I was talking with my wife over the phone. We were discussing on the media reports highlighting the mammoth migrant worker crisis that India has never seen before. As we were agreeing on the severe hardship and subsequent change in lifestyle of those thousands of suffering people, I reminded myself that I was sitting alone in a corner of my deserted Government Quarter in Bhubaneswar while my wife was 310 km away from me, working in a Mine in Jharkhand. As a matter of fact, my parents and brother are also 435 km away from me, locked in a house in Kolkata. I realized that I may be in a far more financially advantageous position than those suffering people, but the distance matters to me too.
Lakhs of Migrant workers are stranded in several parts of India and abroad who are keen to return home amidst the largest Lockdown Exercise the world ever seen. The pandemic that is behind this Migrant Crisis may be still much lower in volume than the Spanish Flu in 1918, but due to extensive globalization, the volume of migration has drastically increased compared to what it was 100 years back. So the socio-economic implication in this case is much more complicated now. And with these numerous people trying to return to their home, forgetting the reason due to which they migrated in the first place, is it a solely panic driven gesture? Or is there any sign of reverse migration in the post COVID-19 new world order?
Migration and Reverse Migration
3.5% of the world population are international migrants, with the total number being around 272 million, according to the World Migration Report released by the International Organization for Migration. The largest chunk of this number is attributed from India. On the domestic front, according to the Economic Survey 2017 data estimates that the magnitude of inter-state migration in India was close to 9 million annually between 2011 and 2016 including the inter and intra-state migration. While this number includes a large number of migrant labourers mostly in the unorganized sector, there are huge number of private professionals, Government Servants who also add up to the sum. For a long time, migration has been depicted as one of the drivers of Globalized economic growth. It has been shown that many migrants are comparatively younger than locals and thus have a net positive impact on both GDP per capita and aggregate GDP; migration enhances output per worker by increasing human capital; and migration bolsters total factor productivity as well as innovation (Migration and the Economy: Economic Realities, Social Impacts and Political Choices, by Goldin et al.) But the basic fact is, migrants become migrants in search of a better opportunity, better growth; something they failed to find at their native place. No one wants to leave home, but they are forced to see migration as a future pathway, whether it be permanently or temporarily with the hopes to one day return home. But if a situation so arises that they see that hope is being taken away by factors that are out of their control, they naturally deprioritize the ambition of growth and start focusing on homecoming.
The same thing is happening right now. With millions of people waiting to travel to their hometown once the travel restriction been removed, a second wave of reverse migration is imminent. The Governments are still not certain if the travel restrictions can be withdrawn anytime soon, because of the high chances that many Indian cities and towns can be engulfed by community transmission of COVID-19. The state may facilitate transport and relief for the suffering and stranded migrant labourers and partially allow intra-state transport with heavy safety protocols, but unrestricted Air/Train travel across India is still months away. According to their latest briefing, the World Health Organization is also telling that the only way to come out from this pandemic is a vaccine, which is still a year away from opening for public distribution. So naturally international travel is going to be heavily restricted, if not closed, for an indefinite time. Consequently there is going to be a chocked situation for the migrants waiting to go home. So the question arises, when these people will finally reach their destination and reunite with their loved ones, how many times will they think before they migrate again?
Changing Attitude towards Migrants
Before the world was hit by COVID-19, the political landscape throughout the world was already being filled with a severe anti-migrant sentiment. Migration is often being used by some as a political tool, undermining democracy and inclusive civic engagement, by tapping into the understandable fear in communities that stems from the accelerated pace of change and rising uncertainty of our times (‘The world is about to change even faster: Having trouble keeping up? The pace of innovation and disruption is accelerating.’ Bloomberg Opinion, 6 July, 2017). The political scene of our Country and the world was nothing different than this. There was an ongoing heated migrant debate regarding the new Constitution (Amendment) Act or the CAA, the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). In the US, there was a strong anti-immigrant call from US President Donald Trump. Basically most right-wing politicians in the world were propagating Anti-migrant attitude. On a more local level, several regional pressure groups were growing stronger day-by-day, calling against suspected loss of opportunities by the natives in the hands of the ‘invaders’.
