Memorandum submitted by Priya Deshingkar,
Laxman Rao and John Farrington, Livelihood Options Project, Overseas
Development Institute (ODI) (continued)
7. MIGRATION
"STREAMS": ACCUMULATIVE
MIGRATION
Sugarcane cutters from Medak district
MD is a remote village in the backward north-western
part of Medak district with unreliable rainfall. Land ownership
is still along feudal lines—a Brahman landlord possesses
300 acres of land, demonstrating that land reforms have not made
any difference here. The landless account for 13% of the population
and marginal farmers, a further 32.5%. Their main occupation is
labouring. They are mostly uneducated and unskilled. By caste,
the Mudiraj (erstwhile fisherfolk BC) comprise 57% of the village
population. Most of them are small and marginal farmers. Next
are the Lambada (ST), the Madiga (SC) and Mala (SC). The Mala
and Madiga are mainly agricultural labourers, which is testimony
to their continuing position of disadvantage in society.
Migration for sugarcane cutting is said to have
begun roughly 30 years ago from MD and surrounding villages, when
contractors came to look for cheap labour to cut sugarcane in
irrigated parts of the district. What started as a coping mechanism
has now become an extremely well-paid alternative to local agricultural
wage labour and is attracting more and more households who are
able to mobilise the necessary contacts and resources. According
to the villagers, more than 40% of the population migrated for
this work in 2001. On average, a team of three adult workers will
bring back Rs 15,000 as savings from one season's work. These
people have accumulated successfully, having large and well-maintained
houses, together with the growing numbers of milch animals.
Migrants usually stay away from October/November
for four to six months. The main castes migrating are the Mudiraj,
Lambada and Madiga. This kind of migration requires assets in
the form of a pair of working bullocks and a bullock cart. Many
sugarcane cutters take an advance of roughly Rs 5,000 in the month
of June, well before the cutting season. This is usually given
by farmers to known parties, therefore social contacts and networks
are all-important. This interlocking of credit and labour markets
provides the employer with a guaranteed workforce at a predetermined
rate. Whether or not the labourer is disadvantaged by this arrangement
depends on whether they are in a position to negotiate a good
wage. That in turn depends on their access to information about
the state of the labour market for that particular season.
The money from the advance may go towards a
new pair of bullocks or cart or other supplies and is repaid the
following May after the cutting season is over. These days, there
are no middlemen involved. Farmers and labourers deal with each
other directly. There is no written agreement and the arrangement
works on the basis of mutual trust from previous relationships.
Some families have been doing this work for more than 20 years.
Although this kind of migration is viewed very
positively in terms of its economic impact, it has some negative
implications too, particularly for children's education. Smaller
and younger families face the greatest hardship because they may
not have childcare in the village and must take their children
with them. The children are not admitted by schools in the destination.
In addition to that, households may lose their access to Public
Distribution System (PDS) rations if they cannot maintain a presence
in the village. A common practice is for one person to come back
to the village every month to claim the PDS rations and also give
money to relatives at home. In some instances, migrants mortgage
their PDS card for Rs 300 with the grain outlet. The dealer claims
the rice illegally on their behalf and sells it on the open market.
But the arrangement is mutually beneficial because this way the
migrants do not lose their entitlement and can reclaim the card
when they return.
Living conditions are rough in the destinations.
Migrants stay in the field in a makeshift hut with poor access
to water and medical facilities. Social networks are important
and migrants help each other in various ways by looking after
children and sharing provisions.
An NGO, Sadhana, has recently started a residential
school for the children of migrants from this part of Medak. This
has proved very popular among the migrants. The project is being
supported by the Hyderabad office of UNICEF as well as the district
administration. Children who were previously forced to accompany
their parents because there was no one to look after them in the
village are now able to carry on with their education.
Earthworkers from Chittoor district
VP village is in the dry part of Chittoor district
and has suffered from drought for the last four years. This area
has strong trade links with Karnataka, particularly Bangalore
city which is 120 km by road. Only two castes, the Vaddi (BC)
and Mala (SC), migrate out for seasonal work. Here we cover only
Vaddi migration, which is accumulative. Migration undertaken by
the Mala is covered under coping migration.
The Vaddi, also known as Vaddera, were traditionally
skilled stonecutters and well-diggers. They have adapted this
skill to digging trenches for telephone cables, graves, desilting
tanks and road works and have now become well known all over South
India. In rural areas, they have benefited from public works executed
by Gram Panchayats and State agencies through schemes for
rural water supply, housing, food for work, watershed development,
the construction of schools, public buildings and offices. They
work almost all year round but the nature of the job varies by
agricultural season: desilting of tanks and forest department
work is undertaken in the dry season and road works and trench
digging is done in the rainy season. Both the poor and non-poor
migrate. All of the landless households migrate. In general, there
is growing demand for the kind of work that the Vaddi can do but
few other castes seem to have been able to join this accumulative
stream, a theme we return to under the section on coping.
