NITI Aayog’s Draft National Policy on Migrant Workers

 The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) recently published its draft national policy on migrant labours.

Highlights

• The policy was prepared in association with the working subgroup of officials and members of civil society.
• This draft policy is inspired by the rights-based approach which gain momentum during the return migration of around 10 million migrant workers from cities to their respective village during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.

Facts regarding draft national migrant labour policy

• The draft migrant workers policy describes two approaches regarding the policy design.

1. The first approach focusses on cash transfers, special quotas, and reservations for the labours.
2. The other approach seeks to enhance the agency and capability of community. Thus, in turn removes any of the aspects coming in the way of natural ability of the individual to prosper.

• The policy further rejects the handout approach and opts for a rights-based framework.
• Policy also seeks to remove the restrictions on true agency and potential of the migrant workers.
• The policy was formulated with the goal of “not providing any temporary or permanent economic aids as well as the social aids”.
• The policy further maintains that, “Internal Migration should be considered as an integral part of the development and government’s policies should be formulated in such a way that it facilitates the migration”.

What was the need of new policy?

This draft policy was formulated in the light of flaws in the existing laws. A report of 2017 also stated that the migrant workers should be integrated with all other workers so as to overarch the exploitation of workers by contractors. Further, in India the size of the unorganised sector is huge so a comprehensive policy was required to provide them a social protection.

Providing migrant workers a political voice

 The economy has been opening up and many migrant workers have started going back to their jobs, but this issue must not be relegated to the margins. It’s time migrant workers get the respect, protection and rights they are entitled to as citizens.

Niti Aayog has formulated a draft national policy on migrant workers. According to a report in The Indian Express, the policy, prepared in consultation with seven ministries, civil society organisations, and international institutions, proposes instituting mechanisms to “enable voting” for migrant workers because their political inclusion will enhance political accountability. It also suggests setting up inter-state coordination mechanisms between states to facilitate migrant movement; making migrant wings a part of labour departments; and getting source states and destination states to work with each other.

The migrant crisis, triggered by the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic, saw, according to official figures, over 10 million migrant workers returning home. The pandemic also revealed the fact that the Indian State doesn’t have adequate data and information about this large pool of citizens. This was quite astonishing since migration has been an integral component of India’s political economy, and the presence of migrant workers routinely places additional demands on basic infrastructure in destination towns and cities.

The Niti Aayog draft, which will now be sent to the labour ministry, en route to Cabinet and Parliament, has several excellent workable ideas. A key issue is creating political incentives — the fact that migrants are spread out, and may not end up voting in either source or destination states, means that they have often been underestimated as a political constituency. Enabling their political voice will be key to making them effective stakeholders and forcing the system to take their interests on board. The economy has been opening up and many migrant workers have started going back to their jobs, but this issue must not be relegated to the margins. It’s time migrant workers get the respect, protection and rights they are entitled to as citizens.

Source: Hindustan Times, 21/02/21

On India, a fracture in the diaspora

 The Indian-American community is increasingly divided on political, religious, and generational lines. India will find that the more polarisation grows at home, the more its diaspora will become polarised, and one of the country’s strongest foreign policy assets will be increasingly less so.People of Indian origin constitute one of the largest diasporas in the world, residing in at least 200 countries. The stock of Indian migrants has almost tripled over the past three decades, from 6.6 million in 1990 to 17.9 million in 2020.

The benefits of leveraging the diaspora for India’s economic and foreign policy goals have been recognised for decades, but even more so since Prime Minister (PM) Atal Behari Vajpayee initiated the first Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in 2001. But no leader has courted his country’s diaspora as assiduously as PM Narendra Modi.

Diasporas, however, have a Janus-face. The acts of migration and living abroad affect identities — ethnic, religious, and those of national origin. One of the largest Indian diasporas — and certainly the wealthiest and most influential — resides in the United States (US). Yet, we know little about how Indian-Americans view India. How do they remain connected to their ancestral homeland? And how do they regard political changes underway in India?

The Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), a nationally-representative survey of Indian-Americans we conducted in September 2020, found that this population is, by and large, quite connected to its homeland through family and social networks, culture, and politics. However, the nature and intensity of this connection varies substantially. Indian-Americans born outside of the US are much more likely to report a strong connection to India compared to those born in the US (see figure).

Further, IAAS finds that Indian-Americans support more liberal positions in the US and more conservative ones in India on an array of contentious policy questions. This could be a case of “when in Rome do as the Romans do,” or the reality that a group’s attitudes differ according to whether it perceives itself to be part of the majority or a minority community.

IAAS demonstrates that there are also inter-generational and partisan differences on political and social changes underway in India. Indian-Americans are divided on India’s trajectory. While 36% report that India is currently on the right track, 39% believe it is on the wrong track — with those born in the US less optimistic. IAAS respondents are also markedly more pessimistic than the Indian population at large. According to a July 2020 Ipsos survey, 60% of Indians reported that India was on the right track.

Modi enjoys substantial support among Indian-Americans. But views on Modi suggest a modest partisan tint. Republicans give Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the highest approval, although Democrats also rate them favourably — well above the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. However, the religious divide is striking. Almost seven in 10 Hindus approve of Modi’s performance, while just one in five Muslims do. Indian-American Christians are almost evenly divided. However, Modi’s popularity among the Indian-American community is considerably weaker in the US than in India. While he enjoyed a 19% net favourability in the IAAS survey, a Morning Consult poll conducted in India concurrently with our survey put this number at 55%.

