We, the migrants

In terms of motivation, movement within regions and provinces of a country is no different from international migration.

In India, according to the 2001 census the number of inter-state migrants was 42.34 million, just 13.8 per cent of the total number of migrants, suggesting that a vastly greater number move between cities, villages, and districts within a state. The total number of migrants in Maharashtra from other states is over 7 million. The number of migrants from Maharashtra to other states is 2.16 million; thankfully, there is no threat to them.

There are issues of politics and economics arising from the present controversy:

8226; First, the concerns raised by MNS are no different from the apprehensions raised by countries where migrants land 8212; that migrants might usurp local jobs, upset the cultural cohesiveness of society, cause strain on civic amenities and infrastructure. However, successive studies have proved these fears to be grossly exaggerated. Migrants all over the world, and indeed in India, add value and create wealth for sustenance of a competitive economic order. This is equally applicable to more prosperous states like Punjab, Haryana, and Kerala.

Large areas of activities, in Maharashtra and elsewhere, are dependent on the skills and endurance of migrant labour and many of these would become unviable if flows were curtailed. Market forces will equilibrate between demand and supply in matching skills with emerging demands.

Policy planners no doubt need vision to expand and rejuvenate infrastructure, particularly in the planning of newer cities and satellite configurations.

8226; Second, the development impact of remittances by migrants, particularly in poor states, supports the needs of families left behind. This is particularly so because migrants are either relatively affluent people driven by the urge to improve the quality of life or exceedingly poor people seeking a modest livelihood. Catalysing remittances for capital-creating assets constitutes an opportunity for states from which migrants originate.

8226; Third, investment in human resources, particularly vocational training and skill upgradation, will improve the wages and remittances of migrant workers. Imaginative arrangements with large corporates, both public and private, will be mutually beneficial. Illustratively, if a substantial part of the workers in the new Reliance Jamnagar refinery are from Bihar, then training them in Bihar will reduce cost and improve productivity.

8226; Fourth, considering that intensive urbanisation has scarcely begun in India, the complexities of relocating large number of people seeking alternative livelihood outside agriculture need an imaginative policy matrix. States need to forge a greater social and political compact for responding to the challenges of greater interchange of people through shared mutuality of benefits between states of origin and states of destination.

Even if the endemic development deficits of demographically-dense states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are substantially bridged, migration will remain a reality. It will be driven in a large country like ours by wide variations in growth, demographic differentials, perceived opportunity, differences in governance quality, and the urge to improve lifestyle.

Short-term sub-national xenophobia has no place in our ethos, constitution, and developmental compulsions. Managing sensible economics while allaying misplaced apprehensions is the way forward.