Home vs Home ward - A question to contemplate!

Ever since the world is hit by the Corona virus pandemic, and our country went into lockdown mode, one question is haunting me like never before! And that is “What is a home?” I searched on the internet regarding the dictionary meaning of home where I found the meaning to be like these - “the place where one lives permanently” and also “to or at the place where one lives.” It essentially stresses on the point ‘where one lives’.

It led me into thinking whether in reality if this explanation is so simple?

 While our notion of home sometimes gets trapped into the boundary of our four walls but it should not be forgotten that the concept of home includes not only the four walls but also the city, state and country that we belong to. Why do we call our country our motherland? For us the mother’s womb is the first place where we belonged to and then came into existence. Similarly it’s the country as a whole that should be considered while we are defining home, rather than narrowing it to the state level or the city level. The whole country is our home. But somehow the notion of regionalism has always downgraded our efforts to recognise our country as our own. It has always been about being a Maharashtrian from Maharashtra, Bengali from West Bengal, Punjabi from Punjab, Bihari from Bihar, UP ‘walla’ from Uttar Pradesh, ‘Madrasi’ from any of the southern states and so on. The list of such demographical differences is endless and is deeply rooted in our mindset. Otherwise, why would we call a hardworking man from the less privileged section of our society ‘a migrant labour’ when he or she goes from her hometown to another state to work? Shouldn’t they be addressed only as a labour or worker, without the label of ‘migrant’. This label screamingly promotes the problematic ‘Us vs them’ binary.

These labourers helps us in building the country by their physical labour. So shouldn’t we free them from the tag of being a ‘migrant’? Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak in her essay ‘Can the Subaltern speak?’ has highlighted the issue to of subalterns, and how the dominant society forces them to remain silent. If we dig into the mainstream history the world, we can easily identify this act of marginalisation.  The story of the more powerful person (be it economic or social) is glorified while keeping the accounts of the poor people in the dark. Why else do we never read or even show interest about the labourers who had actually build the ‘Taj Mahal’? We have all read, how the thumb finger of the labourers were cut off by the emperor so that another Taj cannot be constructed ever again?

 This horrible act towards the labourers is not a thing of the past for sure! How much difference is the act of the emperor Shah Jahan, from the present business owners who employed these people to build his or her empire, but let them rot without money or basic essentials during this hard times? Most of the labourers were not paid any salary as they were not doing any work. As if the pandemic was their fault? The respective state governments didn’t bother to care about these people who they considered as ‘outsiders’ since they came from another state. But what about being the citizen of this country? Why did being born in a different state make all the difference? They all belong to this country right. They may not help the government with the taxes, but indirectly they are surely helping the business establishments to grow their business which in turn becomes profitable for the government through the taxes.

Then why is this apathy towards these people? Why can’t they belong and call the place where they are working as their ‘home’? Why are they compelled to become ‘homeward’ rather than being at ‘home’ during this crisis times? No one should be labelled as a ‘migrant’ in their one country irrespective of their state origins. Can we as a country shed this ‘migrant’ tag and consider everyone as our own? The question of belongingness should not be considered according to place of birth, religion or colour of skin ( we saw that in the most developed nation of the world). India is burdened with layers of racism that we need to shed going forward. One thing this pandemic has taught us is how we all need each other. Otherwise why would some of the business owners try to bring back the same labourers now as the country is resuming the stalled economic activities? The country needs these citizens to move forward? Then why this division? Can’t we change?

 And at present, the government cannot give any record of the migrants who passed away during their journey towards ‘home’!

 Can we shed these labels so that our concept of home state refers to the whole country?

 It’s high time we replace ‘homeward’ with ‘home’ for these less fortunate countrymen of ours!