’I have stopped migrating since my brother died’

Death of his brother on a railway track in Aurangabad district during the pandemic led to steel factory worker Birendra Singh vow to never leave his village

Birendra Singh

Illustration Credit: Sharanya Kunnath

On the morning of 8 May, 2020, which was the 45th day of the nationwide lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, 16 migrant workers were mowed down by an empty freight train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district. The migrant workers were walking from Jalna to Bhusawal from where they were to board a Shramik Special train to return to their villages in Madhya Pradesh. After walking for around 40 kilometres, they decided to rest. A big group among them, including 20-year-old Brigendra Singh from Umaria, slept on the tracks and were mowed down around 5AM in the morning.

A smaller group that decided to lie down at a distance away from the tracks, survived the accident only to see their fellow travellers being crushed to death. Among them was Brigendra’s elder brother Birendra Singh. This is his story. 

My name is Birendra Singh and I am 30 years old. I live in Jamudi village which falls in Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh. I live with my mother, father, wife and two children – a son and a daughter. They both go to school. We have some agricultural land that belongs to us. So, we also do farming.  

Jab yeh haadsa hua, tab mai uske saath tha. (I was with him when the accident happened). 

My brother who died; his name was Brigendra Singh. At the time of his death, he was only 20-years-old. His wife Pushpa and their daughter Sonal, who is now 6-years-old, also live with us. Sonal also goes to school with my children. We are a joint family and we live together. 

I have studied till eighth standard from our village school. I was 18 when I first started migrating for work. For my first trip, I went to Delhi along with some other people who were from my village. There I used to work at a food processing factory. 

I was constantly migrating to find work till the Covid-19 pandemic hit us. Before that, I stayed and worked in different cities and states. I have stayed a lot in Gujarat, both in Surat and Ahmedabad. I have also worked a lot in Jalna which is in Maharashtra. 

In the beginning, my younger brother did not migrate with me. He would migrate with other villagers to other cities for a couple of years. But then I asked him to come with me. The first time that I asked him to come along with me was the time when we migrated to Jalna. 

Our jobs were the same – we used to do tie bundles of steel bars/rods which are used in construction. We were paid well there. The last salary I got there was Rs. 30,000. So, together, my younger brother and I were able to earn Rs. 60,000 and we were able to send a good amount of money back home.

After the pandemic struck, both my younger brother and I were in quarantine at the steel company where we worked.  But they stopped providing any food after a while. So, we had to use all our savings to buy food. It was only when our money got over that we decided to return home. We started walking one evening around 7PM and had covered 40 kilometres through the night before we decided to take rest. It was that night, the first night we started walking, that the accident took place at roughly 5AM. 

I was with him when it happened. I was with some other labourers and we were lying down at a distance. He was with a group that was walking ahead of us and had rested on the tracks for the night.

After I returned from Maharashtra, I was sent to a quarantine facility in a school. All the workers who returned at that time were asked to stay in a school for ten days. We were not allowed to go to our homes. They asked us to stay there only. 

I could not perform the last rites of my brother. I was not allowed to be at home. So, I remember how I used to be outside, watching everything from a distance. Cops told us that I could watch from a distance, but not go home.  They asked us to maintain social distancing. I watched his last rites while being seated away from the people who were attending it. My father did most of the work for the last rites. 

Since the accident, I am the only earning member in my family. My father is old and mostly stays at home.  

My younger brother had not gone out a lot, maybe he was out for a couple of years. He was very young. The first time I took him with me was about month before the lockdown.

After the accident, we got help from governments of both the states. Officials from both the places gave us some money. His body was sent by the authorities on their own. 

There were at least three other people I knew from my village who got killed that night. My own uncle’s son Pradeep Singh died in the accident. Some others from a different village who died in the accident were known to me. 

After the accident, we did not get much help from the village. Whatever help we received was from outside. People came to condole my brother’s death. Some people asked me why the others had slept on the track. And that everyone should have slept away from the tracks. Lot of people came to meet us, almost everyone from the village came.

I have stopped migrating since that time. I just don’t feel like going out to find work. I take up local work in the village only. Or I make day trips to Shahdol. There is no fear in me of anything, it is just that I no longer feel like doing this again. 

However, my earning in the village is very less. I do construction work here, or any kind of daily wage labour. I get paid on a daily wage basis, usually it is either Rs. 300 or Rs. 350. I work both in the village or I go to Shahdol, but the payment is the same either way.  

I have a bike and going to Shahdol takes me an hour. I go only when I know work is available in Shahdol. On average, I get work for 15-16 days in a month. Or may be 20 days if there is a lot of work. I earn between Rs. 8000 and Rs. 9000 in a month. And now, after my brother passed away, I am the only earning member in an eight-member household.

Even now if I was migrating outside either to Gujarat or Maharashtra – I would have been able to earn up to or more than Rs. 30,000. All the work that I have done while migrating pre-pandemic, paid me much more than what I am earning right now. 

In the last five years, I have thought about going back and migrating again. But my family members do not let me go. They are afraid because of what happened to our family. My parents ask me to not go out again. My wife also says do not go out, live here only, work here only.  Whatever you earn, we will share and eat together. 

A lot of people of my age in my village, go out and migrate for work a lot. Even those who belong to families that lost members in the railway track accident, they are also migrating. In fact, two of my cousins, who are brothers of the cousin I lost in the accident, continue to stay and work outside. 

To be honest, in the village, we are not deprived of anything other than money. The loss in income (after I stopped migrating) is a lot. We face difficulties when it comes to education of children, or if someone falls ill suddenly. When I worked outside, I could remit more easily. 

I will educate my children. Whether it is for studies or for jobs, I will not send them outside. I am done now. We will stay in the village, earn whatever we can and eat whatever we can. We will do farming at home. 

It will help us if governments can do something for us, we need financial assistance. Or if we can get some jobs locally, may be as guards working at the village school. If we got more help, it would be good. 

As told to Anuja. 

Anuja is an independent journalist based in Delhi and writes on the intersection of policy and politics.