India, April 19 -- A monumental and unprecedented exercise such as the national lockdown that began on March 25, and is still continuing, is bound to have unexpected and unforeseen consequences. This is more so in a country such as India where, apart from its sheer size and physical and social diversity, human occupations and economic practices aren't fully documented. Compared to countries in the West and the developed East which are compact and even codified and documented, there are patches of life in India that exist in a twilight zone between modernity and something else.
The lockdown, to cite the most prominent example, brought to the forefront the sheer scale of the migrant labour issue. Despite the progress made over the past few y...