Author – Rahul Sonpimple

Human migration is generally defined as a permanent or temporary change of residence. One can observe migration as a universal phenomenon that exists in developed as well as most underdeveloped nations In India factors such as work/ employment, business, education, marriage, natural disasters, etc. have been listed as reasons for migration in the last (2011) census. Although the census data may help one to explain the present economic plight of migrants, the structural origin and social history of who are the migrants remains unexplained. Can the economic class of any stratified society possibly be seen devoid of its social or cultural location? More particularly in Indian society which has fundamentally been divided on the basis of caste, can we use a term like ‘migrant worker’ merely as an economic category free from its social status i.e. caste?

According to the last Agricultural Census, (2015-2016) majority of Dalits are landless and only 9 percent Dalits operate on agricultural land. Most of the land of Adivasi communities lies in remote areas and not under favorable market and weather conditions. Therefore, their land has been used largely for subsistence farming. SubodhVerma (2018) in his analysis of the Agricultural Census argued that from the 1571.4 lakh hectares of agricultural land, around 80 percent is owned by the upper caste and other dominant caste groups. According to Wealth Inequality, Class and Caste in India, 1961-2012 report by Nitin Kumar Bharti (2018) Brahmin community alone monopolizes 48 percent of national income which is above the national average income and other upper caste communities secure 45 percent. Dalit, Adivasi, and OBC together earn Rs. 113, 22, which is far less than the national household income average. According to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011, only 4 percent of SC and ST families have a member in government jobs. Furthermore, the data reveals that only 6.67 percent of OBCs have jobs under the reservation system. It is in this context, the lack of education, customary landlessness, poverty, the absence of socio-cultural capital and family networks, and traditional monopoly of upper caste on the economy and employment force lowered caste and Adivasis communities to migrate in the cites and become cheap labor in the urban informal market. 

Informal economy or exploitation of lower caste migrants 

Although the majority of the Indian population still depends upon the traditional rural economy, rapid urbanization, and expansion in the urban labor population has steadily increased. According to the 2011 census, the urbanization of India has increased to 31.1 percent in 2011, from an estimated 27.81 percent in the 2001 census. More importantly, the increase in urbanization and increase in migration, from rural to urban geographies, go together and poverty remains a foremost factor for the migration. While business and education conservatively remain the least catalyzing factors for migration, they remain common factors for rural elites (upper caste) to migrate to urban areas. In addition, the migration of females for marriage and work-employment for males have been found as major factors in the rural to urban migration, and they remain prevalent reasons among rural poor – Dalits and backward classes. Like other developing countries, the major proportion of India’s economy is the informal economy, which is generally estimated to be more than 90 percent. In the absence of any pertinent laws and state regulations, the informal economy functions more within the traditional norms of caste and ownership. Most significantly, the informal economy contributes more than 60 percent to India’s GDP, about 50 percent to national savings, and about 40 percent to national exports estimated by the National Council of Applied Economic Research. According to the International Labour Organization (2002), the informal sector provides more than 50 percent of employment. Moreover, this has increased drastically. As per the NSSO report, in 2011 the informal sector generated 72 percent of employment of total employment. While the informal economy has predominately been a major source for rural employment, According to NSSO informal economy has dramatically increased in urban India. 

The expansion of the informal economy in the urban areas is directly dependent upon lower caste migrant laborers from rural areas and on the urban poor. Manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail trades, and restaurants, hotels, personal services, and domestic work are major pockets of employment for migrants in the urban informal economy. The informal employment sector of megacities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai constitutes around 66.7 percent, 68 percent, and 60.6 percent respectively of its total employment (See Srivastava, 2005). Poor housing, limited access to formal financial services, rampant exploitation, violence by locals, and political exclusion are common problems faced by migrant workers in these urban megacities (For more see, Rameez Abbas & Divya Varma, 2014). Although migration from rural to urban areas helps to increase some income, the everyday vulnerability and humiliation faced by these migrant workers remain common as the majority of them belong to lowered caste and tribal communities (See Abu S Shonchoy and PN Raja Junankar, 2014).

