Migrant workers have always remained at the socio-economic margins of our society, silently serving as the instrumental labour force of urban economics. The pandemic has brought them into national focus.
On announcement of a countrywide lockdown, a very large number of migrant workers decided to move back from their places of employment to their native villages. The non-availability of transport created its own problems. Added to this was the fear of starvation and inconvenience to their families. This caused, the migrant workers to demand wages and transport facilities for returning to their villages. Their mental agony was accentuated by multiple factors such as a sudden loss of livelihood, possibility of lack of food and inability to assist in harvesting their rabi crop due to not being able to reach home in time. Reports of inadequate response of some districts in providing the essential boarding and lodging arrangements along the way multiplied their fears.
You have learnt many lessons from this situation when you were tasked to oversee the functioning of the District Disaster Relief Force in your district.
In your opinion what ethical issues arose in the current migrant crisis? What do you understand by an ethical care giving state? What assistance can the civil society render to mitigate the sufferings of migrants in similar situations?
Approach · directive: “what / what do you understand / what assistance”
What it asks · Identify the ethical issues in the migrant crisis, explain what an ethical care-giving state means, and say what civil society can do to ease migrants' suffering in similar situations.
The question has 3 parts — answer each
- Your opinion on the ethical issues that arose in the migrant crisis
- What an ethical care-giving state means
- What assistance civil society can render to mitigate migrants' suffering in similar situations
Open with · The lockdown showed how invisible migrant workers are in policy: sudden loss of work, food and shelter, and a long journey home.
Cover
- Ethical issues: right to life, livelihood and dignity; justice for invisible workers; a sudden lockdown without preparation; poor shelter and food en route; unpaid wages.
- Conflict of values: public health (limiting movement) versus liberty and welfare, collective good versus individual rights, and a burden falling most on those with least.
- Duty of others: employers owed wages and care, states owed coordination and communication, and districts owed shelter, food and transport.
- Ethical care-giving state: puts the vulnerable first, anticipates harm, assures food, shelter, health and income support, and acts with dignity, transparency and accountability.
- State measures: portable ration cards, special trains, shelters and community kitchens, cash transfers, and a registry of migrant workers for social security.
- Civil society: community kitchens and ration kits, shelters, medical camps, helplines, legal aid for wage claims and counselling, in step with the district administration.
- Lessons for the district: keep a migrant database, stock food and shelters, coordinate with neighbouring districts and states, communicate clearly, and involve trained volunteers safely.
Close with · A caring state does not discover its most vulnerable citizens only in a crisis: it registers, protects and includes them beforehand, and works with civil society when disaster strikes.
Add value (verified)
- In its 2020 suo motu proceedings on migrant labourers, the Supreme Court recorded that no fare was charged from migrant workers for Shramik special trains and that food and water on the journey were provided by the originating State. Supreme Court of India, In Re: Problems and Miseries of Migrant Labourers, Suo Motu WP (C) 6 of 2020, order of 9 June 2020 ↗“for the train travel no fare is being asked from the migrant labourers and the same is borne as per arrangement between originating State and receiving State. He submits that in train journey food and water is provided by the originating State”
- Joan Tronto's four elements of care (attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness) give a test for a care-giving state. Care Ethics — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (University of Tennessee at Martin) ↗“These sub-elements are: (1) attentiveness, a proclivity to become aware of need; (2) responsibility, a willingness to respond and take care of need; (3) competence, the skill of providing good and successful care; and (4) responsiveness, consideration of the position of others as they see it”
- Gandhi's talisman (1948): recall the face of the poorest and weakest person and ask whether the step will be of use to them. Gandhi's Talisman — mkgandhi.org (source: Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Vol. II, 1958, p. 65) ↗“Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her].”
- PM Garib Kalyan package (26 March 2020): 80 crore poor people to get 5 kg wheat or rice and 1 kg pulses free every month for three months. Finance Minister announces Rs 1.70 lakh crore relief package under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana — PIB, Ministry of Finance, 26 March 2020 ↗“80 crore poor people will to get 5 kg wheat or rice and 1 kg of preferred pulses for free every month for the next three months”
- The Supreme Court (9 June 2020) directed States to record returning migrants' details and skills at village, block and district level and to set up counselling centres on schemes and jobs. In Re: Problems and Miseries of Migrant Labourers, Suo Motu W.P.(C) No. 6 of 2020, order of 9 June 2020 — Supreme Court of India ↗“The details of migrant workers, nature of their skill, place of their earlier employment be maintained in prescribed proforma to be formulated by the concerned State at village level, block level and the district level so that necessary helps can be extended by the State authorities and district authorities to these migrant labourers.”
- One Nation One Ration Card: national portability of ration cards enabled in a cluster of 24 States/UTs from 1 August 2020, covering about 65 crore NFSA beneficiaries. One Nation One Ration Card: journey so far and journey ahead — PIB, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, 19 August 2020 ↗“Presently, the facility of national portability of ration cards under “One Nation One Ration Card plan” is seamlessly enabled in an integrated cluster of 24 States/UTs w.e.f. August 1, 2020, covering approx. 65 Crore beneficiaries (80% of total NFSA population)”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2020, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 377 words (UPSC limit 250) · Minimalist IAS
The 2020 lockdown made visible a workforce that policy had seldom counted. Left without wages, food or transport, migrants walked home, asking what a state owes its mobile poor.
Stakeholders
- Migrant workers and families; employers and contractors; host and home states; district administrations; civil society.
Ethical issues in the migrant crisis
- Life, livelihood and dignity: a sudden lockdown removed work, food and shelter overnight for the poorest; many set out on foot.
- Invisibility as injustice: those who built the cities had no registry, local ration card or shelter where they worked.
- Conflicting values: public health required stopping movement; liberty and welfare required safe passage home; the burden fell on those least able to bear it.
- Failed duties: unpaid wages, vanished contractors, patchy food and shelter en route, and rumours that bred fear.
- Mental agony: fear of starvation and an unharvested rabi crop.
What an ethical care-giving state means
Ethical care-giving state
- Care as a duty, not charity: Joan Tronto's four elements of care, shown above, are its test; Gandhi's talisman is its method: ask whether a step helps "the poorest and the weakest".
- In 2020: free grain for 80 crore people under the PM Garib Kalyan package, Shramik trains that, the Supreme Court recorded, charged workers no fare and gave food and water, and its direction to record migrants at "village level, block level and the district level".
- Portability: from 1 August 2020, One Nation One Ration Card let ration cards work across a cluster of 24 States/UTs.
How civil society can mitigate migrants' suffering
- Immediate relief: community kitchens, ration kits, water and footwear along highways, medical camps, coordinated with the district control room.
- Information and voice: helplines in local languages, registration of stranded workers and rumour control.
- Rights: legal aid for unpaid wages, help in claiming rations and cash, and trauma counselling.
- Reintegration: linking returnees to MGNREGS and skilling, and a migrant database with panchayats.
- Lessons for my relief force: a migrant register, stocked shelters, coordination with neighbouring districts and trained volunteers.
Attentiveness must come before the crisis: a migrant counted, with portable entitlements, need not walk home. Building that register with panchayats and civil society is the lasting lesson of 2020.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.