It is evident that the divisions that animate Indian society also manifest within the diaspora. In particular, Hindu Indian-Americans hold very different views on domestic politics and policy in India compared to their non-Hindu counterparts, on average. Moreover, the second generation — those born in the US — are more liberal than their immigrant parents.

These divisions foreshadow a more fractured, less homogeneous Indian-American community. The political polarisation infecting both India and the US appears to be seeping into the diaspora. Furthermore, polarisation among Indian-Americans has troubling implications not only for the community’s role within US politics, but also for its role as the lynchpin of India’s “soft power.”

For better or worse, diaspora communities today have more mechanisms at their disposal to call attention to issues of interest in their home countries. The digital revolution and the diffuse nature of foreign policymaking in the US multiply opportunities to pressure the host country.

All of this is occurring at a time when India is facing grave foreign policy challenges. In recent years, the US has ranked among India’s most significant bilateral partners. For its part, the Indian-American community has played the role of bridge-builder, best captured by its lobbying for the India-US nuclear deal.

The rise of the second generation of Indian-Americans, with weaker emotional and personal connections to India, was bound to diversify the diaspora’s views. And so it is possible that sections of the community will urge US politicians to ramp up pressure on India, rather than deepen the partnership. Former US Senator Arthur Vandenburg once warned his colleagues that politics must stop “at the water’s edge”. Today, that norm appears a distant dream.

India will find that the more polarisation grows at home, the more its diaspora will become polarised, and one of the country’s strongest foreign policy assets will be increasingly less so.

Sumitra Badrinathan (University of Pennsylvania), Devesh Kapur (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies), and Milan Vaishnav (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) are the authors of a new report, How Do Indian Americans View India? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey.

Source: Hindustan Times, 10/02/21

Migration: A compulsion, not a choice

Tuesday dawned with the harrowing news of fifteen migrant labourers, from Banswara in Rajasthan, sleeping by the roadside in Gujarat’s Surat district, mowed down by a speeding truck. The tragedy which happened near the Kosamba village, around 60 km from Surat, was apparently due to the driver losing control over the vehicle after hitting a sugarcane-laden tractor.

There is more to this tragic event than what meets the eye. It is a wakeup call to understand the plight of the victims and their ilk. It is time to understand the misfortune faced by lakhs of migrant labourers who seasonally flock the towns of Gujarat from southern Rajasthan in search of livelihood. The real story here is the narrative of criminal inequality of social groups with historically deprived positions finding themselves in extremely disadvantageous spots even after seven decades of independence.

A study by Aajeevika Bureau, a non-profit entity working with the migrant labourers, estimates more than 4,00,000 migrant labourers from tribal-dominated southern Rajasthan districts reach Gujarat every year in search of livelihood and work under severe wage differentials and unequal access to basic human amenities.

The Scheduled Tribe population along with the Dalits falls in the bottom-most rung among all the diverse labour population in the urban centres of the country as per the report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector brought out by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector in 2007. The agrarian situation in southern Rajasthan makes the situation more worse for the labourers from this region with many cases of bonded and child labour reported in the past. The form of bonded labour is more nuanced with the labour supply linked to a workforce provider in the source areas who pay money in advance to the family in lieu of the wages. The requirement for money often necessitated due to farming needs or for the medical treatment of a senior member in the family, who most probably would have been a migrant labourer himself.

The vicious cycle of intergenerational transfer of debt along with the historic impoverished condition of the tribal community of south Rajasthan has found little or no tangible solution from the policy makers. Even if there has been any effort, it has found only mentions in the budget speeches of successive governments and in official schemes often not percolating to the real beneficiary.

The worrisome aspect for the government and for every sensible citizen must be something more. With time, even after intervention through MGNREGA, the nature of the labour market segmentation of the region remains social identity-based. This also leads to inequality of wages and working conditions.

The recent Code of Wages passed in August 2009 will have more severe consequences for the lives of lakhs of migrant labourers from southern Rajasthan working in Gujarat. The Act claims to consolidate and codify the four major wage-related legislation of the Minimum Wages, Payment of Wages, Equal Remuneration and Payment of Bonus on the pretext of simplifying them for compliance and coverage.

Lack of focus of policymakers irrespective of governments on internal migration was at play with ample glare after the announcement of lockdown in India in March last year. Migration as a form of livelihood has been more a story of compulsion rather a monetary choice for the labourers of south Rajasthan. However, the impact of the meagre remittances received by the families in poor villages back home has often been a strong incentive for the younger lot to abandon schools and take the bus to Gujarat. The region is covered under the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) area in Union Budgeting for special financial and scheme privileges. The TSP mode which has been diluted substantially after the winding up of the Plan Budgeting further clouds the possibility of any improvement in the lives of people in the region. While labour migration continues unabated, there seems little chance for the Adivasi communities of south Rajasthan to migrate out of poverty in near future.

 Written by Santosh Koshy Joy

Source: Indian Express, 21/01/21

Movement of peoples in South Asia calls for building solidarities, collective action

 

Shared-destiny of migrants in the region has become all the more prominent during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The failure of state mechanisms to provide a modicum of income support, social security benefits and healthcare to migrants was glaring.

