Migrants, Mobility and Citizenship in India

Ashwani Kumar, R. B. Bhagat, Ashwani Kumar, R. B. Bhagat

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000379877
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book reconceptualizes migration studies in India and brings back the idea of citizenship to the center of the contested relationship between the state and internal migrants in the country. It interrogates the multiple vulnerabilities of disenfranchised internal migrants as evidenced in the mass exodus of migrants during the COVID-19 crisis. Challenging dominant economic and demographic theories of mobility and relying on a wide range of innovative heterodox methodologies, this volume points to the possibility of reimagining migrants as 'citizens'.

The volume discusses various facets of internal migration such as the roles of gender, ethnicity, caste, electoral participation of the internal migrants, livelihood diversification, struggle for settlement, and politics of displacement, and highlights the case of temporary, seasonal, and circulatory migrants as the most exploited and invisible group among migrants. Presenting secondary and recent field data from across regions, including from the northeast, the book explores the processes under which people migrate and suggests ways for ameliorating the conditions of migrants through sustained civic and political action.

This book will be essential for scholars and researchers of migration studies, politics, governance, development studies, public policy, sociology, and gender studies aswell aspolicymakers, government bodies, civil society, and interested general readers.

1 Internal migration and citizenship in India

An emerging perspective

R. B. Bhagat and Ashwani Kumar

It is remarkable to know how and when the concept of human beings evolved into the concept of citizens, and how and when the concept of people evolved into the concept of populations. Noted philosopher Akeel Bilgrami grappled with some of these questions in one of his more recent works (Bilgrami, 2018). Perhaps, the modern idea of citizenship emerged with the appearance of nation-states in human history during the eighteenth century when subjects turned into citizens and people into populations. The instrument of census taking was reengineered during this time which enumerated people into an inanimate category of population. The idea of the nation-state as an ethno-political entity bounded by a defined territory intrinsically stands in conflict with idea of migration and mobility. However, the people moving across national borders and those moving within a nation face different types of challenges and often enter into different relationships with the state. Elite migrants share a very different relationship with the state compared to those who hail from historically marginalized, low-income communities. In addition, there are large numbers of stateless refugees whose citizenship rights lie in a state of perpetual uncertainty. As such the relationship between nation, migration, and citizenship is neither linear nor well-defined. In the age of globalization, whereas transnational citizens hold multiple passports¹ and enjoy the benefits of both the nations of origin and destination, the same privilege and rights are denied to many internal migrants who have lived and worked for decades within national borders. Paradoxically, while it seems that our familiar way of looking at citizenship and rights is anachronistic, the disarticulation of citizenship with the nation and nationalism is strongly opposed (Gutiérrez & Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2008). Thus, we find that citizenship Acts have been used to defend national borders and national identity through immigration controls in many countries. On the other hand, the basic idea of citizenship is not even debated with respect to internal migrants who lose their equal status, face discrimination, and are often denied their civic rights and entitlements.

A distinction between formal and substantive citizenship is very pertinent to understand the relationship between migration and citizenship. While formal citizenship entails being a member of the nation-state, substantive citizenship connotes an array of civil, political, social, cultural, and economic rights people possess and exercise (Holston & Appadurai, 1996). With respect to poor migrants who have membership of the state but are deprived of access to many of these rights, the non-fulfillment of substantive citizenship renders their formal citizenship (e.g., right to vote) meaningless. In other cases, many migrants even lose their formal citizenship as they are unable to vote either due to non-inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls at the place of destination or unable to be physically present at the place of origin at the time of voting. However, it is indeed a puzzle as to why some migrants have succeeded in entering accumulative pathways while others have been consigned to perpetual penury. Scholars have argued that the fulfillment of substantive citizenship rights is not contingent on the formal citizenship (Holston & Appadurai, 1996). In many instances, some of the more successful migrants do manage to get their substantive citizenship rights fulfilled without having access to formal citizenship.

