This book is a collection of research papers on issues and concerns of interstate migration in different states in India. This collection goes some considerable way to explaining complexities of life, livelihood and societal aspirations of migrants of different types defined in terms of purpose of migration, gender and geographical locations. Though the subject of migration is one of the sufficiently explored areas of research in the Indian context, the present work assumes special significance for its contextualisation in the backdrop of neoliberal economic policies and its consequential and cumulative effect on poverty and myriad ways of deprivations. Two chapters in this book shared experiences of migrants from the North-East to the mainland while special case of student migrants from Ladakh is discussed in another chapter. Issues of migrants in Delhi, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh formed the site as well as the theme of study for other chapters. The introductory chapter critiqued the mainstream approach of portraying migration as a process benefitting mutually to the migrant as well as the host. Development and growth, two catch-words vouchsafed rather frequently under new economic dispensation, by itself do breed deprivations by practising and dividing the poor from non-poor and neo-rich, adding onto the problems of the deprived.

Under globalisation, what has not yet received adequate attention or less discussed aspect is the movement of labour from the low wage labour surplus global south to the north. In the global north, transborder movement of labour is restricted by a complex battery of migration laws and rules to prevent people from global south. It is argued that migration is an inevitable outcome of the spatial inequality both in absolute and in relative terms and the process of globalisation blocked the movement of labour with rigid restrictions while vociferously arguing for free trade in commodities and services. Neoliberalism as a framework of development as well as a method of devising strategies to mainstream the poor breeds neo-rich in rural and urban India alike. The process exhumes a vast chunk of rural surplus population, who are left with little alternative but migrate to survive. Expansion of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, railways and other expansionary activities for the capital adds on to the ever-shrinking urban spaces and basic amenities of life for the poor. The nature of migration and its association with urbanisation formed the subject of investigation in chapter 2. Bhagat argued that permanent or semi-permanent out-migration from villages need not always be pervasive as often being characterised in the literature. Educated youths and those with tiny piece of capital do migrate in search of greener pastures. There has been an increase in migratory population in India during the last inter-census period while the infrastructure development in urban area fails to catch up with the population pressure. It has been estimated that 25% of urban population is yet to have access to safe drinking water and further, 11% of the urban population do not have toilet facilities. The growing mismatch between rapid growth of urban population and basic amenities of life is attributed to lackadaisical approach to urban planning and absence of a well-thought-out action plan, which ought to have evolved from a National Migration Policy in India (Anjali Borhade, Ch. 11). The chapter presented a critical appraisal of policies and programmes for internal migrants in India.

Conventional research tools with large questionnaire survey-based studies on migration have inherent limitations in understanding issues of migrant workers, who work in the casual and secondary labour markets. Epistemological questions assume special significance in migration studies as there is a cultural disunion between the researcher or the subject and the migrant, the object. Often than not, migration studies superimpose single identity as migrant, who is defined to be male. Secondary data sources-based analysis and policy formulations on migration, therefore, put a major constraint on addressing concerns of distinct categories within the broader discourse of migration as a movement forced upon individuals by a handful of factors, which lie beyond the control of the Other, the migrant. The chapter on Muslim women migrants from Jamia Nagar in Delhi (Ch. 3) quite rightly identified the limitations of conventional methods in data collection on migration and conclusions drawn on such sources of data. Case studies of Muslim women revealed the complexity of deprivations that a migrant face in her everyday life. In the literature on migration, gender issues have attracted relatively less scholarships, particularly of women from minority community. Analysis of the mobility of Muslim women uncovers the gender biasness in the perception of women’s migration, and the case studies of Muslim women as a distinct category are presented with theoretically informed in-depth empirical scrutiny. In general, migration of women from lower economic strata is considered as socially an unacceptable proposition and the perception is deeply rooted to the patriarchy.

The host society every so often perceives migrants as a single entity sharing a uniform culture and living, and a threat to the host. Recent cases reported in Kerala related to a criminal act from a migrant casual labour from another state were inhumanly and largely superimposed on the entire members in the migrant group by the social, print and visual media in the state. Consequent upon the act of an erred member in the group, migrants were chased away from the vicinity of the local community and labour contractors/middle men celebrated the vilification campaign against migrant workers in the state and resorted to cutting their daily wage, landlords spiked room rent and also denied basic amenities in their dwelling units. In fact, native community perpetuates second-class citizen status to migrant worker, albeit they are from neighbouring state or district in the country. The state apparatus, especially police and the media, too plays no less pervasive role in spreading up psycho-fervour effect on migrants as they were the ones to be observed, monitored and regulated and disciplined. The social and psychological impacts of such programing and its impact on the everyday life, labour relations and scrupulous exploitation are elusive and hard to be captured in conventional survey-based research methods. Students and migrants in the primary labour market may not face discrimination and vilification as in the case of migrant casual workers.