Labour migration is a central phenomenon in South Asia, where a large number of citizens of various countries in the region (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan) are continuously on the move, essentially in search of a living. While a good chunk of these job seekers move within their countries, some of them travel across borders.

The countries in South Asia have many commonalities in their migration profiles. Internal migration is a striking feature for all South Asian countries. In recent decades, intensified poverty and widening inequalities have been propelling large-scale urban-bound migration from rural areas. Though employment prospects and higher wages boost such migration, the most palpable driving force is the deepening employment-crisis in rural labour markets. The recent spike in rural distress throughout the region is destabilising the erstwhile rhythms of seasonality in rural-urban migration. Landlessness, debt-bondages and farmer suicides have increased considerably. In some countries, socio-political tensions, climate change and resource-depletion have compounded the agrarian crisis.

Familial/societal norms based on deep-rooted patriarchal values shape the patterns and trends of women’s migration. The governance frameworks of migration in South Asian countries are also influenced by gendered notions. The controls imposed on women’s migration range from banning migration for certain categories of employment to keeping job-specific age-restrictions for women. Even in countries like Sri Lanka, where women migrants outnumber their male counterparts in the international migration stream, the situation is not different. The recently introduced Family Background Report (FBR) system in Sri Lanka stipulates that the women obtain clearance from a local official. Due to restrictive practices, women’s migration (especially international migration) is considerably low in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. In other countries (Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) such restrictions are found prompting employment-aspiring women to take illegal routes. Often, these undocumented migrants fall prey to pernicious practices of illegal recruiters, including trafficking and sexual abuse.

GCC countries are the most prominent migrant destinations for most South Asian countries, with the exception of Maldives and Bhutan. In the Gulf countries, migrants from different parts of South Asia are found competing for jobs by mutually under-cutting wages and accepting deplorable working and living conditions. In many other destinations (for example, Jordan, Singapore), workers from different South Asian countries share work-conditions and worries.

Inadequate support from the state to facilitate informed and rights-based migration is yet another feature of South Asian countries. Most of these countries do not even have reliable data on migrants. Inadequate social security systems, absence of effective protective legislations and regulatory systems are also common features.

Shared-destiny of migrants in the region has become all the more prominent during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The failure of state mechanisms to provide a modicum of income support, social security benefits and healthcare to migrants was glaring.

Large scale migrant-receiving countries in the region like India, Pakistan and the Maldives can ensure that immigrants from their South Asian neighbours are provided fair conditions at work. Ensuring dignity to intra-regional migrants also requires considerable efforts in terms of establishing peace within the region and finding amiable solutions on long-standing disputes around legality and citizenship of cross-border migrants within South Asia.

These countries could collectively negotiate with major migrant-receivers like the GCC countries. For this, there is a need for reviving larger solidarities in the line of SAARC. Strengthening of protective frameworks, including labour laws, and signing/honouring of relevant international labour conventions and guidelines on migration are equally important.

This article first appeared in the print edition on September 10 under the title “We The Migrants.” The writer is Dean, School of Development Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi and lead author of the recently released ‘SAAPE South Asia Migration Report, 2020’.

Source: Indian Express, 10/09/20

India needs a new rural-centric development model | Opinion

Go back to Gandhi, Kalam, and Deshmukh; use technology, create jobs; issue self-reliant village bonds

Migration has accelerated exponentially over the last decade in India. Current estimates of the total number of migrant workers range from 72 million to 110 million. India has the second-largest migrant worker population in the world, second only to China. One in four workers in India is essentially a migrant. The lack of authentic data on their numbers, their living and working conditions and perpetual uncertainty in their livelihood prospects have been brought in to sharp focus with the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the best effort of both the central and state governments, the mass movement of nearly 10 million migrant workers has brought into sharp relief the urgent need to shift to a new paradigm of economic development and urbanisation in which migration under economic distress or due to the lack of amenities is brought down. This can be done if we can convert the Covid-19 crisis into an opportunity to rethink and reimagine our development model. Fortunately for us, an alternative model that minimises migration is available in the works of Mahatma Gandhi, the late president APJ Abdul Kalam and social activist and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh.

The aspiration for self-reliant development at the village level began with the Gandhian model of swaraj. From the time of his return from South Africa, Gandhi immersed himself in village movements in Champaran (1917), Sevagram (1920) and Wardha (1938). He visualised a comprehensive programme of constructive work, which included economic self-reliance, social equality and a decentralised political system at the village level.

For Gandhi, the model of self-reliant villages was the basis of a free democracy. He declared, “My idea of village swaraj is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbours for its own vital wants, and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is a necessity.” His was not a model of a closed economy and a village economy perpetuating itself at the lower levels of income, but one in which local populations could be employed locally but with rising incomes and higher productivity. It is not well known that in his quest for technological improvement, Gandhi had put out an advertisement for a better version of the charkha in British and Indian newspapers in 1929, and even offered a handsome reward of Rs 1 lakh for it (about ~2.5 crore today).

Kalam, the missile man, had his own model called Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA). His vision was to develop rural India through a cluster development system where 50-100 villages with common competencies and/or mutual markets could be horizontally or vertically integrated as PURA complexes. These villages would be linked through “four connectivities” — physical, electronic, knowledge and economic. The goal was to provide income and quality of life opportunities to all within PURA complex. While some rural-rural migration would be acceptable, rural to urban migration would be minimised. He envisioned 7,000 PURA complexes at the cost of Rs 130 crore per unit built through public-private partnerships.

