Ivan Mutharatt 

The whole world is turning to a new life track to travel amidst the novel coronavirus or Covid-19. The struggle to cope up with this situation is embarrassingly bleak for India. Every single citizen of our country, in one way or the other, is being thrown into this weary situation. All ought to reach the other side of the river, so to say, but sadly all are not swimming together; the trained or the capable ones are crossing the river and others are continuously drowning in it. Therefore, in this beautiful cosmos, we are divided even in this crisis situation rather than working together in co-operation and collaboration. Though we have already learnt the need of a web of relations and reaping its benefit opportunely so far, yet humanity has conveniently forgot its need as we are waging war against this pandemic. Here the words of Kenneth Blanchard, author of One Minute Manager might inspire everyone: “There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.” From top to bottom one could hear only excuses during this pandemic, and these excuses have become dark clouds that dim the positive way out of it.

All are affected; yet among the most hit sections of the society during this pandemic are migrant labourers. They must have found it difficult to lead a meaningful life back in their home towns and villages due to lack of work and opportunities, so naturally they migrated to cities to earn their living. However, their weary souls were firmly rooted in their families and relations in their ancestral villages. This was proved as the first phase of lockdown began on March 25, 2020 when the first priority of migrant workers all over the country was to somehow get back to their homes and loved ones; it is the same case even today as we are in the first phase of unlock 1.0. Hence migration or reverse migration is nothing else than finding a way for the meaning of one’s existence; if meaning cannot be found in the place of birth then in some other cities, and if one particular city cannot render it then move to another. At this crisis, they are unable to find meaning either in the cities or in their own villages. Thus finding meaning in life and migration have an inseparable relation. Though peace-providing holy places remain closed, and all governance seems to be deaf and blind, yet humanity has a collective responsibility to rejuvenate the life of everyone.

Migration and reverse migration are characteristic phenomena of the world. It is an irony that the sad fate of most migrant labourers began in April and it was intensified profoundly in May, a month when we celebrate the feast of St Joseph, the worker. The Church commemorates this day to promote work as life more than as an activity. Interestingly the same day is considered as the International Labour Day to show labour or labourer bringing spring to the life of the whole world. This is the highlight of this present discussion. The whole humanity works not in the sense of activity like gym, game, etc., but to extend meaning for its life. As we traverse through the Holy Bible, the first thing we see is that God created the world. It was not merely an activity of God but extending or sharing His life to the cosmos. As one reads the NT one can hear the words of Jesus, “My father is still working, and I am also working”(Jn 5:17). God created the world as a work of love, and even Jesus comes to this world as work of God, the Father, because work includes knowledge and love, which brings joy to life. As St John’s gospel puts it “for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Therefore, God extended His work further through His Son Jesus and He is still extending it through the Church. Hence, every apostolate of the Church is meant to extend this same work of God. Is the Church aware of it? Is she executing it as an extension of God’s manifestations?

A. L. Basham, with uncompromising scholarship, writes in his book The Wonder that was India that “epidemic and other disasters together with seasons have tended to fatalism and quietism, accepting fortune and misfortune without complaint.” However, he highlights the point that “no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane.” Nevertheless, the reverse migrations of the last two months bulldozed the antique culture of India. There were also pandemic, epidemic, natural calamities and even rift between social institutions in early times; however, the then existing high volume of man to man and man to State shouldering helped Indians to come out of it — not negating existing mild sporadic cruelty and oppression in the name of different types differences. The era of Covid-19 is witnessing the overturning of every aspect of our culture. Though we learnt the need for a network of religions, political ideologies, cultural diversities etc., and for a better life in this cosmos, we showed less sensitivity to the agony of the weary souls. The migrant tragedies are mirroring this fact without the need for elaborating different incidents.

