Bihar Election: For the first time, out-migration becomes a sticky poll issue

Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, and Tejashwi Yadav have rather proudly spoken of how the Bihari migrants have a critical role in the economies of other states which host them. These hapless migrants find succour of a kind, with the majority of them in menial and low-tier employment, mostly in the service sector in Mumbai, National Capital Region, Kolkata, and thinly spread across several states, as far as in Kerala. Though this indicates a failure in boosting the economy of Bihar. It is part of the BIMARU states.

Prashant Kishor, the political strategist who is now a politician leading his newly-founded Jan Suraj party and fighting the Assembly elections in Bihar, has a contrarian view: the Biharis ought not to have reason for out-migration; they ought to be living in Bihar itself; and have an income at least equal to what they earn in other states. He sees an average income of Rs 12,000 per month. His is the first political party to have taken up the matter of migration in his state. Other host states seek migrants’ votes.

Prevention of migration is one of the main, if not the main, issues he is speaking of from the stump. He has been listing reasons for the out-migration, which according to the Census of 2011 (there has been no headcount after that because of COVID), is as many as 7.9 million. It was an increase of 2.4 million as recorded in the 2001 census. It is more likely that this number has ballooned thereafter because there has been nothing to hold back a bone-poor Bihar from searching for a livelihood elsewhere.

Severe joblessness in the absence of enough industrialization to provide for job aspirants is one cause. The other contestants in the election, the NDA and the I.N.D.I.A. alliance, instead of speaking about industrialization to provide jobs, have been promising government jobs, which have a limit. They have not touched upon industrialization as a panacea because, even if investments flow in, there would be a lag of several years in the generation of jobs. A government job is seen as the quick fix to lure voters.

Prashant Kishor has been telling parents about how the Bihari migrants live in their host locations – cramped quarters, four-five to a rented room, earning an average of Rs 12,000 per month, doing hard work, returning home for a Chhath break. The migrants are away for about ten to eleven months from their Bihar homes. This is because children are not educated (as government schools are broken), there are no local job avenues, and hence they migrate. They ought to be studying in private English medium schools.

The landholdings continue to fragment as each generation comes to pass, due to which even farm jobs have declined, leaving no options other than migration. Kishor said something that most economists have not ventured into. The money earned in a city is not enough for subsistence there, and most of it must be sent back home for the families’ needs. That makes for a hard life. 

The four or five people in a rented room could well be in a slum where the new arrival finds a kith and kin from his village back home or nearby, works on the first job he can find to learn a trade, and becomes the next magnet for another migrant to come. This makes for a continuing cycle. They are part of the male-led migration, and when women migrate, it is only due to marrying a better-off person in the host city. The married men who come are grass widowers until they take their unpaid annual breaks.

If there is any other political party that has been irked by migrations, in this case in-migration, it has been the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and its spin-off, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The Shiv Sena was formed to protect job opportunities for the locals as against the migrants from the South who took up white collar jobs of typists and clerks. Later, as the size of the city grew as well as the population, migrants were the dominant part of it. In 2011, half the city consisted of slums, and most residents there were UP and Bihari migrants but menial tasks. Uddhav Thackeray had once said they were the reason why the city looked ramshackle.

Did he have a solution instead of complaining? No, he didn’t; he had once told me. “The solution to Mumbai’s migrants-therefore-slums issue lies elsewhere. The states from where the migrants come should deal with it” by retaining them by providing them with jobs. However, the fact remains that migrants power the economies of the host states, and there is no escape from that. The jobs which locals hesitate to perform are the first choices of the migrants, and that does not allow them to climb. 

While Uddhav Thackeray’s problem could be solved by Prashant Kishor if he succeeds in winning, forming a government in Bihar, and keeping his promise. That would be quite a task for the Jan Suraaj. His party has promised Rs 12,000 per migrant who would return. This means substantial financial resources as it would be for other political formations to keep their commitments in their manifestos. Education in private English-medium schools as an antidote for migration for menial jobs would also be sponsored by the government, Jan Suraj has promised.