On the move, without permits

For decades, the Chinese government was able to control the ebb and flow of internal migrants through a household registration permit...

For decades, the Chinese government was able to control the ebb and flow of internal migrants through a household registration permit called the hukou. All essential commodities, food rations in particular, were based on one8217;s status 8212; rural or urban. It was a way to ensure that Chinese citizenry stayed where they were born. Peasants were tied to their communes and urbanites to their industrial enclaves danwei. So, for example, when Mao needed an industrial push in the 8217;50s, party cadres were directed to overlook rural residence status and welcome migrants. However, during the great famine, as rations depleted steadily, peasants were dispatched back to their villages. The result: millions starved, as Beijing strictly enforced the hukou.

History repeated itself in the 8217;80s as Deng Xiaoping8217;s economic reform swept China. The necessity of high growth coupled with the reality of regional inequality compelled the Chinese government to overlook the hukou system. The valve was opened again and peasants were allowed through city walls. State rations were withheld, of course, but the state allowed rations to be sold privately to this 8220;floating population8221; generally between the ages of 15 and 35, which steadily created a parallel economy. By the 2007, China8217;s floaters numbered over 150 million.

There is little debate that it was these peasant hands that fuelled the Chinese growth engine and have, amongst other industries, built Chinese infrastructure. Sadly, rumours claim that in the prelude to the Olympics, Beijing, which houses some 4.5 million rural residents, is planning a crackdown and the expulsion of migrants to ease infrastructure constraints in particular, the availability of water. As a tactic, officials have already shut down schools for the children of migrants in the city.

Now, it is the Indian state and society8217;s turn to witness the socio-political impact of this large and imminent rural-urban migration which is accompanying our transition from the Hindu rate of growth to that of double digits. Our job will be harder since we have to contend with these issues in the context of a democratic set-up. We cannot, thankfully, ferry millions back and forth to their villages as and when it suits us. Indeed, the nation8217;s desire for 10 per cent growth from which city-dwellers have most to gain and labour requirements will dictate that pattern. Furthermore, the politically unacceptable but popular Raj Thackeray response to this issue will fail miserably in the long term because the hope of a better life is far stronger than the fear of retribution 8212; just ask the Mexicans or the Cubans who have for years taken on the American border security and coast guard.

The first step, thus, is the explicit acceptance that migrants 8212; not just Bihari migrants 8212; are here to stay. The second is to map and enumerate them. At the moment, there is little information on their numbers, the length of their stay, the services they avail themselves of and the parallel economy they are sometimes forced to remain within. This endeavour will legitimise their presence and will be the first step towards any policy solution.

Finally, the only way we can hope to make this migration temporary and perhaps, someday, even reversible, is by orchestrating fundamental agrarian reform. Indeed, agricultural reform in China preceded reform in other sectors, or arguably, was carried out simultaneously. One can speculate that China8217;s floating population would be much larger if rural reform had not occurred when it did. India is woefully behind in every aspect of agrarian reform. Structural changes overhaul of the public distribution system, higher remunerative prices for farmers and, yes, slightly higher food prices for urban residents are blamed on politics; and infrastructural ones rural electrification, to begin with are blamed on poor governance. Either way, as rural India lags behind, migration will continue apace.

We can either be prepared or be overwhelmed. The choice is ours.

The writer is a Delhi-based political economy researcher

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