Controlling journeys, controlling labour: COVID-19 and migrants

The complete lockdown announced by the prime minister of India on 24 March 2020 was followed by episodes of hundreds of thousands of migrants defying the lockdown and walking towards their home, sometimes covering more than a thousand kilometres. The labour-control regime refers to the social need in capitalism for integrating labour into the production system and labour processes by a variety of means, directly and coercively, as well as indirectly and reciprocally. Labour control is easier particularly when the labour market has migrants and casual workers, production takes place outside of the organised sector, where trade unions are weak or absent, and labour market allows flexibility in terms of sub-contracting and flexible work schedules. The exodus of migrant labour from megacities had started quite early. Newspapers reported that large crowds at the Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and other railway stations.