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In @the_hindu Sunday Mag, I write about the crises caused by distress migrations of workers during Mughal, Maratha & colonial times.
What did migrants face then, how did these diff. regimes deal with them & what can our own govts. learn from history? https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/the-peshwas-tax-holiday-how-the-mughals-and-marathas-dealt-with-distress-migration/article31875853.ece
What did migrants face then, how did these diff. regimes deal with them & what can our own govts. learn from history? https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/the-peshwas-tax-holiday-how-the-mughals-and-marathas-dealt-with-distress-migration/article31875853.ece
People abandon homes when livelihoods evaporate, when choices are circumscribed & when the only alternative is hunger. The workers trekking on our country’s arterial highways left b/c of the jobs they lost, the rents they could no longer afford & the real prospect of deprivation.
The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan organised food and cash transfers to urban residents of Gujarat and the Deccan as well as to rural migrants who had come into the towns. He set up langars to feed them. Over 20 weeks, he spent 150,000 rupees in those two regions.
Shivaji exhorted his officials against negligence in grain warehouses, which could cause “incalculable damage”. Tragically, during the pandemic, even as migrant labourers combat hunger, reports have emerged of tonnes of wheat stocks rotting in open granaries.
