Opinion - News Analysis

Everyman's El Dorado

Migrants looking for a better deal add to Delhi's population every day, says Lalit K. Jha.

MIGRATION IS a harsh reality that the capital will have to live with. Jobs are the draw. Uttar Pradesh tops the charts contributing 40 per cent of the total influx. Neighbouring Haryana is next with 12 per cent. Bihar stands third with 11 per cent, followed by Uttaranchal (9 per cent), Rajasthan (6 per cent) and Punjab (5.49 per cent). In fact, these half-a-dozen States account for nearly 80 per cent of the total migration to Delhi. As for the other States, West Bengal accounts for 2.79 per cent, Madhya Pradesh 2.75 per cent, Kerala 1.61 per cent, Tamil Nadu 1.56 per cent, and Himachal Pradesh 1.45 per cent.

Delhi police estimates put the number of Bangladeshi migrants in the capital at about 1.5 lakhs, though unofficial estimates quote a figure of five lakhs. Fleeing the perennial famines and floods that ravage Bangladesh every year, a large number of refugees make their way to Delhi. Most serve as cheap factory labour or as domestic help. Similarly, migrants from Nepal mainly find employment as domestic help or security guards.

An internal report of the Delhi Development Authority on "Demographic Profile for Delhi-2021" notes that more than 35 per cent of the city's population living in slums and unauthorised colonies are migrants. About 30 lakh people live in the over 1,200 slums and over 25 lakhs in 1,500 unauthorised colonies. Around 4 lakh to 5 lakh people live on the banks of the Yamuna alone.

According to the DDA report, a majority of the migrants are young. While men in the 15-34 age group come seeking employment, it is marriage and family movement that brings women between 20 and 34 years to the Capital. "Both male and female migrants are more in blue-collar jobs, while the non-migrants are more in white-collar jobs," the report says. Case studies by the National Capital Region Planning Board and the National Institute of Urban Affairs show that a majority of the migrants improved their income status within a couple of years of coming to the Capital. Not surprisingly, quite a large number of them were able to get a "house of their own" mostly in the slum clusters, shantytowns and unauthorised colonies.

But though they may have left their native lands, the migrants tend to retain their cultural identities. For instance, there are slums where people from Tamil Nadu have their huts in one corner, while those from Bihar are tucked away in another.

A similar pattern is observed in the nature of employment, says urban affairs specialist Pushpa Pathak, who has done a detailed study on migration to the capital. According to her, nurses in the capital are mostly from Kerala, whereas a vast majority of the labourers and rickshaw-pullers come from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Construction workers are mainly from Rajasthan and taxi drivers from Punjab. Skilled labourers from Orissa work as plumbers. While educated migrants from Tamil Nadu are largely in Government service, the non-skilled ones, particularly women, serve as domestic help.

"There are sociological reasons for this," says T.K. Oommen, sociologist. "The migrants normally come to the capital and stay with friends or relatives as they need someone to help them integrate culturally in a new atmosphere," he says.

Terming migrants from non-Hindi speaking and distant regions such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala "cultural strangers", he says it takes some time for them to merge with the new set-up.

Joining the profession of their acquaintances and staying with them provides a sense of security. At times, this is the same even for migrants from the Hindi-speaking belt.

For instance, almost all migrants from Atihar, a remote village in Darbhanga district of north Bihar, prefer to stay in the same slum clusters of Subhash Nagar and Uttam Nagar in West Delhi despite being from different religions and castes. And most of them are street vendors.

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• A show of anger
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• Everyman's El Dorado
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