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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The great migration, Kerala's silent revolution -Nidheesh MK

The great migration, Kerala's silent revolution -Nidheesh MK

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published Published on Nov 29, 2018   modified Modified on Nov 29, 2018
-Livemint.com

The recent Chhath festival in Bihar saw a visible thinning of the workforce in Kerala, clearly the ground zero of India’s mass labour movement

Eroor (Ernakulam):
Oh, I miss Vicky!,” Ravi says, in Malayalam, as he rolls up his sleeves. He is walking quickly back to his house from a protest—that quintessential Kerala activity. Breathing in the pungent chemicals of Kochi’s industrial belt in Eroor as he walks, Ravi (who did not wish to reveal his surname) keeps obsessively talking about his children who are alone at home, since his wife had also gone out. “If Vicky were around, I would have no worries,” Ravi says. “He would have taken care of my kids. His wife even grooms my daughter’s hair every day before school. I wish they return soon”.

For the record, Vicky is a trustworthy neighbour. But he may as well be from another world.

Vicky comes from a small village 2,600km away in Bihar. After escaping from a loss-making farm in Bihar, he operates machinery in a local factory these days. But home has a curious pull, no matter how far one travels. And every Chhath puja season—to the mild annoyance of Ravi—Vicky makes the annual month-long trip back home, along with thousands of others.

In another corner of the city, the Chhath exodus causes troubles far graver than the absence of a free babysitter. The season spells trouble for the Kochi Metro construction work, which is fast approaching a deadline.

“We have noticed that many labourers are disappearing in bulk during particular times of the year, like Chhath,” says a labour contractor who did not want to be identified. “We now try to know the festival days of the northern states in advance in order to plan accordingly, so that our work is not interrupted,” he adds.

These anecdotes are, in fact, snapshots of a society in flux. Kerala is going through a sea-change in its labour force and society, which may hold important lessons for much of India. As a clutch of relatively richer south Indian states begin to age, even as much of the Gangetic belt is projected to see population increases at least till the mid-2030s, Kerala is at the vanguard of an oncoming wave of mass labour movement—and the associated social stress and anxiety.

Nearly 7-9% of Kerala’s middle- and lower-income workforce vanishes during Chhath, says, Manish Sabharwal, chairman of TeamLease Services, a staffing and recruitment agency. Out of the migrant worker population, about 9.5% is from Bihar and an estimated 60-70% of them go home during Chhath, he adds. One out of every fourth adult male between 20 and 64 in Kerala is likely to be an inter-state migrant, according to a 2013 study by the state’s labour department. An estimated 2.5 million people from outside the state call Kerala home. Such sizeable numbers are only a reflection of what migration researcher and IIM-Ahmedabad assistant professor Chinmay Tumbe calls “the great Indian migration wave”.

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Livemint.com, 28 November, 2018, https://www.livemint.com/Politics/B2krjrdQ1N149CvxtNAplL/The-great-migration-Keralas-silent-revolution.html?fbclid=IwAR3NrXd7CNBkC4G2iSSbZRlhVgbLXgVOtMBKiTI4cj-G0z8hac


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