Jharkhand Journal of Development and Management Studies XISS, Ranchi, Vol. 19, No. 2, April-June 2021, pp. 8771-8784 THE QUEST FOR A SEPARATE VIDARBHA STATEHOOD DURING AND POST COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A REFLECTION Pradnyasurya Shende1 The demand for a separate Vidarbha State is a long lasting one in India. It is remembered to provide constitutional guarantee to the regional backwardness. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the question of regional disparity at the forefront. The paper is built largely from the secondary data and literature on the subject domain. It attempts to present the historicity of Vidarbha’s backwardness and explores post Covid-19 pandemic implications for statehood demand of Vidarbha in the forthcoming reverse migration crisis. Key findings suggest that the persisting development backlog has kept the bar of backwardness at a high level in the Vidarbha region and reverse migration caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has also long run adverse implications on the demographic dividend. Therefore, breaking the deadlock of the reverse migration crisis would serve as an initial step towards ensuring justice to the regional development in general and demand for separate Vidarbha State in particular. Keywords : Separate Vidarbha statehood, Backwardness, Reverse migration, Regional development Introduction The demand for a separate Vidarbha State is a long-lasting one in India. This article attempts to answer the two questions such as how the reverse migration crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic can be understood by using the experience of Vidarbha’s backwardness? Will an attempt to break this deadlock serve be the initial step towards ensuring justice to the question of regional disparity in general and demand for separate Vidarbha state in particular? So, the study becomes an important to know the historicity of Vidarbha is backwardness. The COVID-19 is a serious global health crisis of the 21st century. Its first publicly acknowledged outbreak was in December, 2019 due to direct exposure in a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan city of Hubei Province in China (Kannan, Ali, Sheeza & Hemalatha, 2020; Sahoo, Mandal, Mishra & Banerjee, 2020). Soon after it was declared as Public Health Emergency of International Concern during second meeting of 1 Doctoral Research Scholar in Social Work at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai,India-400088 Email: [email protected], pradnyasurya.shende201 @tiss.edu This paper is based on the review of literature of ongoing Doctoral Research Study titled 'Interrogating Demands for New States in India: Locating the Vidarbha Movement in Contemporary Politics.' 8771 8772 Shende International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee convened by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General on 2020, January 30 and global pandemic on 2020, March 11 by WHO (World Health Organization, 2020; Chauhan, 2020). The first case of COVID-19 pandemic in India was reported on 2020, January 30 (Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) in Kerala. Following this, lockdown in the entire country was announced on 2020, March 24 by the government of India. Initially, it was for a period of 21 days (Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) which was extended till 2020, May 31. The government has classified 130 districts as red zones (Hotspot area), 284 districts as orange zones, and 319 districts as green zones, on 2020, May 1. All 11 regions of Delhi and other metropolitan cities, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata were marked as red zones (Nair, 2020; Sahoo, Mandal, Mishra & Banerjee, 2020). Alongside this, borders were sealed, transportation got stopped, factories, shops, restaurants and all types of economic activities were shut, barring only the essential services to avoid inconvenience for the citizens (Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) and resulted into “mass exodus of migrant workers from destination centres (primarily urban) to the source centres in an attempt to escape the starvation and dwindled access to essential items” (Sikdar & Mishra, 2020, p.3). Eventually, it has proved to be a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers. They had lost their livelihoods overnight and became homeless (Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020). The shutting-down of all types of economic activities during COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a labour/employment market deadlock. Now, migrant and informal sector workers are in dilemma whether they will retain previous jobs, how would they sustain their families and take care of children during and post COVID-19 pandemic with and without job, what would be the future of their family and children in post COVID-19 pandemic etc. These anxieties even become grave when India’s quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has constantly fallen down since the fourth quarter of Financial Year 2018-19 (The Economic Times, 2019) on one hand and regional development disparity is continuously fueling migration on the other hand. Review of Literature The 64th Round of NSS (2007-8) shows that nature of migrant workers is either temporary or seasonal. Statistically speaking, 21 out of every 1000 migrants are classified as temporary or seasonal migrants The Quest for a Separate Vidarbha Statehood During and Post Covid-19 8773 (Government of India, 2008b; Keshri & Bhagat, 2013; Rajan, Sivakumar & Srinivasan, 2020). The regional disparity, lack of job opportunity, or underemployment source centres, as well as chronic poverty, weak education system and skill mismatch, etc; are primary reasons for a high internal migration in India. Furthermore, destination areas do provide them employment opportunities. However, a disproportionate share of these labourers more often than not, reside and moreover, they work as informal workers in dismal conditions. After all, they manage to have none or very small amounts of savings. However, these small savings meant they did not have a ‘buffer’ to deal with the ‘short term uncertainties’ brought on by the pandemic (Sikdar & Mishra, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has “caught countries across the world off guard, resulting in widespread lockdowns that clamped down on mobility, commercial activities and social interactions” (Rajan, Sivakumar & Srinivasan, 2020, p.1) and “brought on by sudden collapse of employment and lack of effective social protection mechanisms” (Sikdar & Mishra, 2020, p.3). Adding to this, COVID-19 pandemic has already crept deeper into the labour market. It has caused widespread disruptions across the globe. It has affected supply chain and demand and caused labour markets to shrink. The disruptions in production have created ripples in the bottom of the chain. It has affected the labour and resulted in deeper shocks and vulnerability. Similarly, all business entities regardless of the volume of business were forced to stop and resulted in job losses in most of the sectors. Even they did not get sufficient time to send their employees proper intimation notice. Most of them even did this via social media platforms. This has acted as labour market shock that has deeply impacted the migrants (Rajan, Sivakumar & Srinivasan, 2020). The pandemic has triggered a severe ‘crisis of mobility’ in India. The migrant labourers in many major cities were looking for returning to hometowns. Moreover, their desperate attempts to return home by any means available condensed the lockdown ineffective in several areas. Indeed, this could be seen in prompting clashes with authorities, last-minute policy relief and, eventually, the arrangement of transport measures (Rajan, Sivakumar & Srinivasan, 2020). The migrant workers have faced various challenges. Some of those immediate effects are related to food, shelter, loss of wages, fear of getting infected and anxiety. As a result of this, thousands of them have started fleeing from various cities to their native places. Moreover, many migrants have lost their lives either due to hardship on the way, hunger, accident or comorbidity and some even committed suicide (Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) due to various types of helplessness. 8774 Shende The sudden lockdown also stranded many migrants in different cities of the country. Despite this, some of them have dared to leave for native villages. Prior to this, they didn’t even think much for travel plans. Those who were travelling were stuck up at stations or state or district borders and waited for public or private transport to get them boarded for native villages and get clearance from the administration respectively. Many were forced to walk hundreds of miles on foot (India Today, 2020; Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) alone or with or without family with or without carrying minimum luggage required for the sustenance to reach their home villages finding no public transport. The migrant labourers, those who managed to reach their native villages, were seen as potential carriers of the infection. Moreover, they were ill-treated by the police and locals and underwent several scrutiny, interrogation and harassments also from neighbors, friends, relatives etc. Adding to this, cases of social boycott, abuses, and assaults were also gone unreported in the country. Similarly, a group of returnees were sprayed with chemicals to disinfect them for which the local administration apologized (India Today, 2020; Bhagat, Reshmi, Sahoo, Roy & Govil, 2020) for their action. The phenomenon of reverse migration will affect different states differently. For example, local workers may benefit