Deshmukh called for self-reliant villages based on a model of integral humanism where harmony was also a pivotal force. In his work across 500 villages in India, especially in the Chitrakoot area, the successful implementation of the model called not just for zero unemployment and no one below the poverty line, but also zero internal legal disputes and no widow being denied remarriage. In Deshmukh’s model, the collective social consciousness that promoted collective well-being was considered to be a cornerstone to next-generation rural development.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi implemented the model of rurban development when he was chief minister of Gujarat. This was sought to be replicated at the pan-India level through the launch of the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission in 2014. The model follows a cluster development design to create social, health, education and economic infrastructure across villages.

In order to make 650,000-plus villages and 800 million citizens self-reliant, technology will have to play a critical role. We need to create a rural knowledge platform through active collaboration between the public and private sector. This will provide the expertise to take cutting edge technology deeper into villages and generate employment. Today, the Internet and artificial intelligence are being used extensively around the world to facilitate sustainable agriculture. Large-scale and real-time data collected from farming practices and collated with global price and production numbers can be used to offer more profitable choices to our farmers.

In a survey of urban migrant workers, 84% of them reported that their primary source of livelihood in their villages was casual work. Only 11% stated that agriculture was their primary source of income. This indicates that there is a need to create jobs in rural areas far beyond just augmentation of agriculture. In fact, agriculture itself will shed jobs with the addition of technology.

To finance this ambitious re-engineering of our development model, Atmanirbhar Village bonds could be issued to raise resources. Part of the mandated priority sector lending by scheduled commercial banks could be used to finance these bonds. We need to prioritise self-reliant village projects to be funded from such lending. We need to create a fresh curriculum in engineering, medical colleges and business schools to train the workforce to operate in villages.

The capacity of India’s youth to innovate needs to be unleashed in villages. India needs to build the nation, village upwards and not city downwards. We need to eliminate the division between Bharat and India. This can be achieved bringing Gandhi’s and Kalam’s ideas of developing a rurban India to the centre of the development model.

Rajiv Kumar is vice-chairman, NITI Aayog

Srijan Pal Singh is CEO, Dr Kalam Centre, Delhi

The views expressed are personal

Source: Hindustan Times, 24/06/20

Don’t discriminate against non-resident migrants | Opinion

Create a legal regime that allows them to access safety, shelter and welfare services on equal terms as residents

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi recently announced that India must become Atmanirbhar (self-reliant). One aspect of this could be that India will remove barriers within its internal markets to truly become a single market. It will remove the hurdles to efficiency improvements and become more competitive. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was a step in this direction. Recent decisions to remove hurdles in inter-state agricultural trade are also similar. For agricultural and industrial products, as well as capital, India is increasingly becoming a single market. The creation of a barrier-free domestic market is also an intent reflected in Article 301 of the Constitution.

However, there is one market where frictions are being added rather than reduced. This is the labour market. For different reasons, leaders from out-migration and in-migration states have made statements suggesting that there may be more impediments to the inter-state migration of workers. Some states have announced preferential treatment for workers from within the state. Others have spoken of instituting an approval system before allowing their workers to move to other states, in the backdrop of how they were treated.

There are compelling reasons for internal migration in India.

First, India has much higher economic differences across states than comparable countries — with the per capita income of the richest large state (Haryana) being more than six times that of the poorest state (Bihar). The wage gap between states is as high as 100% for regular workers and 250% for casual workers. It is, therefore, no wonder that workers from the poorer states migrate to richer states for work. As of now, the best option for many poor people looking to escape poverty is to leave the states they live in, because of economic opportunities in richer states. This movement is difficult since the cost of living is also higher in richer states. However, millions still migrate and brave squalid conditions in in-migration states because they need livelihoods.

Second, some of the poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have younger and larger populations, with many more workers than work opportunities. While these states must develop their economies, in the short-term, migration is an essential component of development for them.

Third, India’s growth has been largely services-led. For most services, the availability of physical labour is essential. For services such as cooking, driving, hairdressing and security, there is a need for workers to be physically present to provide the service.

While beneficial for migrants, migration also has negative implications. Migration can put downward pressure on wages in richer states, with the increase in the supply of workers. This creates an incentive for regional and local leaders to generate anti-migrant sentiments, and to promote policies that favour local workers. This dynamic is not very different from the one seen in international migration — after a point, a political economy develops to oppose migration.

Throughout India’s history, states have enacted laws and measures that are discriminatory vis-à-vis non-resident migrants. Many state laws discourage or prevent non-residents from applying for government jobs or other professions that require government licensing (auto, taxi licences), or deny them the benefits of educational reservations. Other laws, prevalent in some states of the Northeast, regulate the entry of non-residents within the state. Yet another category of laws prevents non-residents from owning property (such as in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and others). The Union government has recently announced “One Nation One Ration Card” because non-resident migrants are currently ineligible for many state welfare schemes.

Even though Article 19(1)(d) of the Constitution guarantees free movement and residence, states have enacted “reasonable restrictions” to disfavour non-resident migrants. Article 16 outlaws discrimination in employment on the grounds of residence, but the criteria for determining reservations is usually linked to local demographic characteristics. The courts have also largely upheld positive discrimination in employment and education that nonetheless discriminates against non-residents. They have upheld not just residency as a ground for eligibility for jobs and educational seats, but also the charging of differential capitation fees based on residency. In doing so, courts have generally privileged the equality interests in the Constitution at the cost of free movement and residence.