Policy suggestions for migrants have to be evolved with a perspective encompassing a holistic view on the nature and pattern of internal migration in India. Using the 64th round of the NSSO data, Rajan and Chyrman (Ch. 4) analysed the causes and effects of out-migration in Assam. Observations from the secondary data analysis are supplemented with a special survey in Udalguri district in Assam. In a study of nine villages in Andhra Pradesh, interstate mobility from different agrarian classes brought out rather succinctly the importance of looking at migrants from the perspective of the very purpose of the act of migration. Vijay argue that labouring poor migrate in search of employment and livelihood while the non-cultivating farmer households migrate to recommit the surplus available with them in the off-farm sector elsewhere. Prospects of the labour market are the prime driver of pushing labour households while the performance of non-farm sector attracts the landowning non-cultivating households. Factors influencing the decision of agrarian classes to migrate by characteristics of villages supply an analytically rich empirical data from primary survey of villages in Andhra Pradesh. In the map of internal migration in India, the state of Bihar always stands out for absolute and relative size of migrants to other states in India. Datta pointed out that five million migrant workers send remittances to Bihar and another reliable estimate is that remittance accounts for 7% of NSDP in Bihar. Further, dismal performance of agriculture and allied sectors has changed the destination of workers in Bihar from Punjab to Delhi and other parts of India since the onset of crisis in the crop production sector by early 2000s. The study observed further that poverty is no longer the sole push factor for outflow from Bihar, but the urge to have exposure to the modern life and better living conditions is also important for the younger generation.

True conditions of vulnerabilities, multitudes of deprivations and marginalisation can be better understood with an approach that calls into question the imposition of single identity to explain a social process as internal migration, particularly of the casual labours and women for daily wage work. The approach focuses on differences and heterogeneity with binaries as subject/object, solutions/problems and self/other. It is because the researchers are unlikely to have experienced the state of being Other in an alien land, living in isolation of social networking which works as a buffer zone in times of hardships. The researcher or the thinking agent may be a member in the class of Subjects. Although the development process by itself is a dividing force and also the prime causative agent pushing people out of their native places through displacement, migrant worker is burdened with numerous deprivations, which a native does not necessarily experience in her everyday life, notwithstanding the fact that they share the same identity as casual labour in the unorganised sector. The problem of Othering of migrant worker in an alien land can be better decoded by methods closer to anthropological approaches, and policy formulations and solutions developed from such studies would draw more proximity to the true conditions of migrants. The paper on Educational Migration among Ladakhi Youth in the book stands out for its approach, and the recommendations for the higher education sector in Ladakh underline the importance of a methodological alternative to study migration issues.

Studies on migration inadvertently reduce to economic issues, and such reductionist approach relegates several burning issues of migrants as non-issues. Migrants do face problems related to accessing health facilities, transportation, getting dwelling units to stay and above all, engage in social and political space as integral part of the society they live in. The process of development under neoliberal regime has crowded out public transport, bicycles and pedestrian paths from the road. Complexities in living conditions of migrants need to be located in the class biasness of the very development process which is deeply implicated in pushing people outside their place of birth and the society. Ramesh’s analysis of migrants from the North-East to Delhi offers informed insights to the social and cultural deprivations that the migrants are subjected to. However, concerns of young migrants for education and in white collar jobs are different from semi-skilled and unskilled casual labour migrants, and women migrants meet a set of other grave issues. Heterogeneity and differences assume significance in this context and bracketing of students and casual workers under a uniform identity as migrants, compound issues.

Migration history and its pattern in the state of Punjab are different. Labours migrate to Punjab while educated youth move out from the state to outside India. Singh argued that the trend and pattern of migration in Punjab is a paradox. Although the daily wage for agricultural labours in many districts in Punjab is comparable with neighbouring states, regular employment in the farm sector attracted labour households to Punjab. Singh argued that migration to Punjab and migration from Punjab to other countries have substantially contributed to the development of the state economy. Mishra distinguished between permanent and seasonal migrations in Odisha. Poor performance of agriculture, little alternative skills to engage in non-farm occupations in the place of birth forced the labours to migrate to other states for livelihood.

Overall, this is a clear, concise and engaging book and much-needed addition to the scholarship on internal migration. This book presented a varied account on migration with a rare combination of case studies, primary survey-based observations, supplemented with secondary data analysis. This book is ideal for policy makers as well as researchers on migration, and Mishra has succeeded in combining rigour with accessibility. The editor of the volume has succeeded in bringing everything together associated with internal migration in the book.