranging food for migrant workers who were travelling in Shramik trains. They continue to receive thank-you calls from migrant workers and their families.
Dr Sarasu Esther Thomas, registrar at NLSIU, noted that the lawyers’ community has been reaching out to the vulnerable. “Marginalised people find it difficult to access legal services even in the best of times. Issues of displacement, deprivation of basic rights and domestic violence against women have boomeranged in the pandemic but help is sparse,” she said. The university has been encouraging law students to help those seeking justice not just during this crisis but even after, by strengthening the legal service network.
Nalini Ravichandran is an independent journalist who has worked with The New Indian Express and Mail Today and reported extensively on health, education, child rights, environment and socio-economic issues of the marginalised. She is an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism.