As we now appear to have successfully completed the first phase of mitigating the coronavirus epidemic by managing a miracle of locking down a 1.3 billion strong nation, we are now confronted with an even bigger challenge of trying to reignite an economy that was already suffering even before the virus had hit.

The Covid-19 epidemic is a crisis but one that is pregnant with opportunities if we can handle it correctly.

The biggest game-changer event for us is the way the post-covid world will look at our greatest economic adversary that is China.

As China had moved a decade earlier and has a ruthless state with, if not more, surely a clear agenda of the economic dominance of the world, it had shut the door on India as far as capturing the world market is concerned. So, even though we have a matching population, our most ambitious aspiration was to become a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024 (while at this point China is almost 2.5 times that).

But, if Chinese economy deflates even marginally and first world governments across the world pump back money into systems to revive their economies as they have started to do, there is a strong possibility that a gap will be created that, if India can occupy, would make the 5 trillion dollar target a possibility even with this setback.

While this looks to be a good opportunity on paper, the real key to this is held by people who, at this point, are either stranded in the cities desperately wanting to go home or are at home in the villages and cowering under the Armageddon story that we have sold to the masses to keep them at home.

Indian economic revival is possible only and only when the migrant labour that runs our industries at every level, from the smallest SME to largest manufacturing giants return to the cities and start working.

India and China have one common strength and that is having a massive amount of migrant labour with really low cost of living and it is this labour that is subsiding industries in both nations.

We may think that our banks are lending money that runs of industries, but the actual reality is that it is migrant labour that is capable of surviving on almost nothing that is running our industries and even agriculture by offering their blood and sweat as a subsidy that we all benefit from.

While India and China can both boast the migrant labour advantage, the real game-changing difference between both is the way the state can control this labour. As an autocracy, China can mobilise the villagers from hinterland with an iron fist, but Indian democracy can’t and MUST NOT take the choice away from these people about what they want to do.

So, if we want our economy to restart, we have to find a way to ensure that the migrant labour would return to work willingly, and by choice.

The best possible way to lure the migrants out of their village homes and return to the cities is simple.

Let’s offer them homes in the cities.

If we look at the way the Indian industry is currently dealing with migrant labour, it is not difficult to smell exploitation. It is rare for a migrant labour to be able to settle down with a house that he can call home in a city.

The way our real estate market has operated, buying a decent home is a dream that is difficult to realise for even a person doing a white-collar job, so even after working for years in the city, a migrant remains a migrant.

If we want real industrial development that can catapult India to capture world market, the biggest need of the hour is to improve lives of the migrant labour and settle them in the cities by proactive policies that encourage Economic Weaker Section (EWS) housing. If we can improve the quality of life of migrant labour, it has the potential to change the work culture and even improve the quality of our production.

Boosting of the EWS sector on urgent bases will also help in recirculating money in the system, a key to the immediate revival of the economy.

1st of May that the world celebrates as International Workers’ Day or Labour Day is just ahead.

Indian government can use this auspicious day to start massive nation-wide EWS housing projects by taking institutional entities like CREDAI in the loop.

Government can help in getting suitable land while all large trade organisations linked to each industry can come forward to build these projects.

If there is a chance to get a home in the city, migrants would really get tempted to return as soon as possible.

We admit or not, but we have not treated the people that have toiled the most for keeping our economy on the move. We owe our growth to every man and woman who has come from his/her village home and has accepted a life under a tarpaulin sheet.

About time we pay them back.