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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Because India is on the move-Priya Deshingkar
-The Indian Express


Internal migration has risen, and for good reason. Policy must shift to support internal mobility, not control it.

As India undergoes the transition from a predominantly rural society to one that is urbanising rapidly, there are inevitable flows of people from rural to urban areas. One set of perspectives tells us that this increase in mobility should not be unexpected; after all, classical modernisation and economic development theories do predict a shift of people out of the "labour surplus" rural sector to the more dynamic industrial sector where wages are higher. On the other hand, more structural perspectives point out that this transition in developing countries has been far less smooth with most migrants, especially the poor, ending up in the informal sector and living in slums. This negative view of migration was further reinforced by dependency perspectives, which view migration as a desperate act of people pushed out by rural distress and exploited by urban and industrial capital.

These floating workers, so the argument goes, have nowhere to go and no prospects to improve their lives. The literature on migration and rural development in the early 1980s further cautioned us about the loss of labour in agriculture resulting from migration, seeing it as a net loss for rural households and production. The logical conclusion of these arguments was that more must be done to create employment in rural areas and discourage migration. Indeed, India can boast of some of the largest programmes in the world on rural employment, watershed development and agricultural development, many of which have tried indirectly to stem migration. At the same time, urban development plans have tried to keep migrants out and have done little to accommodate the growing tide of migrants in terms of providing access to social protection, cheap housing and access to health and education.

Yet, despite all of these measures, migration has continued to grow and is likely to continue in the context of population growth, climate change, urbanisation, economic crises and conflict. There are other reasons for migration too, including an aspiration to experience modern lifestyles in urban areas and a desire to move out of agriculture. Those at the bottom of the social ladder in rural areas may find urban labour markets less demeaning, despite the hardships faced, and for many women migration can be a way of escaping restrictive social norms and sexual harassment.

Rather than viewing migration as a problem, there is a need to recognise that internal migrants make a huge contribution to the Indian economy; rough calculations based on the figures of workers in different sectors such as construction, transport and domestic work indicate that this is around 10 per cent of the national GDP. Migrants also help their families back in the village by sending remittances, totalling up to around Rs 10 billion - vital for poor families in securing access to better nutrition, education, health and housing. But sadly, most poor migrants in urban areas are battling a variety of risks and costs that compromise the benefits of migration to themselves and their families. Clearly, the need is to support such migration rather than controlling it, so that people can reduce the costs and risks of migration and maximise its benefits for their families and future generations.

The recent report on "Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India" spearheaded by Unesco makes a strong case for such a change in policy. The report highlights the fact that despite the larger numbers of internal migrants in India compared to international migrants (three out of every 10 Indians are internal migrants, with anything up to 100 million people circulating between origin and destination), there have been few serious efforts to recognise the positive contribution that they make, and the difficulties they suffer, because of the negative policy context. The report calls for a comprehensive and dedicated system of policies, institutions, legal frameworks and practice to support and protect internal migrants.

The report discusses 10 key areas for better inclusion of migrants and a number of interesting initiatives at the grassroots level that have emerged in support of each of these. The areas are: one, registration and identity and to facilitate access to programmes and prevent harassment; two, political and civic inclusion to enable migrants to participate fully in the political process and be recognised as citizens; three, labour market inclusion to allow migrants to participate in labour markets more productively through skills enhancement and better linkage with government departments; four, legal aid and dispute resolution, to improve migrants' awareness of their rights and better equip them to demand rights; five, inclusion of women internal migrants, in recognition of the fact that women migrants are invisible and discriminated against; six, inclusion through access to food, by facilitating migrants' access to the PDS; seven, inclusive housing to ensure that migrants have access to cheap and secure housing; eight, educational inclusion, to ensure that the children of seasonal migrants do not face a future similar to their parents because they cannot go to school; nine, public health inclusion, to ensure that migrants, especially women and children who are prone to communicable diseases, are given access to healthcare; and finally, financial inclusion to help migrants save and remit money cheaply and safely.

At the moment, these areas are being addressed in a rather patchy way through small-scale experiments that, although commendable, need to be upscaled or learnt from to inform the design of larger programmes for impact at the national level. Hopefully, this report will provide the necessary impetus to speed up the process towards a more comprehensive approach to the inclusion of internal migrants in India.

The writer is research director, Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, University of Sussex, UK