WHEN the 21-day nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 24, I could no longer sell fruits in the city. The police would beat me up, even if I opened the thela for a minute. As weeks went by, all of us lost hope of resuming business," says Shyam, a 39-year-old migrant worker living in Chedda Nagar, Ghatkopar, requesting that we not publish his second name. Across this dense shanty town, where thousands of migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra villages reside—several of them Dalit like Shyam—the exodus began in early April. "With no income, we were desperate to go home and started raising money together for our journeys. The alleyways in Chedda Nagar are demarcated according to the caste of its residents, but the pandemic had broken the social barriers and people accepted help from all avenues." Days before he thought he would put a padlock on his unsteady door and start the journey home, Shyam started experiencing mild symptoms of cough and cold. "While those from my own community helped look after me, the upper caste neighbours raised an alarm. They made a complaint to the BMC. These were the same people who had offered us monetary help just a few weeks ago. Sahi kehte hain ki musibat mein apne biradari ke log hi kaam aate hain," he remembers.

Caste is deeply ingrained in India's social system. But an emergency like the Coronavirus-led pandemic challenged it, it seems. Badri Narayan, a social historian and director of the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute (GBPSSI) in Prayagraj, has conducted a study to understand how the lockdown has influenced caste dynamics. "Along with a group of students and researchers, our team of eight started studying the behaviour patterns of migrant workers in mid-May. The team interviewed 215 migrants from the Dalit, OBC and upper castes, who had returned from Mumbai, Delhi, Surat and Pune to UP and Bihar. Our research lasted for 25 days," Narayan informs.