Why can't they see me?
- Aadya Saxena
- Jan 13, 2019
- 6 min read
Migrants in India remain invisible as argued by many scholars in the policy imagination. But what is the solution for an emerging economy like India?
Migration is nothing but the other side of urbanisation, says Bhide in her article published in the journal Infochange Agenda. The city forms a harsh reality, which has to be encountered by approximately 100 million circular migrants come in the search for better livelihood opportunities. These migrants have to face policies with a territorial bias which increases their vulnerability and denies them developmental opportunities, argues Bhide. According to her, these policies end up invisibilizing migrants in the city when there should be an acceptance of these migrants in policy through protocol if urbanisation can be effectively pursued as a development strategy.
Uneven development needs to be accepted is an argument which has pushed urbanisation as ‘an engine for economic development’ in countries like India says Bhide citing the appearance of the same in the World Development Report titled Towards a New Economic Geography. This has led to an emphasis on infrastructural development in cities along with urban reform. But in the steadfast pursuit of economic development by rapidly urbanising the migrants who come to the city in large numbers and are contributors to the urban economies are nowhere in the policy frame of reference. A reason for this says Bhide is the bias of territoriality in existing policy initiatives.
BIAS OF TERRITORIALITY
In order to avail basic amenities and services the migrant is rendered handicapped in the city. Bhide says that several policies of the state and city administration are territorial in nature leading to the creation of a harsh terrain of survival for migrants in the city; with various groups of migrants experiencing this harshness in particularistic ways. One example is that of the ration card to avail foodgrains which are subsidies through the Public Distribution System. Issuing a ration card needs proof of local address which the migrants working in the informal sector lack. Thus, even though in recent policy imagination, the ration card as a policy tool was viewed as an instrument to improve targeting and make the most basic need that if foodgrain available to the most vulnerable sections of society like the homeless, widows, poor in cities is ineffectual as this sentiment has not translated into any modification in protocol. Verification procedure in issuance of a ration card still requires proof of address. And with the history of the importance of the ration card as documentary evidence of citizenship, it does not only block access of migrants to subsidised foodgrain but one can also interpret the lack of a ration card as a major obstacle in availing other services like that of a bank. Services like these are critical for the migrant as well as their family in cases where the family depends on remittances and the lack of access to such services increases the vulnerability of migrants making them open to exploitation and lacking any insurance.
Routes to Survival
In such situations, migrants must act in order to alleviate their vulnerability so that they can survive in the city, says Bhide. And one such route available to migrants, she says, is the political route. The presence of a large population of migrants in the city allows them to gain a foothold and gain political opportunities, however in recent times the son-of-the-soil arguments have led to their expulsion from the political scenarios of the city altogether and cases of violence, hatred and intolerance against them. Accordingly, we see an inescapable (almost) invisibility of the migrant in the policy imagination and also the most crucial city data, and such an invisibility further resulting in non-access to city services and support systems.
Route of Subversion The only way of survival then is the route of subversion, says Bhide. Quite often it can be observed that migrants possess two ration cards, one has the original address of their native place and the other has their address in the city and they even register their names in the electoral roll. Bhide is therefore saying that circular migrants have two ration cards and two electoral identity cards which is essential to counter their invisibility created by the territoriality of policy. So invisibility is countered by a dual visibility.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the importance of the ration card and its need by the migrants only increase their overall dependence on their employers for food in addition to temporary shelter, if they are new to the city, wages and so on. Such an increased dependence only leaves them open to further exploitations, says Bhide. Therefore, what is needed is the reimagination of policy not only in terms of intention but intention which translates onto protocol. The UID or Aadhaar can be seen as a possible way to extend access to basic amenities to migrants in cities. However, to realise such a possibility a huge overhaul of protocol needs to be done. For starters to take the case of access to foodgrain, if this is to be achieved through UID, firstly the quota of foodgrain sanctioned by the ration cards under the Public Distribution Government by the state needs to be extended to not just the household level but an additional option needs to be created so that migrants can fit into the system. If such a provision is made, families of migrants can opt for a little less foodgrain on the assurance that the deduction is being made available to their family member who has migrated to the city for work by his registration under the PDS there as a migrant. This is just one possibility, there exist many others.
The major learning from this article is that if urbanisation is to serve as a tenable means to achieve development, then policy needs to take into account migration. An overhaul of policy is needed to make cities a place where migrants can flourish instead of being trapped in vicious cycles and doomed to perish by the state and city administrations. If the bias of territoriality is not overcome by policy initiative it will only lead to the aggravation of uneven development at the macro level and increase the worsening conditions of the urban poor/migrants.
Additionally, the focus is on the survival based circular migration which arguably is extremely widespread in India’s case further accentuating uneven development. Therefore, other literature on migration in India recognise this reality and suggest many policy reforms based on the same understanding as in the article by Bhide that an overhaul of policy is needs. Some of these suggestions are food and credit based interventions as Bhide has also put forth. These initiatives focus on strengthening the position of the ‘invisible migrant’ in cities, by implementing food for work schemes or organising the poor into self help groups to make micro credit facilities available to them. A major reason why circular migration is the trend in terms of kinds of migration which takes place in India is because there is an extreme lack of access to various services for the migrants so migrants come to the city and go back to their villages. This has served as a major impediment to India’s urbanisation according to many reports and papers (Tumbe,2016). The challenges which the migrant population face in cities force them to only continue living in cities for a limited time, that is, seasonally and it is common that the male members of the family migrate leaving their families back home because in addition to lack of foodgrain and credit spoken about earlier there is lack in terms of schooling of children and other healthcare needs of the family. In terms of improving accessibility of migrants to facilities such as schooling community based interventions is an area of further exploration.
As outlined earlier, the migrants have little to no bargaining power which stems from their invisibility in the arena of policy and further increases their dependency on their employer. A possible way to improve their bargaining power is to make them visible and documenting them through registers of the Panchayat office or other local bodies. Upon such a record making, civil society actors like NGOs can play a groundbreaking role in terms of mobilising these migrants who largely work in the informal sector to take up the issue of identity cards and negogiate their contracts. The enforcement of labour laws and the Unorganised Sector Workers’ Bill which rests on governmental and non-governmental interventions and makes it mandatory for employers’ to submit a list of their workers to local bodies will definitely be an important start in terms of mitigating the invisibility of migrant and the disadvantages it produces to them in India’s cities.
References
Bhide, A. (2013). The Invisible Migrant. Infochange Agenda, 10-12.
Tumbe, C. (2016). Urbanisation, demographic transition, and the growth of cities in India, 1870-2020. International Growth Centre.
Srivastava, R. and Sasikumar, SK. (2003) An overview of migration in India, its impacts and key issues. Regional Conference on Migration, Development and Pro-Poor Policy Choices in Asia, 15-24. #youth #work #urbanmigration #migrationinindia #circularmigration #invisiblemigrant #opportunity #migration #indianyouth #indiancities #city #cityinindia #indiancity
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