While such measures ostensibly serve to protect local constituents, they inhibit migration and thus the law of comparative advantage from operating to the benefit of in-migration states. Bengaluru could not have become a hub for information technology if it had imposed restrictions on the movement of skilled professional migrants who eventually settled in the city. Contrary to nativist sentiments, Karnataka’s population has been a net beneficiary of this in-migration because of the increased contribution of Bengaluru to Karnataka’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) besides the value of diversity.

This benefit is not limited to skilled or high-end services. To the extent that Bengaluru’s economy powers Karnataka’s growth, a migrant hairdresser working in Bangalore is also important for the state’s economy. This was evident recently when the Karnataka government wanted to prevent migrants from leaving for their home states because of their importance to the construction industry. It is, therefore, time to seriously re-examine the legal framework that inhibits the movement of migrants across the country, and prevents them from accessing safety, shelter and welfare services on equal terms as residents.

KP Krishnan is a retired bureaucrat and Anirudh Burman is an associate fellow, Carnegie India

The article is co-authored with Suyash Rai, a fellow at Carnegie India, New Delhi

Source: Hindustan Times, 22/06/2020

Create opportunities for migrants back home

Many of the migrants who have returned are, in fact, craftspeople. Crafts provide the second-largest source of livelihood in India and are a source of employment even in the most remote parts of the country.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, in his latest Mann Ki Baat, acknowledged the suffering of “underprivileged labourers and workers”, saying, “their agony, their pain, their ordeal, cannot be expressed in words”. What does the future hold for those migrant workers who have managed to get back to their villages?

For now, the only prospects of work these migrants who have gone back have are agricultural labour or work under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). With all the skills they bring back with them, this is the time to upgrade the MGNREGS work and widen its scope so that lasting assets are created. Some of those assets will also create jobs.

Will the workers stay in their villages or will they return to the cities once the coronavirus pandemic is no longer an ever-present threat? Historically, urbanisation does seem to be the universal trend as economies develop. China has gone in one generation from a primarily rural to an urban nation. In 1980, one in five Chinese citizens lived in the countryside. Now more than half live in urban areas. There is, however, an important difference between China and India. China adopted a policy of building urban housing specifically for rural migrants. In India, migrants have drifted into cities where they have had to fend for themselves. The result has been that these slums are now, inevitably, proving to be coronavirus hotspots. In Mumbai, more than 40% of the population lives in slums. In fact, Slumdog Millionaire made the sprawling Dharavi slum so famous it became a tourist attraction. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Mumbai has such high figures for infection.

Now the PM has promised to build affordable property for migrant workers to rent. However, the problems of land and land values, finding suitable locations near work sites, clearing slums, and managing properties will prove to be obstacles.

In spite of the pull of urbanisation, many migrants have said that they are so scarred by their experience in the aftermath of the pandemic that they will never go back to the cities. This may not be a bad thing. It will rebalance the population so that villages are no longer emptied of young men. And because there would no longer be an endless supply of labour in the cities, those who employ migrants will, at last, be forced to value their workers.

Young people staying at home could provide the opportunity to revive rural economies too. Of all the sectors that have the potential to provide rural employment, agriculture and craft are the two most obvious examples. Many of the migrants who have returned are, in fact, craftspeople.

Crafts provide the second-largest source of livelihood in India and are a source of employment even in the most remote parts of the country. Fifty per cent of artisans are women. Crafts create little or no carbon footprint. They preserve an important element of India’s traditional culture. Unfortunately, however, they have been ignored by economists. No reliable database of craft activities has been created. Mahatma Gandhi recognised this neglect of artisans as a problem and said that if recognition and encouragement were not forthcoming, we would be guilty of strangling them with our own hands. Giving the prestigious CD Deshmukh lecture at Delhi’s India International Centre, Ashoke Chatterjee, former executive director of the National Institute of Design and adviser to the Crafts Council of India, said, “This lack of awareness has meant that the development of crafts has not been given any priority.”

Once again, artisans have been largely ignored in the measures announced to cope with the crisis created by the pandemic in the address by the finance minister. Giving crafts their rightful place in the economy will provide livelihoods that will provide villagers with the opportunity to stay at home.

Source: Hindustan Times, 6/06/2020

The disenfranchised migrants

In India, where internal migration is a hard reality, a significant number of migrants are unable to vote

The idea of ‘one nation, one election’ is back in the public discourse and has invoked varied responses. Amidst the discussion on elections, one issue that hasn’t received much attention pertains to the fate of the migrant voters. Internal migration is a hard reality in India and in every election, a significant number of voters are rendered disenfranchised on account of residing outside their constituency. The idea of simultaneous elections is likely to deprive migrant voters of their political agency at both Central and State levels.

Setting time aside from their busy campaigns, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah reached Ahmedabad to cast their votes. After exercising his franchise, Mr. Modi said, “I feel blessed to have exercised my franchise in this biggest festival of democracy.” In contrast, a migrant from Bihar residing in Chennai said: “When I was working in Delhi, it was not much of an issue for me to go to my home town to cast my vote. Now that I am working in Chennai, that option is not open for me any more. Thus, I am not voting this time.”