Groups of Vaddi relatives (15-30 persons) migrate
together and go for 15-30 days at a time. They make 10 such trips
in a year. Each group is headed by a mestri (contractor),
usually a Vaddi, who bears all travelling and food expenses. The
mestri may give an advance to the labourers to send remittances
to their family. He later cuts this from the wages of the labourers.
There are 12 mestris in the village. Earlier, mestris
would be the main source of information about new jobs and wages
but over time their power has eroded and they now play a more
facilitating role rather than controlling and exploiting labourers.
These days most Vaddi do not have fixed mestris and work
for the person who makes the best offer.
The Vaddi have accumulated visibly through migration.
Nearly 48% of the Vaddi respondents said that they had built,
bought or extended their house. They are also investing their
newly acquired wealth into buying land, drilling tubewells and
growing vegetables. VP is clearly a village where money is coming
in.
Part of this success stems from their social
cohesiveness and collective bargaining power. The Vaddi formed
the Narsapur Labour Cooperative Society, a registered society,
in 1998. They maintain good relations with local government officials
and this has enabled them to win several contracts for public
works. There are other manifestations of this social cohesiveness.
They have a strong caste-council which has introduced strict rules
of behaviour by which everyone must abide. One such rule is the
ban on alcohol consumption which was introduced as a way of conserving
community wealth. Punishments for those who break the rule are
severe—one man was banished from the village for drinking.
There is also a rule that all migrants must return to the village
at election time and this was said to be behind their recent victory
in the local Panchayat elections where they defeated a
Yadav caste family that had held power for the previous 37 years.
They also have a rule that they must return to the village for
major festivals.
There are negative aspects to the Vaddi migration
too. Some of the commonly stated problems are the rough living
conditions in the destination where they must live in tarpaulin
tents provided by the employers. Many stated that migration adversely
affects children's education. Employers and mestris may
not pay the promised amount and they may not pay promptly.
8. MIGRATION
"STREAMS": COPING
STRATEGY
Construction workers from Medak district
Several families of poor Mala (SC), landless
and marginal farmers who cannot find work locally or grow anything
on their land have migrated from MD to urban areas but they have
strong links with the village. These people are much poorer than
the better-off sugarcane cutters who migrate from the same village.
Quite a few of them were not able to enter sugarcane work because
they have no collateral for the loans that are required to purchase
or hire bullocks and carts. Hyderabad is the most common destination
(40 families migrated there in 2001), where they go for construction
work. Most of them leave the village around November and return
in June to look after their land. But as droughts in the area
have become prolonged, some families are leaving their lands fallow
and are more or less permanently away and come back only to celebrate
festivals. Half of them take their families along. Both women
and men work.
Such migrants work alone or in groups. They
are prepared to do any kind of labouring. The construction workers
work either under a contractor or freelance by standing at "addas"
(on the street) where they try to attract trade. If they work
freelance then the men earn roughly Rs 80/day and women earn Rs
60. Although the wages are reasonable, work is not available everyday
and most average three working days a week. Women may also work
as domestic maids in nearby houses. They spend roughly half of
the income at the destination and earn roughly Rs 4,000/year through
such work.
Working under a mestri gives them more
days of work but they complain that they are exploited by mestris
who take a 15% cut of the wages. Even if such labourers have been
in the business for several years they may continue to depend
on contractors because they lack the contacts, education and confidence
to find work and negotiate contracts. In addition, their caste
makes them prone to multiple forms of discrimination so that they
can rarely break out of their traditional station of working under
someone on exploitative terms. Contractors routinely flout the
many regulations that are meant to give migrant labourers security
and basic provisions. Several families choose to leave their women
behind because living conditions for new migrants in the city
are difficult, particularly getting access to drinking water.
Accidents, sexual exploitation and disease are major risks.
Agricultural labourers from coastal villages
KO is a large, well-connected and well-endowed
village typical of the better-off villages of the delta zone.
It has a characteristically large population of 1,429 households.
This reflects the many work opportunities present in the village
that have attracted people from outside over the years and also
kept the villagers from moving to other destinations. The village
is highly developed and there are many amenities, such as a variety
of shops including bookshops, dispensaries, pesticide shops, etc.
The cropping pattern is normally paddy followed by pulses. The
village is a destination for seasonal immigrant labourers who
come for three to four months in a year to transplant and harvest
the paddy.
The landholding is highly skewed with over 65%
of the population reporting that they are landless. More than
48% of all landless households reported their main occupation
to be labouring. There are 29 castes and the most numerous castes
are Mala (SC), Madiga (SC), Kapu (OC), Kshatriya (OC), Gowda (BC)
and Yadava. (BC) In addition, there are a significant number of
Muslim households. The landless are mainly Malas and Madigas,
together making up 34.7% of all landless households.