However, we increasingly live in an era of migration and mobility. The movement of goods, services, capital, technology, culture, ideas, and most importantly, people are the significant components of the economic and mobility transition shaped by globalization and neo-liberal policies. Internationally, there were some 272 million migrants in 2019 (UN, 2019). On the other hand, internal migrant flows were almost four times greater than flows of migrants moving internationally (UNDP, 2009). Thus, migration is too important to be ignored by social scientists. Within the social sciences, the study of migration is much debated for its impact on economic development and less on how migrants engage with the state, and how they negotiate the economic, cultural, legal, and political fallout of dislocation. In the international context, illegal migration has been viewed as a major challenge to the existence of the nation-state. Notably, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) does not recognize right to immigrate, while recognizing the right to emigrate and return to one’s home country as a human right. On the other hand, while many nations allow the right to migrate within national borders as a fundamental right, the rise of nativist politics in many countries including India threatens to undermine the constitutional protections accorded to migrant communities. In multi-ethnic democracies, greater internal migration has often been accompanied by sons of the soil violence against certain immigrant groups. Several studies testify to the link between growing levels of sub-national migration and a rise in the incidence of anti-migrant violence (Bhavnani & Lacina, 2018; Fearon & Laitin, 2011; Weiner, 1978). It is precisely due to the perceived threat posed by sub-national migration that middle- and low-income countries have increasingly adopted policies aimed at restricting population movements within their borders. The proportion of Less Developed Countries (LDCs) that regulate internal migratory flows from rural to urban areas has almost trebled between 1974 and 2011, going up from 24 percent to 70 percent during this period (Bhavnani & Lacina, 2018).

India represents an ideal setting within which to situate a study of the relationship between internal migration, state, and citizenship rights. According to the Census of India 2011 and National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) 2007–08, three out of ten Indians can be classified as internal migrants, or people who have moved across district or state/province boundaries. In 2011, some 450 million persons were migrants based on place of last residence, accounting for about 37 percent of India’s population. Some of the major reasons commonly cited for migration have been work/employment, business, education, marriage, moved at birth, and moved with family/household.

Scholars argue that government data tends to underestimate the flows of seasonal/circular migration, a stream dominated by people belonging to historically marginalized groups like Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with an extremely low asset base and poor educational attainment and skill sets. It is this floating segment of the migrant population, mostly comprising people working seasonally in brickkilns, construction, plantations, mines, and factories that is most vulnerable to exploitation by labor contractors and faces relatively greater hurdles in participating in elections and politics, and in accessing public goods. The studies show that the annual rate of seasonal and temporary migration is seven times higher than the rate of permanent and semi-permanent migration in India (Keshri & Bhagat, 2013). In both the categories of migration, there are also huge variations by age, gender, educational level, occupational status, skills, earnings as well as linguistic and cultural background of internal migrants. As a result, they experience varying levels of vulnerability and exclusion. Migrants with poor skills and education, driven by distress are hugely vulnerable and suffer from deprivations and exploitation in the places they migrate to (UNESCO, 2013).

Given the growing importance of migrants in reinventing spatial relations between the state and society and redefining citizenship rights, the book seeks to engage with the new generation of migration scholarship in India, contesting the “powerless and impoverished image” of migrants and underscoring the benign consequences of migration in the form of returns from “accumulative migration” which accrue over time as migrants acquire knowledge, confidence, and skills (Mendola, 2008). Thus, migration including seasonal/circular migration/short-term migration has increasingly been recognized as a part of the normal livelihood strategy of poor people and does not always occur only during times of emergency or distress.

Incidentally, spatial dislocation also exacerbates existing socio-economic exclusions, in the form of the denial of social, cultural, and political rights of migrant groups. This is most pronounced among seasonal, short-term, circular migrants. Empirical studies and official statistics have largely overlooked or underestimated the scale of short-term migration (Bhagat, 2011). Some of the more contemporary work on migration and nativism has also brou...