The fourth session of the 4th International E-Conference on “Migration, Governance, and COVID-19: Perspectives, Policies, Opportunities, and Challenges”, was held on November 3, 2022. The theme of the session was “Internal Migration in India”. The session was chaired by Dr. Ruchi Singh, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B).
The first speaker of this session was M. Rekha. In her paper titled “A comparative post-pandemic study of native and migrants among the construction workers in North Chennai region”, she discussed the dynamic industry of the Indian construction sector while conducting a comparative analysis of factors affecting the worker’s choices. The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the economy. The paper attempted to develop a pragmatic approach towards understanding the problem of economic and social vulnerability amongst the migrant informal workers in urban settings, particularly Chennai. The migrants from Andhra Pradesh come to Tamil Nadu, particularly North Chennai due to lower living costs. Her paper focused on the push and pull factors that influence the migrants. By using indicators of gender, wages, promotion, work experience and changes due to the pandemic the study aimed at examining the socio-economic variables to understand the influence on migrant construction workers. She analysed the mean difference in wages of native and migrant workers during pre and post pandemic times. The study depicts that there is a significant relationship between factors such as age, income, education, size of family in influencing job preference.
Bharati Maurya presented her research paper on “Push and pull mechanism of textile migrant workers in urban regions of India”. Her paper highlighted a rarely studied area of push and pull factors that impact migration to Surat, Gujarat, in the textile industry. Interestingly through her study she brought to light that amongst textile workers in Surat the “silk city”, only 10% are from Gujarat and 90% from other Indian states, bringing forth the massive flow of migrants in the city. Her paper analyzes the factors influencing these migrant workers to move to a new city. The study identified factors such as poverty, high rates of unemployment in native cities, lower socio-economic status and inadequate land push the migrant workers to seek pathways of better employment and income generation opportunities. In the migratory movements these workers chose to come to Surat motivated by the large number of industrial development which provides quick employment to skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled people. Families and relatives emerged as the prominent support systems for migration that encourage and assist workers to get jobs in the city through contacts. She concluded the presentation by observing that income remains the major factor and the workers professed that they would move elsewhere for better renumeration opportunities.
Alyssa Selma Martins through her paper “Internal migration discourse in Goa: An analysis of print media” discussed the issues of how migration is perceived by the media and the Goan community. Her research analyses the dimension and direction of how the media covers migration in Goa. By conducting a Content Analysis, she examined the media framing, placement of articles in national and local newspapers such as Times of India and Oheraldo, the tone of the article; whether it was positive, negative or neutral, along with other variables. The local newspaper had more articles regarding migrants than national newspapers covering a range of issues such as the debate in parliament for strengthening migration laws. The study found that out of 137 articles there was not a single article that spoke of migrants in a positive light, using the frame of labelling them as criminal and economic threat, whereas national daily highlighted the positive impact on migration on economy. There were very few articles on struggles or issues faced by migrants. The national daily focused more on fact-based reporting whereas the local daily catered to the native and government sentiments, disregarding the narratives of struggles of migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic. The presentation concluded with Ms. Martins shedding light on the statement by the Chief Minister of the state requesting migrants to stay back post pandemic to rebuild the economy, highlighting the vital roles they play in society.
Presenting her paper on “Change in economy and development in tribal area: A study among the Gaddis of Dharamshala and Bharmour region of Himachal Pradesh, India” Shivanshi Nehra, who conducted an Ethnographic study on the pastoral Gaddi tribe of Uttarakhand, examined their development and transformation over the years. While 30% of the Gaddi’s are fully nomadic, about 70% have adopted sedentary lifestyle. Underlying factors behind it is that the Forest Department of Himachal Pradesh put restrictions on pastures, implementing taxes on them. Hardship in traditional occupation, theft of livestock during winter migration, climate change reducing the pastures, development programmes, reservations and policies for their education and upliftment formed some of the influences. Economic development and increase in tourism, along with arrival of 14th Dalai Lama, led the location of Dharamshala to become a famous Buddhist sanctuary and pilgrimage. Tourism brought immense opportunities to Gaddis, rise in economic status, improved lifestyle aided them in entering the political sphere where they acquired a seat on the table.
Anvita Singh, a PhD scholar at Centre for Studies of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, spoke on Out-migration: Sociological analysis of “ghost villages” of Uttarakhand, India. The phenomena of out migration, brought forth the popularisation of the term “Ghost Villages”. Amusingly this has nothing to do with supernatural elements but these are construction made by the print media and social media, that led to widespread sensationalisation. However, these are simply uninhibited villages (called so by the Census), where people are not found to be residing, which can be found in other countries as well. In conclusion she shared that healthcare and education were the major factors influencing migration by tribes to bigger districts in Uttarakhand.
Presenting his paper on “An analysis of socio-economic status of construction workers: Evidence from Faizabad (Ayodhya), Uttar Pradesh, India”, Mr. Shyam Narayan Bharti examined the socio-economic status of construction workers in Ayodhya by addressing the question of how and why they chose to come to the city and the major problems faced by them. He adopted the case study methodology, along with exploratory study, interviewing and interacting with over 200 labourers in the Labour Mandi. After analysis he found that majority of workers are from the OBC (Other Backward Castes) community, low educational attainment, low literacy and deplorable conditions impacted their family. The workers are primarily unskilled and the main issues faced by them are lack of documentation and poor health conditions. The work is inter-generational as it continues from one generation to another. They receive their wages according to their skills, therefore highly skilled labourers receive more wages. In conclusion, he highlighted the government’s failure in implementing social welfare schemes, shortage of project activities and healthcare welfare schemes for the workers. Therefore, he recommended that there is a need of proper regulation regarding working hours and good working conditions.
Simran Dhingra is pursuing a Master’s in Conflict Analysis and Peacebuilding. She is a delegate, advocating for a nuclear weapons free world at Member State Party Youth Conference in Vienna, 2022 organised by Youth4TPNW. She has worked as Communications and Engagement intern with United Nations Climate Change, Germany and contributed to the COP26 held in Glasgow. She has interned with National Human Rights Commission India. Her commitment to gender, peacebuilding and human rights led her to be selected as one of the Young Ambassadors by Initiatives of Change, Switzerland (2021). She received a scholarship in recognition of her peacebuilding work to attend the Summer Peacebuilding Programme, organised by Middlebury Institute of International Studies USA. Her main areas of interest are gender, migration, peace and memory studies.