KA is also a prosperous village with assured
canal irrigation which enables farmers to take two paddy crops
in a year. Of 464 households, 209 (45%) are landless. There are
more marginal and small holdings in this village and therefore
the requirement for labour from outside is greater during the
peak agricultural seasons. Roughly 1,000 people migrate into the
village in July-August and again in November-January to work on
the paddy crop, first for transplanting and then to harvest.
Caste-wise, the Kapu are the largest community,
making up nearly half of the population, followed by the Gowda
(erstwhile toddy-tappers) who make up just under a quarter of
the population at 23.5%. Most landless households are Kapu, followed
by Mala, Gowda and Madiga. Most semi-medium, medium and large
farmers are Gowda and Kapu. The Mala and Madiga are almost all
landless, which is worse than their status in the study villages
in other parts of the State.
In both KA and KO, there are certain times of
the year when there is no work for agricultural labourers. During
this these times, the landless poor labourers migrate out to find
work in nearby areas—either within the district or just
beyond. Both men and women migrate and they earn roughly Rs 30/day.
Without this work and income, these households would go into debt
and have to borrow from local moneylenders, which is what they
would have done historically in the lean season. But seasonal
migration has offered them an important coping mechanism.
9. MAIN FINDINGS
The main findings from this study are summarised
in the following points:
— A large cost in migration is the
search cost and moral hazard of being cheated. Migration options
become more and more secure, and thus attractive, over time. For
those who have risked going to find new opportunities, and have
maintained the link, the investment often pays off.
— Migration is increasingly opening
up to women, particularly those from lower castes. Often the woman
working as well as the man can make the difference between surplus
and deficit.
— Non-farm work is often better paid,
but conditions are poor. The work is hard, and is often taken
up in the hot summer when agricultural labour markets are slack.
Also, because the nature of the work is often transient, there
is not the possibility to form longer-term links as with employers.
— All types of migration can bring
new skills. Likewise, construction work can often bring access
to quarter- and semi-skilled work like masonry work.
— The social and domestic trade-offs
to migration can be severe. Risk of industrial accident, poor
sleeping conditions all bring hazards. If families accompany,
then wives, and particularly children, are at great risk from
lack of supervision. However, if families migrate together, there
are stronger support networks available.
10. CURRENT INDIAN
POLICY
Migrant workers have not received legislative
support or protection because of their legal status because they
usually work in unorganized or informal sectors. The Union and
State Governments, through their Ministry of Labour and Departments
of Labour, have a general mandate for formulating and implementing
policies to protect the interests of migrants. Various existing
labour laws are "applicable" to the workers in the informal
sector. For example the Minimum Wages Act (1948), Equal
Remuneration Act (1976), Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act
(1979), Contract Labour Act (1970), and Building and
Other Construction Workers Act (1996). However, these labour
laws are very poorly enforced.
Migrant labour also comes under the purview
of several Ministries or Departments such as Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Consumer Affairs, Health and Family Welfare
and Education and Social Welfare. However, there is no separate
department or machinery to address migrants' problems.
The recently formulated Unorganized Sector
Workers Bill (2003), is potentially powerful. Based on the
recommendations of National Commission on Labour (2002)
and scheduled to be introduced in the Parliament, the Bill includes
many provisions that could benefit migrant workers. For example,
it seeks to ensure, inter alia, a minimum level of economic
and social security, old age benefits, group insurance, medical
benefits, registration of unorganized workers and provision of
identity cards.
The proposed legislation though is not free
from controversy and some labour unions have already opposed the
Bill in the present form and offered several suggestions. Perhaps
the most contentious part of the Bill is that the proposed protective
measures are in the nature of guidelines for States. It puts the
financial onus on the States without delineating the ways and
means or allocating funds for the proposed measures. Many observers
feel that some crucial proposals could be made mandatory instead
of treating them as optional.
11. RECOGNISING
AND SUPPORTING
MIGRATION AS
A LIVELIHOOD
STRATEGY
Policy needs to recognise that migration is
an integral and regular part of livelihood strategies and production
systems; that it is also undertaken for high-return employment
and not only because of shocks and stresses such as drought ie
that migration can be accumulative or coping; and is a diverse
phenomenon with various non-economic determinants including caste
and gender. This reflects wider themes with respect to political-economy
determinants of access and opportunity. Regardless of whether
migration is accumulative or coping, most migrants receive little
support and live in very difficult conditions in their destinations.
Although their efforts are the real engine of growth in several
sectors, providing a cheap and flexible labour source, they remain
without an identity and are unable to claim State resources for
education, health care, water and sanitation all the time that
they are on the move. Women and children suffer the most from
this kind of existence.