According to the 2011 census, 45.36 crore Indians are internal migrants — now settled in a place different from that of their registered residence. Among them, 5.1 crore migrants moved only for economic reasons. Our general elections have earned the distinction of being the biggest festival of democracy because they have the highest number of registered voters. The 2019 Lok Sabha elections clocked a turnout of 67.11% — approximately 60 crore of the 90 crore eligible citizens voted. Of the more than 30 crore voters where weren’t able to vote, migrant workers constituted a major proportion. Hence, at least a third of our electorate continues to be on the margins when it comes to participating in the general elections.

The promise of adult franchise

India’s ‘stellar’ democratic record is primarily attributed to the right of every adult individual to become a stakeholder in the political process through the exercise of her right to vote, without any discrimination. However, over time, the practical difficulties of conducting multiple elections as well as a lack of political and bureaucratic will have exposed the chinks in the election process itself, particularly, when it comes to giving this right to the huge number of internal migrants.

In a country where internal migration is a reality — those moving to a different place include the daily wage earners as well as the white-collar workers, not to mention the students moving to a different location —such exclusion is baffling to say the least.

The current legal regime regulating voting poses a cruel dilemma before a migrant who is forced to choose between earning her livelihood and exercising her right to vote. Clearly, the regime is out of sync with the economic reality of the nation, where there is a high degree of internal mobility If the degree and range of electoral participation is a key metric to assess the democratic nature, so long as the representation of electorate continues to be skewed in this manner, the country has a long way to go before it assumes the title of the ‘most representative and inclusive democracy’.

An argument raised against the inclusion of internal migrants is that after leaving their home constituency, migrants discontinue their ‘real’ association. When weighed against the proactive measures to grant voting rights to non-resident Indians or external migrants from India, this argument ceases to hold sway. The government has already introduced an amendment to the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to allow proxy voting for overseas voters but no such provisions are in place for the internal migrants.

Logistical issues?

The Election Commission of India (EC) has time and again cited logistical issues as the principal reason for not supporting the inclusion of internal migrants. Clearly, such a view is constitutionally, legally and ethically on shaky grounds. The ECI must be more proactive in extending the right to vote to internal migrants. This can also help infuse a sense of belongingness and political responsibility in the migrant electors.

Extending the right to vote to internal migrants has the potential to alter the nature of our elections and provide the much-needed credibility, uniformity and representativeness to the electoral process, and surely this is where solutions that are offered by Information Technology have huge potential.

We need to ensure that the universal adult franchise provided by the framers of the Constitution does not remain a pious declaration of intent. The ultimate aim was to empower each and every citizen to become a stakeholder in the progress of the nation. Hence, there needs to be a constant review of the inclusive character of our electoral processes in India. Given the significance of this section of voters like every other section, the idea of ‘one nation, one election’ must be deliberated upon in such a way that it empowers the migrant populations.

S. Irudaya Rajan is a professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala; Prashant Singh is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India

Source: The Hindu, 30/08/2019

Migrants aren’t streaming into cities, and what this means for urban India

If Indian cities have become successful in turning away migrants, we should see that as the first sign of their demise, not their dynamism.

“Stop migration into cities.” These were the words of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during last week’s budget speech, even as she — confusingly — called urbanization an “opportunity rather than a challenge.”

A call to stop rural-urban migration should alarm, but not surprise us. The FM’s statement is grounded in three powerful myths that have persisted for decades in India and continue to cloud the vision of our policymakers and politicians. These myths must be debunked.

Myth 1: Rural migrants are flooding into Indian cities

According to the government’s own data, surprisingly few rural Indians are relocating to cities. Between 2001 and 2011, net rural-urban migration stood at about 20 million people. In China, the only country in the world of comparable size, migration alone swelled the urban population by 177 million in the first decade of the century. In fact, the rate of migration into cities in India has remained essentially stagnant since the 1970s — even after liberalisation unleashed a wave of economic growth.

Contrary to the popular imagination of migrants flooding into megacities like Mumbai and Delhi, India’s urbanisation is increasingly driven by the conversion of villages into towns through natural population growth and local shifts in employment — i.e. the creation of census towns — and the majority of these settlements are not on the fringes of the country’s big cities.

Myth 2: Migration is bad for cities and the country as a whole

Migration is the hallmark of a dynamic economy where people have the resources to move to the places where their skills will be best utilised. Because it facilitates labour market matching, migration is better for both people — who end up with higher wages — and businesses — who end up with more productive workers. Migration enables specialisation, which in turn fuels trade and economic development.

Perhaps what the finance minister meant was: No one should be forced to migrate due to destitution or extreme poverty. We would agree. At the same time, to suggest migration is a social ill that ought to be “stopped” misses the forest for the trees. Even China, with its draconian limits on people’s movement, has not succeeded in controlling migration, because in a dynamic economy the benefits of migration are too great for people to ignore.

Myth 3: Rural development will stop migration

For many decades, governments in developing countries have presumed that investing in villages will keep people from leaving them. They have been proven wrong. Development and migration are complements, not substitutes. As it turns out, when people have better health outcomes, more education, and higher incomes, their capacity to migrate increases. For this reason, rural development programmes may decrease distress migration in the short-run — with fewer people moving to escape extreme poverty — but they will increase migration in the long-run — as people obtain the resources, skills and capabilities necessary to compete in urban labour markets. This is why high-income rural Indians are more likely than their low-income counterparts to migrate permanently to cities.