On the one hand, the State was almost deaf to it, and on the other, the Church failed to show sufficient empathy towards the migrants, which could have further extended the work of God, giving life in abundance. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). It is true that the Church did some works of mercy to the miserable folk during the lockdown period. However, the Church has to show supplementary empathetic social and spiritual movements now in this unlock period to be the merciful face of Jesus to this world joining her hand profoundly with other Christian groups, other religions and the State institutions. As all the social and religious systems failed we created yet another caste— the caste of Miserables, as Badri Narayan, director of GB Pant Social Science Institute writes in the editorial page of Times of India (June 3, 2020). India has indeed a very long history of distancing people socially with the social system of varnashrama dharma and in the modern time added many more stigmas under different names. Paradoxically, Covid-19 gave a universal sanction to this social system (used figuratively). Thus it was an opportune time to break the walls of ingrained varnashrama dharma of our social system; instead, we shap-ed a new amalgamation of the penniless, homeless, landless and the jobless into a new class of stranded migrants.

The exodus of migration is going to be a new brooding platform of inhuman and diabolic tendencies of humanity in the form of further exploitation of labour. Reverse migration would create a surplus of labour; the State and other agencies in the society will manipulate this situation in the form of cheap labour. Instead of making use of surplus labour for a better tomorrow, we may use it as a chance to dehumanize the afflicted—migrant workers who once begged for work in the city now start begging for life in their own home town. Here comes the role of the Church in serving humanity as Jesus’ heart rippled seeing the hungry thousands who were listening to Him. He never thought it was an opportunity to show his might but took it as an occasion to lift the life of the other from hunger. The present Church, so to say, has to be incarnated as a kenotic Church in every sense to serve humanity in this pandemic time in all the spheres of life. The future destiny of the Church hinges on how the heart of Christ reflects at the heart of the Church. The real face of the Church as of now is to give life to the jobless (lifeless), penniless, homeless, landless and hopeless who are in no man’s land during this reverse migration. Covid-19 should never be seen as an opportunity to show off the worldly power of the Church but as an occasion to be transformed towards an inspirational ventilator for the poor who are forced to face the hard-bitten cyclones of hopelessness, exploitations, deprivations and natural calamities— between Egypt and the Promised Land.

Remember that the people of God went through migrations and reverse migrations — sometimes organically and other times forcefully. One can consider Israelites’ migration to Egypt was a natural one due to hunger; however, other two migrations (to Assyria and Babylon) were coercive. Even in the NT, the Holy Family had to migrate to Egypt and then return to Nazareth. The common factor among all these migrations and reverse migrations was that there was someone as life jacket accompanying them to keep their hopes alive. In a few months’ time again the same migrants who walked days and weeks to reach home will start moving to some cities to earn their survival. Can the Church become life jacket for the migrant labourers? Can the Christian community emerge as a renewed people of God who care for the ill-fated group with an extra denarius without maintaining social distancing?

Until the arrival of novel coronavirus, humans were building another tower of Babel wherein they thought every progress was possible with their intelligence, and the universe existed for them only. Covid-19 pulled down this tower of Babel —social, political, cultural and religious might on the one side and inhuman social distancing on the other side — and the same pandemic inviting the Church of Christ to be merciful as her heavenly Father is merciful. This climbing down is a metanoia for the Church and it is possible only by reversing her priorities for the needy, migrant workers in particular because the God of Israel has delegated her now to be the salt and light of the world. As there is no official data about the migrants in the country, Professor Amitabh Kundu of Research and Information System for Developing Countries estimated for 2020 – a total of about 65 million inter-State migrants which is based on the 2011 Census, NSSO surveys and economic survey. A good number among them are working in the informal sector and the unemployment rate remains more than 23 percent in May 2020. The merciful Church of Christ has still enough fields to till and plant the tree of love. The Church in India which always worked for the emancipation of the poor in the past has to dust off her micro-development plans in education, health, and social institutions to emancipate humanity.

Nonetheless, the Church thinks she has done enough and is doing everything possible for our country, but in actuality, it is not. She has to take a U-turn from pageantry to commitment for the Church, and for Christians, love is not an option; but it is an obligation. Hence the present crisis of humanity is never an opportunity for her pageantry but an occasion for maturing her commitment. Or else the Church will be grounded forever like the aircrafts of today, yet with a difference. In this case, the Church has passengers on board ready nonetheless not able to make the takeoff. The invisible mass is now in our vicinity, look at them and feel the presence of unseen brothers and sisters. If not now, then when? Let the pilgrim Church lead the migrants (all weary souls) to cross the Red Sea to reach the Promised Land – the land of life and dignity. lf not, Jesus will say once again “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.”