The mainstream view is that migration should
be reduced or curbed by creating employment in villages. This
is to be achieved through increasing the productivity of dryland
agriculture. But it could take several years or even decades for
natural resource management and agricultural development programmes
to arrest migration, something which they may never achieve where
population growth is high. In the meantime, steps need to be taken
to support migrants so that their hardships are reduced and they
are ensured access to basic needs. For example Mosse et al (2002)
argue for a rights-based approach to guarantee minimum wages,
avenues for protection and redress, freedom from bondage, sexual
exploitation as well as compensation for injury and death suffered
by migrant labourers. They call for NGOs, labour unions, State
governments and employers to work together to ensure labourers
rights (see below). Rogaly et al (2001) advocate public action
to address the exclusion of migrants from health education and
other social protection.
The residential school for migrant's children
opened by Sadhana is a good example of how NGOs, donors and the
State can work together to reduce the vulnerability of migrant
labourers. Another initiative that could be explored through multi-stakeholder
consultation is providing migrants with computerised identity
cards that they can use to access services at their destinations,
such as basic healthcare and enrolling their children in the local
school. In addition, ways need to be found to ensure that migrants
do not lose their entitlements to PDS rations in their homes.
12. HOW THE
UK GOVERNMENT CAN
HELP
Migrant Support Programmes[132]
DFID funded Rural Livelihoods Projects in India
have started to experiment with interventions to support migrants.
These include the Migrant Labour Support Programme being implemented
by the Gram Vikas Trust and the Western India Rainfed Farming
Project (WIRFP), Migrant Support and Drought Management Programmes
under the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihood Project (APRLP), and
other joint projects with district governments such as the Western
Orissa Rural Livelihood Project (WORLP). Key characteristics of
the WIRFP Migrant Labour Support Programme (Mosse 2003) are a
rights-based approach defending the legal right to fair wages,
freedom from bondage or exploitation through union membership;
the focus on immediate practical and welfare needs of highly vulnerable
indebted migrants; and an inter-organisation approach which (a)
involves simultaneous work in villages of origin and in urban
centres of migration; and (b) brings together government, NGOs
and unions. Photo-identity cards (not with any formal government
status) have been issued MoUs have been negotiated with urban
based trade unions and NGOs. such initiatives have made a difference
to labourers who face continual police harassment and other exploitative
situations. Illiterate people have been issued with pre-written
postcards, allowing them to contact their families. The migration
support scheme is planning to expand, to include literacy education,
and awareness building on HIV/AIDS.
Both APRLP and WORLP are exploring ways of linking
with the DFID Urban Livelihoods programme and NGOs such as Action
Aid in Hyderabad, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh which is
the destination for most Oriya migrants. It is hoped that these
programmes will impact at policy level, influencing State governments
to address the problems faced by migrants in securing entitlements
across state boundaries; to generate and sustain the interest
of municipal authorities, health and labour departments and the
police in places of migration; involve elected representatives
at the village, Mandal and district levels; work with the construction
industry to promote socially responsible business; and promote
a self-run network and raise the profile of labour migration.
It is hoped that these initiatives will be well
documented at the DFID policy level so that the government of
India can be presented with another poverty reduction option within
the "watershed-plus" framework that it is using. It
is also anticipated that this policy debate will assist the government
to appoint ministerial responsibility for migrants, which is a
gap in current policy.
October 2003
REFERENCES
Deshingkar, P and D Start 2003. Seasonal
Migration For Livelihoods, Coping, Accumulation And Exclusion.
Working Paper No 220. Overseas Development Institute, London.
Dev, S M (2002) "Pro-poor Growth in India:
What do we know about the Employment Effects of Growth 1980-2000?"
Working Paper 161, London: Overseas Development Institute.
Lee, E S (1966) "A Theory of Migration",
Demography 3:1, pp 47-57.
Mosse, D, Gupta, S, Mehta, M, Shah, V, Rees,
J and the KRIBP Project Team (2002) "Brokered Livelihoods:
Debt, Labour Migration and Development in Tribal Western India",
Journal of Development Studies 38(5): June, pp 59-87.
Mosse, D "Supporting Rural Communities
in the City—The Migrant Labour Support Programme" Consultant
report for WIRFP, May 2003.
Rogaly, B, Biswas, J, Coppard, D, Rafique, A,
Rana, K and Sengupta, A (2001) "Seasonal Migration, Social
Change and Migrants Rights, Lessons from West Bengal", Economic
and Political Weekly, 8 December: 4547-59.
Skeldon, R (2002) "Migration and Poverty",
Asia-Pacific Population Journal, December, 67-82.
132 This section draws on a RLAG Lesson Learning Brief
prepared by Annika Stanley (DFID India), "Social Protection
and Rural Livelihoods Programmes in India". Back
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