Although the pandemic has put these debates and resentments to a halt, this is merely a pause button. The resentment is still there in most of the public opinion. And that is going to have a major impact in post COVID migrant scene. At the time of writing this article, President Trump has already announced an immigration ban, the Japanese Government has announced special package to shift the factories of their companies back to Japan. On the domestic front, several state Government has announced financial packages for the migrant labourers coming back to their state as well as for the businesses who wants to relocate their hubs. There is a growing public sentiment echoing these decisions. Social media posts are steadily increasing in favour of having a job near one’s native place. And that is not only in private sector or in unorganized sector, being a part of a Government Employee Association, I can easily see the same rising sentiment in the public sector too. Although the struggle for getting a so-called ‘home-posting’ was always there amongst the Government employees, but now there is a sudden surge in that sentiment. I have received feedback even from the top-tier officials from the Central Government who are recruited through UPSC and are liable to work across India. Many of them have mentally broken down in this and searching for a chance to move to their home. Better opportunity, Career Growth etc. are taking a backseat now. And if I am not wrong, this sentiment is here to stay for quite some time. So what should we be doing now? What may be the solution so that my family does not need to be separated hundreds of kilometers apart?
Policy towards Macroeconomic Equilibrium
The Government’s policy towards development has often seen initiatives to uplift various local economics which have not grown at par with others. But now I think we should be focusing more on this on an urgent manner. With most workforce in the world becoming relatively reluctant to relocate, both the public and private sector must find a way to settle themselves in this new norm. During the lockdown period, we all have seen innovative solutions coming from all sectors in order to prevent the economy from collapsing. Cashless transaction, home delivery, virtual meetings, work from home systems are going to become the new normal in the post COVID-19 era. These measures have the potential to eliminate the need of a professional to relocate or migrate. The private sector has already started its implementation. India’s largest IT & ITES Company TCS has already set a target of having 75% work from home employees in their workforce. Many businesses are now shifting from a central-hub approach to a more cluster centric approach. A cluster centric approach is also beneficial for the unorganized sector worker as they depend on the growing economy. A growth equilibrium will eliminate the need for migration of labourers and workers of this sector. So a need for a more decentralized, localized and equitable macroeconomic policy is becoming more prominent.
Similar thinking has to be implemented in the Government workforce itself. Among its 40 lakh strong workforce, the Central Government has a majority of executive officers who are recruited as All India Service officers and are often forced to migrate due to vacancy complications. These migrations are clearly becoming redundant in the new world order. There is an age old logic of prevention of corruption by sending an employee far from home. But reality shows us that the logic today has lost its basis. We see reports of high ranking government officials taking bribe in every parts of the country. Corruption is related to the mental, socio-cultural structure of a person and does not depend on where the person is working. Rather staying at his/her home an employee can be more effective in an organization. And with the current situation, there should be an urgent policy revision to evaluate the need of having employees with All India Service Liability. An executive/administrative officer can easily recruited state-wise and may be rotated across department in his/her home state, thereby minimizing migration. According to the estimate we made during our analysis is our association, there are thousands of Government employees across all tier in India who currently are stuck due to this redundant migration and waiting anxiously to return home. So a redistribution of the workforce is absolutely necessary. A policy change in this regard will not only help coping with changing scenario, but also save a lot of money to the exchequer as the government does not have to spend on extra accommodation and transport facilities.
History has taught us that after crisis like a war, natural disaster or a pandemic like this, the rules of the society never remain the same. The rules of migration are no different, they are going to be changed too. And I am curious to see how a pandemic like COVID 19 can bend these rules in the reverse direction and write new norms. It is encouraging that we humans have always found ways to assimilate the new norms in our life. What step we will take in addressing this particular situation, however, remains to be seen.