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Journalism of Courage
— Kuldeepsingh Rajput
Indian cities have become powerful magnets, pulling in millions of internal migrants each year in search of livelihoods, opportunities, and a better life. The International Labour Organisation (2024) states that the rate of urbanisation in India is set to rise significantly in the coming years, which will, in turn, trigger migration.
Migration is expected to contribute to a 40 per cent urbanisation rate by 2030, resulting in an urban population of around 607 million. The Migration in India (2020-2021) report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation estimates that migrants make up almost one-third of India’s total population and account for 34.6 per cent of the country’s urban residents.
Migrant workers are vital contributors to the overall economy and have particularly become indispensable to the urban economy, which is emerging as a key driver of growth. They form the backbone of multiple sectors, including construction, plantations, mines, manufacturing, hospitality, transport, domestic work, and the rapidly expanding gig and platform-based urban economy.
Despite their essential contribution, migrants are mainly absent from urban planning, governance, and policy agendas and consequently remain critically marginalised in destination cities. Migrants are indispensable for the urban economy, but their invisibility raises serious concerns.
Sociologist Saskia Sassen, in her book The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991), argues that such indispensable labour is often ‘made invisible’ in dominant narratives of global urbanism. Her popular concept ‘global city’ helps to understand how the low-cost, flexible labour supports high-profit sectors without being integrated into urban governance. Cities can thrive on migrant and informal labour while simultaneously denying their visibility, rights, or recognition – a paradox prevalent in the Indian urban experience today.
Sassen explains that this invisibility is not accidental but built into how global cities function. The COVID-19 pandemic and the exodus of migrants starkly exposed these systemic vulnerabilities among migrants, highlighting the urgent need for inclusive and responsive urban governance for migrants and other urban poor.
However, as the world settles into the so-called ‘new normal’, there is a growing risk that the lessons learned during the crisis will be neglected. In this context, the government’s draft National Migration Policy (2021) for the meaningful inclusion of migrant workers is significant. However, even after four years, it has yet to be implemented. This policy gap is also apparent in the Smart City Mission (SCM).
The concept of ‘global city’ features in sociologist Saskia Sassen’s book The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991), referring to cities that serve as key nodes in the global economic system. These cities often rely on low-cost, flexible labour without integrating them into urban governance.
Gayatri Spivak’s concept of ‘epistemic violence’, rooted in postcolonial critique (epistemic is sometimes used to mean ‘of or relating to knowledge), shows how violence operates at the level of knowledge production and representation, often marginalising or erasing the voice of colonised or subaltern peoples.
Pierre Bourdieu first defined the concept of symbolic violence to describe a form of domination that occurs through social norms and institutional practices, often leading to marginalisation and discrimination in an almost accepted manner.
The SCM was launched in June 2015 to transform 100 cities by focussing on infrastructure expansion and IT-driven ‘smart’ solutions such as digitalisation and surveillance to improve the quality of life. According to the Press Information Bureau (June 2025), 94 per cent of the total 8,067 projects under the SCM have been completed, with 1.64 lakh crore investment.
During the past decade, a substantial portion of its funding has gone towards physical infrastructure and spatial redesign, such as metros, flyovers, expressways, and luxury complexes. While these projects may reshape the urban skyline and advance an aesthetic vision of urbanism, they simultaneously create exclusive spaces that marginalise urban groups like migrants.
Scholars have argued that initiatives under the SCM often prioritise middle-class and elite concerns, while sidelining the everyday struggles of the urban poor, especially migrants and informal workers. As a result, cities may have become technologically ‘smart’, but they often fail to become socially just and inclusive.
The SCM can also be examined by analysing the underlying assumptions behind the development of the very idea of a smart city. Gayatri Spivak’s concept of ‘epistemic violence’, rooted in postcolonial critique (epistemic is sometimes used to mean ‘of or relating to knowledge or epistemology’), offers a useful lens to understand how power operates through the knowledge system.
The construction and legitimisation of a selective vision of the smart city that is efficient, smart, and technologically advanced is deeply embedded in urban policy discourse. It shapes how urban planners, government functionaries, and SCM-related corporate bodies perceive the city and define its ‘rightful’ inhabitants. In turn, the SCM’s knowledge model has also shaped exclusionary ideas and power structures that legitimise and normalise the invisibility of migrants, informal labour, and the urban poor in the city development plan.
This dynamic resonates with Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’, a neglect or marginalisation disguised as normalcy and appropriateness. Bourdieu argues that, unlike physical violence, symbolic violence is exercised through culture, norms, and institutions. It operates by making inequality and marginalisation seem natural, justified, or inevitable, so that even the oppressed may come to accept their position as legitimate.
When migrant workers are excluded from urban social security, voting rights, education, or public services, it is not seen as violence, but as a regular bureaucratic oversight or administrative inevitability.
The exclusionary knowledge systems that shape urban development and governance promote a narrow definition of urban citizenship, which keeps migrants on the margins of the city. The identity of migrants in cities is deeply rooted in factors such as class, regional identity, and patterns of consumption.
As Amita Baviskar highlights in her book Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi (2020) how existing class and caste hierarchies profoundly shape the idea of who ‘belongs’ to the city. In her analysis, the urban space is not neutral or equally accessible; it is structured by social power.
The dominant urban imagination, largely influenced by the middle- and upper-classes, often views migrants and informal labour as ‘outsiders’ or ‘encroachers’ rather than rightful urban citizens. For example, slums are seen not just as poor housing but also as symbols of disorder, while street vendors and waste-pickers are treated as a nuisance despite their essential roles in the urban economy.
Migrant workers are thus tolerated as labour but denied recognition as citizens. This exclusionary framing apparently contributes to policies focused on ‘beautification’, ‘slum clearance’, and ‘world-class infrastructure’, which often displace rather than include the urban poor.
R. B. Bhagat, in his article ‘Migration, Gender and Right to the City’ (2017) published in Economic and Political Weekly, rightly points out that migrants are not a homogeneous group; some, such as migrant women, are more vulnerable. They face compounded disadvantages both as women and as migrants.
In cities lacking an inclusive framework, migrant women encounter a range of challenges, including wage disparities, digital divide, data exclusion, and sexual abuse. A truly inclusive city would recognise migrants as stakeholders, ensure participatory urban planning, and protect their social and cultural rights. Migrants leave behind their rural roots and often families in search of livelihood and hope but they are rarely embraced in urban settings. Consequently, they remain in-between and face a dilemma of ‘identity crisis’, often manifesting as mental distress.
The SCM has completed a decade, achieving significant infrastructure and technological advancements. Now is a crucial moment to make cities equitable and inclusive to uphold the principle of social justice. Safeguarding the rights of migrants in destination cities demands a paradigm shift – from exclusionary, class-focused urban governance to one that embraces mobility, diversity, and the everyday realities of the working poor. Transforming cities into inclusive and democratic spaces is a critical need of our time.
How does rapid urbanisation in India both enable and constrain the livelihoods of migrants? Do you think that migration-driven urban growth challenges existing models of urban governance?
In what ways are migrant workers rendered “invisible” in urban policy discourse, despite their indispensable role in the economy?
How do concepts like epistemic violence (Spivak) and symbolic violence (Bourdieu) help us understand the systematic marginalisation of migrants?
To what extent has the Smart Cities Mission privileged middle-class and elite concerns at the expense of migrants and informal workers?
What policy frameworks could reimagine migrants not just as labourers but as stakeholders in urban development?
(Dr. Kuldeepsingh Rajput is a Post-doctoral Fellow and heads the RUBAL Foundation.)
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