We should absolutely invest in rural India, and the government’s commitment to this is laudable. But even if we succeed in boosting agricultural productivity and empowering rural youth, we will continue to confront the dire need for better governance in India’s cities — perhaps even more so.

So, where does this myth-busting leave us?

We would be wise to examine why rural-urban migration in India is so low. In a recent JustJobs Network report, Partha Mukhopadhyay and Mukta Naik provide a compelling explanation: Even though rural-urban wage differentials are high on average, casual workers in Indian cities do not earn much more than their rural counterparts. Rural migrants show up in cities only to find themselves earning little, enduring poor-quality living conditions, and getting no support from the state while they search for regular employment that would pay more. Eventually they return home or get locked into a cycle of seasonal migration.

If cities have become successful in turning away migrants, we should see that as the first sign of their demise, not their dynamism.

The situation points to multiple issues that we must address if we expect urbanisation to generate economic development and good jobs: Low productivity in urban economies, hostile living conditions for the poor, and limited access to basic social entitlements among migrants. Sensible, evidence-based solutions have been proposed to tackle these challenges: Empowering municipal governments, jumpstarting investment in rental housing, ensuring portable social protections. Some of these the government seems to be taking seriously, which is a sign of progress.

But the first step is for politicians and policymakers to acknowledge, once and for all, that migration propels the things that make economies successful—labour market matching, specialisation, innovation.

Migrants are part of the solution, not the problem.

Gregory Randolph is executive vice-president of the JustJobs Network and a doctoral student in urban planning at the University of Southern California (USC). Sahil Gandhi is visiting fellow at Brookings India and post-doctoral Scholar at USC.

South Africa’s new Indian migrants

For India-South Africa relations to take shape, we need to move beyond Gandhi and the Indian diaspora

Walking through the former Indian township of Lenasia (south of Johannesburg) in November 2017, we met a Nigerian migrant listening to a Hindi song. Curiosity led to a brief conversation and he told us that while he could not follow the lyrics of the song, he found the music enthralling. Within minutes of the conversation, we met the friend from whose phone the migrant had copied the song. He told us that he had arrived less than a decade ago from Surat and works at a mobile shop in Lenasia.

The close links between India and South Africa from the perspective of migration is well known. There is vast documentation of historical migrant streams — from the arrival of indentured labourers in Natal in 1860 to the arrival of Indian traders after 1880. Durban, in particular, is known to host one of the largest concentrations of the Indian diaspora. Data from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) show the population of Overseas Indians in South Africa in December 2018 to be over 1.5 million: 60,000 Non-Resident Indians and 15,00,000 Persons of Indian Origin.

The invitation to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief guest for India’s Republic Day celebrations this year has put the spotlight on two important pillars of bilateral ties: Mahatma Gandhi’s connection to South Africa, and a large Indian diaspora. President Ramaphosa’s visit assumes significance as India celebrates the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi. In June last year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to South Africa honoured 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the 100th birth anniversary of Nelson Mandela, and 125 years of the Pietermaritzburg train incident.

Drivers of business

Little, however, is known about the new migrants to South Africa’s shores, like the Gujarati migrant we met in Lenasia. Why is the figure of the contemporary Indian migrant critical to consider, and should it be differentiated from an older diasporic Indian population in South Africa?

Post its democratic transition, South Africa witnessed an influx of migrants from developing countries such as Mozambique, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Lesotho, who came to the country in the hope of social and economic success. These migration streams are reflective of wider shifts in global migration trends, of South-South migration emerging rapidly as a viable alternative in comparison to the costs of migrating to the Global North, or as an intermediate stop in further pursuit of migration to the Global North.

Indian migrants are driven to South Africa because of cultural relatedness and the presence of networks from the home country. In the Gauteng province, for instance, Indian migrants first arrive in areas with existing Indian concentrations, such as Fordsburg, Lenasia, and Laudium. Fordsburg is well known as one of the most vibrant places in Johannesburg, for its iconic Oriental Plaza and variety of street foods, halaal shops and Indian sweetmeats. New Indian migrants have set up businesses here alongside Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Egyptians. It is not uncommon to see Malawis assisting as cooks in dhabas (eateries) run by Indian and Pakistani migrants. The migrants have been critical drivers of businesses and employment generation in these and various other neighbourhoods.

Raman (name changed), who hails from Mumbai, and runs a telecommunications business in South Africa, remarks about setting shop in Fordsburg: “I moved from India to Dubai for two years. When I was doing business in Dubai, most of my clients were based in South Africa. So then I said, fine, there is some potential in the country, and because people are buying so much from us, from Dubai, if I move to South Africa, it will be good exposure for me and for them to interact with me on a day-to-day basis... I have a more intimate relationship with them.”

On the one hand, the influx of migrant groups has resulted in the exchange of ideas, goods and cultures at a micro neighbourhood/street level. The African migrant who listens to Bollywood songs in Lenasia symbolises this. On the other hand, not all is pleasant among the new Indian migrants and the South Africans of Indian origin. Even as South African Indians grapple with the idea of India as their homeland, their idea of South Africa as ‘home’ has given rise to antagonism towards the new Indian migrants. Furthermore, Indian migrant traders, alongside Chinese traders, have been at the receiving end of xenophobic attacks and violence. China Malls, the Oriental Plaza and other trading spaces have witnessed violent burglaries and break-ins. Much of this is driven by hatred stemming from the perception that migrants are taking away the jobs of local South Africans.