Caste and Roots of the Indian economy

Taking a cue from his ‘Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Max Weber (1916) theorized that due to its primordial caste structure and dogmatic belief in Hinduism, India will not reach the stage of what he called the ‘Spirit of Capitalism’. Although this sociological hypothesis of Weber has been proven wrong, his analysis of caste as status groups that is a source of honor, prestige, and power, which in turn led to gain of economic power by India’s upper caste, stands true. As Ambedkar in his germinal text ‘Annihilation of Caste’ argued that caste is not just division of labor but it divides the laborers, In India there exists no modern idea of labor in the lived experiences of the majority. Caste regards work as a ritual duty, placing the producing and laboring castes (Shudra and Ati Shudra) at the lowest rung and the consuming castes (Brahmins and Savarna) at the higher rungs of social locations. The economy of caste, unlike M.N Srinivas’s functional analysis, does not rely on reciprocity, cooperation, and interdependence, rather the caste system continues with its principles of restriction, coerciveness, violent disciplining, and punishment. Ambedkar in his time struggled against the traditional caste economy. His struggle to abolish the oppressive revenue systems such as the Khoti system and caste slavery-like Mahar Watan in British Maharashtra give us glimpses of exploitative history of the caste economy. Moreover, it tells us that the history of caste is not solely about upper-caste consent but also of anti-caste conflict. The traditional caste-based economic systems like ‘Jajmani system’ in North India sanctioned the ‘restrictions and immobility’ of lower caste Kamin (worker)which, as William H. Wiser in his book ‘The Hindu Jajmani System’ (1936) explains, reproduced the economic inequality and maintained an unequal oppressive exchange system.

The new market economy, constitutional provisions, labor laws, welfare policies, etc. have transformed India into one of the fastest-growing economies as many argue. However, India’s rankings on wealth inequality, educational disparity, the monopoly on economic institutions and disproportionate ownership of agricultural land, and many other indicators unravel the age-old caste hegemony of upper castes and the subjugation of lowered castes. 

Although welfare provisions and reservations in jobs and education have been seen an instrumental to bring social and material mobility among lower caste, the unfulfillment of reserved seats and scuttling of reservation has limited its benefit to the minuscule section among lower caste. Further, several studies have revealed that most of the unfulfilled reserved seats are converted into general quota and get filled by upper caste candidates. This has been continuing even in the formal private sector industries and corporate houses. Thorat and Paul Attewell (2007) in their study on discrimination in private sector enterprises in India found that higher caste candidates get more preference than lower caste candidates even when having the same qualification. Thus, caste capital and family networks and not just a high-quality education and skills play an important role in gaining entry into the assumedly open or free job market economy. It is in this context, the lack of socio-cultural capital and family networks, lack of education, landlessness and poverty, the only option left for lower caste migrants are low paying jobs in informal sector in urban area. According to a study on ‘The informal labour market in India’ conducted by Abu S Shonchoy and PN Raja Junankar (2014), “Brahmins and people belonging to high caste are more likely to be in the formal sector, compared to the lower social castes and Muslims. In the urban economy Dalits and Muslims are more likely to be daily wage laborers and artisans”. Therefore, in this lockdown sympathizing and celebrating the charity of few rich for migrants may reproduce the celebrated idea of India as one nation, however, deep-rooted caste inequality maintains the two different yet opposite worlds. One is the ruling upper caste-class world and another is the working caste-class world. As the upper caste have traditionally been the core vote bank of the ruling BJP the agonies and hardships of lowered caste and Adivasi migrant workers remain non-threatening to both the state and the society. The painful death of sixteen Adivasi (tribal) migrant workers in Aurangabad is the story of new India with the old political economy of caste structure. In this lockdown Dalit poet, Omprakash Valmiki’s poem ‘Thakur Ka Kuan (The Thakur’s Well) seems to echo loudly. He unravels the everyday material realities of dominant and marginalised communities in the Indian village. Where both the modes and means of production belong to the upper-castes. The lowered castes are mere surplus bodies for the caste-based economy. Valmiki asks in the end, what belongs to the lowered castes and to whom do they belong- the village, the city, the nation? Sadly, this question remains unanswered even today.