India needs a new social compact

The symbiotic relationship between migrant workers and the economy must be acknowledged when the lockdown ends

The Covid-19 pandemic has brutally uncovered the hidden drivers of the Indian economy in which sharp inequalities of wealth and income are inherent; indeed they provide the grease which makes the wheels of economic activity, across regions and sectors turn smoothly. We have become painfully aware how much our industry, agriculture, services and even domestic comforts are reliant on a pulsating mass of poor and migrant labour, a majority of whom live on meagre daily wages, away from families that depend on a share of their earnings. According to the 2011 Census, migrant labour constituted 36 per cent of India’s