The real story, however, is that migrants have made positive contributions to South Africa’s economy and society. In fact, cities like Johannesburg are driven by migrants. Yet, this receives little attention in mainstream policy discourse or in bilateral/multilateral relationships.

For robust relations

Recent developments signal some change. Speaking along the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, in March 2018, President Ramaphosa “urged South Africans to welcome and embrace foreign nationals from the [African] continent,” arguing that movement of people allows for new opportunities for business and learning. More recently, at the informal meeting of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders in Buenos Aires, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of the need for “smooth movement of labourers worldwide” in the context of managing labour relations in global value chains.

For India-South Africa relations to truly take shape in contemporary times, it is no longer enough to glorify the Indian diaspora or commemorate Gandhi’s role in South Africa, which have been the two key highlights of top-level foreign visits and meetings thus far. Contemporary India and South Africa need to recognise and harness the potential of new migratory flows. Only then can we realise our true strength as allies in BRICS or IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa). The emphasis on skill development, South-South cooperation, and people-to-people contact, significant as it is, cannot be delinked from cross-border flows of people, who are rapidly transforming the employment and migration landscape in both countries. At the same time, free labour mobility on its own is not enough; we need measures to safeguard and uphold labour standards globally.

Eesha Kunduri is Research Associate, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and Pragna Rugunanan is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Johannesburg. Views are personal

Source: Indian Express, 24/01/2019

The City’s Own

The centre and states must ensure that migrants are not denied dignity, rights

Prithvi Pankaj Shaw, whose original surname is “Gupta” and is based in Mumbai, hails from Gaya in Bihar. The 18-year-old cricketer has already broken most domestic records, before he was included in the Test team. However, there were reports doing the rounds recently about this talented boy being traumatised by certain nativist groups after he revealed his Bihari origins post his maiden ton, in the recently-held Hyderabad Test against the West Indies. Parallelly, an engineer and six plumbers of Bihari origin, working at a construction site in Vadodara, were beaten up for wearing lungis. All these incidents indicate a quintessential negative profiling of Biharis and Bihar. In the “metropolitan” city of Delhi, Doman Ray, a 32-year-old Dalit from the Katihar district of Bihar, got drowned while working in a Jahangirpuri sewer tank.

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The recent exodus of mainly Bihari migrants from Gujarat started when a Bihari labourer allegedly raped a 14-month-old girl in the Sabarkantha district of Gujarat on September 28. He was arrested soon after. But his dastardly act led to regional uproar and triggered a movement against Biharis and other north-Indian migrant workers. No doubt the incident was diabolic and shamed all right-thinking people in the country. The outrage may be genuine and not totally contrived. However, the Sabarkantha incident was indeed an aberration. The following outrage, therefore, can only be explained in terms of serious loopholes in the development model of Gujarat, the state which is now facing the crisis of overproduction.

Incidentally, the entire edifice of accumulation and super profits in the state is built around the migrant labourer, who faces dismal wages and poor working conditions. It is mandatory for the industries and employers in Gujarat to provide 85 per cent jobs to locals, but this was never followed because cheap migrant labour is available in abundance. The present problem of overproduction arose out of demonetisation, the absence of a new markets and a situation of almost stagflation. The consequent “banish migrant” movement in Gujarat is similar to the Datta Samant-sponsored strikes in Bombay during the early 1980s to bail out textile industrialists from the tangles of overproduction. One should also note that the efflorescence of Gujarat’s economy will not be complete without scripting the generosity of its industrialists towards its local employees, mostly at higher levels.

To dispel the stagnation in Gujarat’s economy, the news of a Surat-based diamond baron gifting 600 cars and 900 fixed deposit certificates as a Diwali bonanza to his employees, was highlighted. To give an extra punch to the event, it was so arranged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself handed over the car keys to those select few employees. There is, obviously, a clear contrast between the employers’ attitude towards local employees on the one hand, and the migrant labourers on the other.

Historically, in contrast to the present scenario, Gujarat and Bihar have had a close relationship. Not only were the nuts and bolts of the national movement worked out by M K Gandhi in Champaran, the conservative political figures of both the states shared a close relationship. Sardar Patel had supported Rajendra Prasad as the first President of India, even when Jawaharlal Nehruhad reservations about him. Later, in the Seventies, there was talk of Kanti Desai, son of Morarji Desai, fighting a parliamentary election from Begusarai in Bihar. Apart from close political equations with its associates, Gujarat was mindful of market cohesion, both national and international. The introduction of GST is also a powerful step towards the economic union of India. Thus, the recent “banish migrant” movement in Gujarat appears to be purely an anarchist exercise.

If the Indian Union is to function in a robust manner, it cannot allow centripetal forces to gain momentum. India has been home to two levels of nationalism, one pan-Indian and the other regional. Both have functioned parallelly without being in conflict. Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi or Bengali subnationalism peacefully co-existed with Indian nationalism. In contrast, a subnational anchor was missing in the Hindi heartland. In the process, the sense of ownership of the state was also missing. In Bihar, there are only two identities, caste or national. And most of the migrants from Bihar realise their subnational identity only when they move outside the state and are tormented by local goons. It is the responsibility of the central and respective state governments to ensure that migrants are not tormented thus. Otherwise, the Indian Union will not survive.

Source: Indian Express, 5/12/2018