Migrant workers never seem to be much of a consideration for politicians. This episode is only one of many examples of that fact. These workers, despite their numbers, have no political clout. Many are registered to vote in their village. But when election day comes, they are usually in the city where they work and unable to cast a ballot.

Statistically, they are almost invisible. Because they consistently move between villages and cities, and among work sites, capturing their number is difficult. The federal government’s 2017 economic survey said, “If the share of migrants in the workforce is estimated to be even 20 percent, the size of the migrant workforce can be estimated to be over 100 million.”

India has welfare measures for people below the poverty line, but migrant workers rarely have access to them. Chinmay Tumbe, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and the author of India Moving: A History of Migration, points out that welfare services are often only available in one’s place of birth.

Partha Mukhopadhyay and Mukta Naik, who work for the Centre for Policy Research, one of India’s leading think tanks, wrote in a commentary piece in The Indian Express:

Field studies have consistently claimed short-term labour mobility in India was significant. The past week has seen emphatic validation of these claims as highways across the country have been pedestrianised. In its callous haste, the Union government, when it announced the lockdown, did not think through how migrants, caught unawares, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, would respond. Now they know.

A lockdown, however necessary, was always going to be unbearably difficult for those without a social and economic cushion. And now some states are opting to extend the quarantine. On Friday, some migrant workers in western India protested in the streets as they demanded a salary and approval to return to their villages. This crisis will only worsen as they alternate between the fear of catching the virus and the fear of zero income. Sanjoy Mondol, a 22 year-old Bengali migrant construction worker, now in a shelter in the outskirts of Gaya, in Bihar, eastern India, told me over a crackling telephone line that his elderly parents call him several times a day to find out how he is doing. His young wife is expecting a baby. "We are being fed. But I have no work and have run out of money,” he said. “I can't even send any money home. Somehow, if I could get back to my village in Bengal, I would be happy. I could do some small thing, maybe sell vegetables. Be with my wife, my parents. I can't bear to hear them weep, each time they call me. Please get me home."

Read: The Callousness of India’s COVID-19 Response

Meanwhile, India’s winter crop is ready for harvest, but farmers cannot find laborers to take it to market. Essential supplies are finally reaching city warehouses, but there is no one to unload the trucks. The migrant workers cannot get back to work, because there is no public transport.