But if he cared to take a ride in one his high-end automobiles on an expressway skirting Delhi, Modi’s bulletproof would race past hundreds of migrant workers trekking the long way home to villages in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with scant belongings and broken dreams.

Prime Minister might have witnessed that tens of thousands of unemployed daily wagers are running scared from Covid-19 on empty stomachs, trekking on average 50 km per day. As per these ragtag bands on the nation’s highways and railway tracks, they are escaping unemployment, unpaid incomes and looming thirst and hunger. “All we want is to get home,” is the plaintive refrain.

These people are the vanguard of the reverse-migration that is threatening to derail Modi 2:0, the “back-to-home” pioneers. Many of them say it’s unlikely they would “ever return to Delhi” with ‘Delhi’ common reference to all urban conglomerate that used to, till Covid-19 started infecting, get fat on migrant workers. At least 20 migrant workers were run over by a goods train in Aurangabad while "walking home" on railway tracks and six others were killed when a truck loaded with mangoes they had stolen into turned turtle in Narsingpur in Andhra Pradesh.

Today, it’s apparent that nobody cares for migrant workers, least of all ruling dispensations. In Surat, for example, several hundred migrant workers were packed into ‘chartered’ buses for a fee and taken to the state’s borders, only to be told to “return” by the police. Modi wouldn’t know about this because BJP Chief Minister Rupani would forget to tell him.

In Ahmedabad and places like Vadodara, shopkeepers are selling “Rs 10 a pass” to migrant workers wanting to get the hell out of Gujarat. In Mumbai, migrant workers are leaving Covid-19 hot-spots leaving everything they owned behind. In Chennai migrant workers hired to construct high-rises have been without work for 40-plus days with back dues not cleared. They have run out of money and provision stores are no longer ladling them atta, dal, chawal “on account.” Plus there’s the Covid-19 sword!

These workers have had enough of Chennai, where the AIADMK government doesn’t seem to care, but will not leave behind their wages. It’s all about “staying power”, which in turn is determined by “purchasing power.” After a time the migrant worker’s fate hangs on his inter-personal skills. How glib a talker is he? Has he made himself indispensable to the employer? If yes, the employer will see to it that his and his family's immediate needs are fulfilled till this crisis blows over.

But if he is not a “favourite”, he will be let off the hook – so to speak – and told to go fend for himself and his family. These are the migrant workers who are the tired stragglers on highways converging on Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. One ‘migrant’ mother-worker caught on camera had a 17-month infant clinging to her breast. “Milk dried,” she told the callous reporter.

The majority of migrant workers walking were in a hurry. They couldn’t wait for the train to take them home. They should have realized that even the most callous of governments cannot forever hold from helping poor hungry people. People without a roof to sleep under. Modi’s vote-bank has taken a big hit ever since Lockdown 1:0 and the Opposition has got whiff of it. Like somebody said, “Whoever thought Modi would lose his touch?”

The reverse migration will cost the Modi government dear. It will be caught on the wrong foot when the economy “reopens.” The MSME sector, already hard hit by Covid-19, will get pulverized because migrant workers, the mainstay of India’s unorganized sector, will be almost all gone. Many of the unorganized industrial units will simply fold.

So, are Modi’s political fortunes on the wane? The Congress party appears to think so. It’s running a ‘Make Rahul Gandhi PM’ campaign with high-fangled interviews and “strategic” press conferences! People like Tehseen Poonawala are penning articles hailing ‘Prime Minister Rahul Gandhi!’

When journalist Rajdeep Sardesai addresses Rahul Gandhi as ‘Sir’ you know who is Boss! There’s an infectious exuberance shaping the Congress these last few days even as a coronavirus-like infection seems to be gripping the BJP. It’s for the first time in over six years that Amit Shah has had to come up for air, inform BJP workers that he’s around and in fine fettle. Whoever said only Pirates of the Caribbean tell dead men’s tales!

Prime Minister Narendra, if he steps out of his stronghold, will get to know that the despondency in the countryside will only increase when the migrant workers finally reach homes to tell ‘left-to-fend-for-themselves’ tales. And if the village-stories of their parents and brothers are equally glum in the telling, Modi will have to deal with a grim 2024 political pandemic. (IPA Service)