The ones who stayed: How migrant workers stranded in Delhi fear for their futures

Deaths of scores of workers who fled major cities during India’s coronavirus measures have rightly led to public outcry. But the lockdown has been no less brutal for millions who chose not to make the journey, as Adam Withnall reports from Delhi

Afsana (right) collects food rations provided by a charity in eastern Delhi. She says her family has fallen into debt during the lockdown, and doesn't yet know if her mother will have work when it ends (Adam Withnall/The Independent)

Afsana was just a baby when her father died, and her mother took her from Assam to seek employment and a new life in the Indian capital Delhi.

They made a home in Jaitpur Extension, a neighbourhood to the east of the city populated mostly by migrant workers and daily-wage labourers, and her mother found work as a home nurse for rich families. They had been getting by OK, for almost 20 years, until India went into a nationwide lockdown overnight on 24 March.

Despite public appeals by celebrities and politicians for households to keep paying salaries to their workers, and for landlords to waive rent during the pandemic, in the case of Afsana’s mother, neither complied.