We need to recall the arrival scene of the Bangladeshi migrants who had returned from abroad for a vacation, and in some cases to take shelter against coronavirus fears, during March 2020. The testimonies of the travellers explored various experiences of travel in different routes/airports, and showed how these narratives shaped the category of the “remittance fighter.”
We also need to comprehend the experiences of the men and women passengers who travelled to Dhaka airport, and their reactions to being labelled as “suspected victims” of corona. They were from Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
Narratives of entry into Dhaka airport during the corona crisis show how, with the arrival of the migrants, there was a transformation in the scale of those entering desh (home) and who were not easily able to enter.
Further, we should link this situation to how the Bangladeshi state homogenizes different classes, genders, regions, and religious groups into the category of “corona suspect.” The efficiency in preventing coronavirus through quarantine, forcible inoculations, provisions of adequate food, living facilities, and general amenities, is meant to standardize the description of the arrival of people at the airports.
However, many Bangladeshi passengers demanded to be provided adequate facilities for their kids and women rather than staying in the unhygienic conditions of the temporary quarantine centre, and immediately demonstrated protests with the authorities and positioned themselves as “remittance fighters” in front of the media.
I would like to say that this return to Bangladesh was more than just boarding an airplane and crossing the immigration. Rather, it was an experience of hardship and fearful encounters. Airports like Dubai and Dhaka are places where Bangladeshi migrants, especially those from Italy, discovered their new identities, holding corona-free certificates and being forced to confront the prejudices that arose from immigration authorities exercising their power and questioning those who had to show their medical identities.
The identification of the Indian passenger as carriers of germs and disease during their arrival is a prelude to the larger medical discourse that Bangladeshi migrants are subjected to when they arrive in Dhaka.
Bangladeshi-Italian migrant workers are forced to live in cramped and unhygienic camps because of the lack of suitable accommodation. But the health authorities, including the foreign minister, made derogatory comments, saying that the expatriates wanted luxury rooms for institutional quarantine.
Thus, for the expatriates in Ashkona Hajj Camp, the most humiliating part of being subjected to the quarantine rule, which includes disrobing and being examined in public, was the indignity of standing in the same line with the women and kids, and being denied meals even if they were kids.
Expanding on this narrative, we need to focus on two sets of questions: First, how did the Bangladeshi returnees see themselves in the airport on their way from Italy via Dubai/Doha to Dhaka. Secondly: What rules did the government offer in this process of quarantine? In their accounts of returnees, one can see from a video clip that there were long queues not maintaining social distancing.
One needs to observe their anger and protests against all kinds of irregularities. One also needs to seek the causes behind why the expatriates chose to come back during these pandemic times in the first place. What were their expectations from Bangladesh, and to what extent did the reality (once they arrived at the Hazrat Shahjalal Airport) match their expectations?
For the first time, the Bangladeshi expatriates became deshi others at the hands of their own authorities in public spaces. No one paid attention to their long journeys and miserable travel with kids and almost no food. They were persistently arguing that they had no corona symptoms with medical examination certificate in transits.
And their “remittance fighter” identities were shocked when the authorities forced them to endure that unhygienic quarantine centre. Eventually they were free to go to village homes and required to maintain 14 days quarantine. Thus, Dhaka, though full of hardship and hassle for the returnees, was still considered a “sweet home.”
By apprehending this emotion, I reiterate the main argument, which is to understand the very specific processes through which the “out groups” were suspected by both authorities and the mass people.
The very act of landing brought the returnee travellers under surveillance and record-keeping, and created very specific stereotypes of expatriates, especially from Italy. Some anthropologists suggest that “place” and “location” become highly complex, as do questions concerning movement. They are true for physical bodies or things across geographical space, shifts in identity in different locations or social mobility within local and global hierarchies.
From post-colonial perspectives, travel involves a series of trajectories and encounters within diverse spaces. Shift the gaze to internal movement. For Bangladeshi migrants or working and middle class people, travelling to their homes is increasingly becoming common in order for these people to take shelter. Very recently, more than 50,000 working class residents have been forced to leave Dhaka due to unemployment and many other uncertainties due to the pandemic situation.
But this kind of movement is not permanent displacement, and it is not linear. Similarly, for Bangladeshi expatriates, the workplaces of Europe, North America, or the Middle East are not definitely linear; rather, they are ambivalent. Many are returning to their worksites.
Searching for permanent “homes” has led the people to go back and take shelter during Covid-19 uncertainties. Equally, they search for “better futures” living in Dhaka city or bidesh (foreign land, away). After coming back from abroad, especially from Italy in early March to Dhaka, many Facebook friends wrote several notes. I quote one of these:
“The greatest ever mistake our expatriates made in this corona crisis was to come back home. And the second great mistake was that they returned home without following the institutional 14-day quarantine rules. And thus they spread the virus quickly.”
Very few people justified why they should go back home:
“There is nothing wrong in their decision, irrespective of the ‘general holiday’ during the pandemic situation. They have every right to enter their motherland/home villages as many foreigners are moving into theirs. Thus the ‘mistakes’ are just interpretation, justification, and perception of others.”
A convincing argument proceeds for the majority of the people of Bangladesh who did not accept the “outsiders” who are residing out of their home villages. A Facebook friend showed his anger in this way:
“I am afraid the ‘outsiders’ will be responsible for spreading coronavirus in near future. Why not? They were coming all the way from high-infected countries like Italy and the epicentres of Dhaka and Narayanganj. They were carrying the virus. I think, whether they are infected or not, it’s totally a matter of fear. No single answer."
My Facebook friends may be talking about the spread of the virus from the possibility of epidemiological perspectives. For livelihoods and better futures, people have started moving abroad. Again, “home” can equally be frustratingly “suffocating,” and temporary. Thus we are continuously falling into a binary trap: Home and away; here and there; desh and bidesh.
Perhaps it is impossible to locate one authentic, safe “home.” There are various meanings of “home” to the migrants. The migrants inhabit many lands because these lands have a set of practices, relations, livelihoods, and memories. This is often considered being stable and safe.
The place people return to, however, seen through a different lens and with the perspectives of migrants in mind, can be much more complicated. For the majority of Bangladeshis, both at home and abroad, life is a journey, a constant movement.
If life’s a journey, one might ask, how does travelling mark where one belongs during this pandemic? Where is home? The answers are complex; involving considerations of a variety of uncertainties arising during and after the Covid-19 disaster.
Zahir Ahmed is Professor, Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, and Member of Anthropology and the Proliferation of Border and Security Walls Task Force to American Anthropological Association (AAA).
