Language has not been a barrier to inter-state migration, but the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s espousal of Hindi and its intolerance of Opposition-ruled states not aligned with its Hindutva ideology could trigger political mobilization that would stoke nativist sentiment and impede migration.
The Economic Survey of 2016-17 in its chapter on migration, “India on the Move and Churning: New Evidence”, cited Bhimrao Ambedkar’s saying that “an ideal society should be mobile”. It also reported the “potentially exciting finding” for which there is tentative but “not conclusive evidence” that while “internal political borders” (or state boundaries) impede the flow of people, language does not seem to be a demonstrable barrier.
This is reflected in the fact, it said, that Labour flows within states are four times more than those between them. Distance from home influences migration negatively. But language barriers do not create barriers comparable to the movement of goods, it observed. “The prescient permissiveness of the founding fathers in not dictating a lingua franca for the country appears to have succeeded in making language less salient an axis of cleavage across India, a remarkable achievement given the early anxieties about linguistic divisions and people within India.”
Internal migration is not only high but also accelerating. According to the 2011 census, while the population as a whole grew by 17.7%, the number of migrants rose by 45% in the previous 10 years. Migrants numbered 455.8 million in 2011 or 38% of the population, com-pared to 314.5 million or 31 percent of the population in 2001. Ninety-nine percent of the migrants (408.3 million) were from within the country, and 88% of them were from within a state.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), conducted between July 2020 and June 2021 puts the share of migrants in the population lower than the 2011 census figure, at 28.9%. But the share of intra-state migration at 87.5% and migration between states at 11.8% is almost unchanged. The rate of migration is higher among females at 47.9%; the rate for males is 10.7%. Females cited marriage as the main reason for migration (86.8%); nearly half of the males (49.6%) said they had migrated in search of employment, or to take up employment, or because of loss of jobs.
Vulnerable lot
Despite their rising numbers, migrants are a vulnerable lot. In August 2012 thousands of migrants from the Northeast fled Bengaluru, fearing they would be attacked in retaliation for prolonged violent clashes between Bodo tribals and Muslims in Assam, which had caused deaths and internal displacement of reportedly four lakh persons. The Bengaluru exodus was sparked by viral text messages threatening violence. Despite the Karnataka chief minister offering them protection, the migrants were not reassured. They said they looked different and stood out from the native population. According to news reports, panic had set in after a Tibetan, mistaken for an Assamese, was stabbed in Mysuru. There were also confrontations between Muslim protesters and the police in Mumbai. Violence, over the Assam clashes, had also been reported from Hyderabad, Pune and Nashik. These incidents had bred a feeling of insecurity.
In 2017, Karnataka’s BJP government was the cause for a section of migrants from the Northeast leaving the state. Those employed in hotels, restaurants and coffee plantations in Karnataka’s Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru, and Hassan districts left after the state’s home depart-ment ordered that “illegal immigrants” should not be employed. The phrase is code for Muslims (who are often conflated with Bangladesh-is). The state home minister had told the police to identify undocumented workers after some legislators had alleged large-scale infiltration by Bangladeshis.
Internal migration is not only high but also accelerating. According to the 2011 census, while the population grew by 17.7%, the number of migrants rose by 45%
The targeting of “outsiders” for political advantage is not new in India. Bal Thackeray had founded the Shiv Sena in 1966 to protect the interests of Marathi manoos (person or people) by asserting that migrants from South Indian states—Madrasis and lungiwalas, as he derisively called them—were allegedly stealing jobs from the locals. This was after Maharashtra became a separate state in 1960. In his view, to be an authentic native, it was not enough to be domiciled in the state or speak Marathi. One had to be an ethnic Maharashtrian. As if that was not enough, Thackeray and the Shiv Sena added communists and Muslims—even of Maharashtrian origin—to the list of adversaries.
About 40 years later, Bal Thackeray’s nephew, Raj, was to borrow his uncle’s trope. To propel his newly formed Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which had splintered from the Shiv Sena, to the forefront of the state’s politics, Raj Thackeray in 2008 attacked Uttar Bhara-tiyas from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who had taken up employment in the state as industrial workers, taxi drivers, masons, carpenters, plumbers, panwalas, tailors, and maids. He regarded the assertion of the UP-based Samajwadi Party, which was electorally decisive in some pockets of Mumbai, as an affront and clashed with its workers when they took out a rally. He even criticised film star Amitabh Bachchan as a person with his feet in Mumbai and heart in his native UP.
For politicians of the destination states, the natives’ fear of the outsider is a theme that can be easily mined for political advantage. Mi-grants take up work that natives reject and are preferred by employers as they accept lower wages. In Kerala, for instance, migrants from north and eastern India said they were getting higher wages than those back home but not “Kerala” wages, which are paid to Malayali workers. Political leaders in government can turn this preference for migrant workers against them when they fail to create higher-paying jobs that natives want. It is easy to deflect anger against the government by scapegoating migrants, attaching derogatory monikers such as Bangladeshis, bhaiyyas, miyas and Madrasis as dog-whistles that appeal to nativist sensibilities of the local vote bank.
But fake news reports and videos circulated in February and March this year of Bihari migrants being attacked in Tamil Nadu do not fall into the usual pattern. Here was a case of origin state journalists and politicians trying to discredit a destination state government using mi-grants as pawns.
In February, a migrant from Bihar was killed by another migrant from Jharkhand in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu. A week later, a migrant was found dead in Krishnagiri. It was death by suicide. But some North Indian newspapers reported them as anti-migrant crimes. Old videos of attacks on Bihari migrants in Tamil Nadu and other states were passed off as recent incidents that had occurred in the state.
A clip of a Tamilian from Villupuram abusing North Indian train passengers with regional slurs, in February, added fuel to the disinformation campaign. Some of the videos had been circulated by enterprising but unscrupulous YouTubers, who perhaps wanted to expand their viewership. But the newspaper reports were plain mischief. They were designed to malign Bihar’s Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal(U) alliance and Tamil Nadu’s DMK government ahead of the general election next year. RJD leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav had met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to forge a common front against the ruling party at the Centre. The news reports and videos were meant to discredit that effort.
Roles were reversed in this incident. The Tamil Nadu government made great efforts to reassure the migrants. In evidence of its claim that migrants were treated fairly in the state, it said it had given rations free to nearly five lakh migrants during the first wave of the Covid pandemic and to about 1.3 lakh during the second wave. The chief minister met some migrant workers at a glove factory and publicised the meeting. Tamil Nadu police fact-checked the videos and news reports and alerted the public not to believe them. State officials met officials of the origin states. District administration and police officials were told to remain vigilant against attempts to make migrants insecure.
Fake news reports and videos circulated in February and March this year of Bihari migrants being attacked in Tamil Nadu do not fall into the usual pattern
The politics of polarisation has pitted Hindus against Muslims and Christians. If it is extended to migrants, Hindi-speaking workers (and traders) in South India will be seen as conduits of an ideology that is alien to them. This cannot bode well for the prosperity-creating and melding influences of migration. If such cleavages continue to be created, the sanguine observation of the Economic Survey that language is no barrier to cross-country employment will remain not only tentative but also premature.
He is senior journalist and columnist for several reputed publication. He was formerly with CNBC-Network18 and specializes in the agriculture sector and economy. He has written more 450 articles on agriculture alone.
