INDIA recorded its highest daily total of Covid-19 infections so far today — after easing lockdown restrictions at the weekend.

Its 5,242 new cases bring its infection total to 96,000, Asia’s highest. Authorities say the surge in infections is down to the return of millions of migrant workers to their home villages.

The mass human migration was sparked when lockdown was imposed on March 25, with many employers abandoning their staff and servants expelled from their employers’ homes. Millions were stranded when the government closed state borders, but these were subsequently reopened. 

More recently the authorities have put on special trains to take workers to their home states following campaigning by opposition parties, with the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) saying the “barbaric” conditions in which workers were left to trudge thousands of miles to their places of origin were responsible for disasters such as 16 migrant workers being crushed by a goods train in Maharashtra.

Small shops and other businesses were reopened in several states, including New Delhi. Metro services, flights, schools, shopping arcades, colleges, hotels and restaurants continued to remain closed nationwide. But factories have been reopening, and the CPI-M said that this has “not been accompanied by the required safety measures and environmental concerns,” further accusing the government of seizing on the pandemic to attack labour law.

The party was one of seven that signed a letter to the president this month warning that states including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have increased the maximum working day from eight to 12 hours. 

“The state government of Uttar Pradesh has suspended all labour laws except three, for a period of three years. The Madhya Pradesh government, similarly, announced a cabinet decision to exempt all establishments from obligations under all labour laws for a period of 1,000 days. The fundamental right for the workers to organise themselves into unions is also being gravely threatened,” the letter states.