Bengali Migrant Workers in South India: A Mixed-Method Inquiry into Their Earnings, Livings and Struggle During Covid Pandemic

Abstract

This study has tried to compare the earning and non-earning aspects of migrant workers from West Bengal engaged in different types of work in Karnataka and Kerala based on survey of 111 Bengali-speaking migrant workers and a number of in-depth interviews and FGDs. The study has found that most of the migrant workers landed in south India only after working in Kolkata, northern or western Indian cities. Lack of regular employment opportunities and low-wage rate in rural as well as urban West Bengal are the dominant reasons for their migration. Hostile social environment and increasing earning uncertainties in northern and western Indian cities along with higher-wage rate in south India are reasons for the migrant workers shifting to south India. On an average, they earn Rs. 1.7 lakhs annually and are able to send almost two-thirds of their earnings as remittances. Except the rag pickers in Bengaluru, all other migrant workers live without their families at destination locations. The living conditions of the migrant workers, especially the rag pickers, are poor. Continuous inflow of migrant workers from eastern and north-eastern India is now a challenge for the incumbent Bengali migrant workers in south India; however, majority of them are not willing to return to West Bengal in future. The pandemic and successive rounds of lockdown in destination and home states have unsettled their lives. Not only their income has fallen, getting job and movement across different destination locations has become uncertain too. They have now hardly any resource to cope up with this continuing uncertainty.

Rag-Pickers as Benefactors and Beneficiaries of the Sustainable Development Goals: A Brief Literature Review

“…Religious tolerance is indispensable for the inclusivity targeted by SDG 11, as well as for the reduction of inequalities targeted by SDG 10. Chakraborty et al (2022), in their interactions with ragpickers in southern India, found that the locals were earning more than the migrants from eastern India; and the Hindus more than the Muslims. The latter felt discriminated against, presumably on religious/linguistic grounds, as was also observed by Murthy (2016) in northern India.…”

“…It is up to the governments at all levels eventually to redress grievances on a continuous basis, through effective, long-overdue policy changes (Chandramohan et al 2010;Ravindra et al 2016;Rawat et al 2018;Masood et al 2020;Chakraborty et al 2022). Florin (2015), by highlighting the efforts taken by the Egyptian government to recognise the important role played by rag-pickers in the country's socio-economic development, has indirectly signalled to the governments of other countries in the developing world to follow suit, by at least having a good social protection system in place for migrant/itinerant rag-pickers [emphasized by Chakraborty et al (2022) in their study of Bengali migrant workers in south India]. Indeed, there is never any silverbullet solution, and oftentimes, policies which are in place at local levels, may not be implemented religiously.…”

“…Chakraborty et al (2022),Narayanswamy et al (2022),Johnson et al (2022),Coledam et al (2022),Behera (2021),Gupta and Tripathi (2021), Govind et al (2021), Prihandoko et al (2021), Fulwani et al (2020), Yadav et al (2020), Aricat et al (2020), Gautam et al (2020), Jumaha et al (2020), Masood et al (2020), Shankar Balu et al (2020), Saikumar (2019), Khoironi et al (2019), Rawat et al (2018), Thakur et al (2018), Agarwalla et al (2017), Mondal et al (2017), Mondal et al (2016), Ravindra et al (2016), Suthar et al (2016), Murthy…”

“…It is very much understandable that both adults and adolescents (and even children at times) enduring these travails day in and day out easily fall prey to alcohol and tobacco(Thapa et al 2009;Uplap et al 2014), drugs and inhalants like toluene-containing typewriter fluid(Gigengack 2014;, which provide them with a temporary reprieve from their suffering, while leading them down a perilous, health-damaging trail. If one adds in the harassment which ragpickers are subjected to, at the hands of local goons, corrupt policepersons and municipal workers(Uplap et al 2014;Chakraborty et al 2022), the plight of ragpickers has verily reached a tipping point, and it cannot, must not, and hopefully will not be overlooked.…”

“…When it comes to children, the prevalence of child labour in general, and rag-picking by children in particular -which tends to become a familial occupation(Malik et al 2002;Murthy 2016;Saikumar 2019), in the absence of interventions -deprives children of their rights to get at least a good primary education. The magnitude of the anticipated change is immense when one considers that 90% of ragpickers in Delhi(Ravindra et al 2016), 58% in Chandigarh in north India(Thakur et al 2018), and over 75% of those interviewed in south India byChakraborty et al (2022), are illiterate.2.4.1.3. Culture, heritage and religionLeaving No One Behind (LNOB), as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Group…”