Broken Shelters and Dreams: Life Inside a Labour Camp in Bengaluru

Migrants workers in this labour camp in Bengaluru have a simple need – the sense of security of being home.

Most of the labour workers in camps have a simple need – the security of being home

(Photo: Arun Dev/The Quint)

Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan

"We made these big buildings. But there are no facilities for us to eat or stay. They sleep with their AC and coolers, and we are asked to sleep on the floor," said a migrant labourer, pointing at an apartment complex behind him.

He was among the hundreds of workers stranded at a labour camp in south Bengaluru's Konanakunte cross. Several migrants like him have been unable to register themselves for a train trip back to their home state amid the coronavirus lockdown.

At the gate of this camp, hundreds of workers stood holding their packed bags, hoping to get out, but were not allowed to leave by private security guards. As their anger and frustration mounted, they started shouting slogans: "We won't work, let us go home."

Even though the Karnataka government announced, it would restart the train services for migrant workers, these workers were concerned because they haven’t been able to register themselves. Many were certain they might not get to travel back on these trains.

In a moment of frustration Sundar Ram, a worker, said: “If we can’t get trains, we will walk. Just let us go.”

"We had made plans to travel back. Then government officials called us, and they held talks (at the colony) and said they will provide us the papers. When they came here, they said they would send us only after four to five days. Since there were no trains, we had made plans to walk. The government here is not giving any orders. We don't know what they are doing. If they had provided us with transport, there would have been no need for us to walk," he said.

Unable to move out of the camps, they say their situation is like that of prisoners. "They are not letting us go. So many from Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, and Bengal have left using government transport, but no one has left from here. They have kept us as prisoners," said a labourer, as he walked through a narrow path to show the sheds where he lived.

At the labour camp, the corridor leading to the tin sheds was filled with water. The rooms had to be evacuated because of the water. "How do we live in conditions like these? You tell us. If we live in places like these, we might die. Even if we don't get coronavirus, our health will deteriorate. When it rains, it becomes difficult for us to sleep here. And when we went do the registration, they were not letting us do it," one of them explained.

Most of them have a simple need – the sense of security of being home. "If someone dies at our home, we won’t be able to seem. If we die here, there is no one to handle our dead bodies, send them home. Yes, there will be difficulties (if we walk). We will suffer them. But we are dying here anyway," said Gulab Ansari, a labour supervisor.