After a traumatic lockdown in 2020, India's migrant factory workers have headed back to work and on worse terms than before. Struggling with new levels of denial of entitlements, workers respond by withdrawing from their fragile hold on formality, moving instead further into the informal sector. Based on voice notes recorded on Saajha Manch, a phone-based community media platform, the paper examines workers' experience that their efforts to claim their rights lure them into a quagmire in a bureaucracy which sucks their energy while assuring no clear outcome. Seeing evidence of failed enforcement and structural inequality all around them, workers conclude that the law is not meant for them and hence show little interest in the new labour codes hastily enacted at the height of the pandemic. The paper highlights the dysfunction of the formal sector in delivering to its low-waged workers who remain unserved in spite of registration and documentation in place. As they join the ranks of informality, however, migrant factory workers do not lose interest in associative and contentious activity. On the contrary, freedom from the bureaucracy of rights may be a boost to new forms of struggle.

中文翻译：

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印度封锁后的“盲法”和维权移民产业工人的官僚主义

在 2020 年遭受创伤性封锁之后，印度的外来工厂工人重返工作岗位，而且条件比以前更糟。与新的剥夺权利的水平作斗争，工人的回应是从他们脆弱的正规部门中撤出，转而进一步进入非正规部门。基于电话社区媒体平台 Saajha Manch 上录制的语音记录，该论文调查了工人的经历，即他们为争取自己的权利所做的努力将他们引诱到官僚机构的泥潭中，这种泥潭不仅消耗了他们的精力，而且还没有明确的结果。看到执法失败和周围结构性不平等的证据，工人们得出结论，该法律并不适合他们，因此对在大流行高峰期匆忙制定的新劳动法没有兴趣。该文件强调了正规部门在向其低工资工人提供服务方面的功能障碍，这些工人尽管有登记和文件，但仍然得不到服务。然而，当他们加入非正式的行列时，农民工并没有失去对结社和有争议的活动的兴趣。相反，摆脱官僚主义的权利可能会推动新的斗争形式。