Open Forum

New Delhi, 16 October 2008

BEYOND SONS OF SOIL

MIGRANTS PROSPER, LOCALS SUFFER

By Prakash Nanda

The periodic provocative remarks of the “Maratha champion” Raj Thackeray against the North Indian, particularly Bihari and Uttar Pradeshi migrants in Mumbai have rekindled the so-called “sons of the soil” controversy. Usually, the phrase “sons of the soil” is considered as a pejorative term as it implies “separation” from the national mainstream.  However, such an assessment would be a simplistic one.

Contrary to the traditional notion, some dimensions of the phenomenon of “sons of soil” are healthy and if sympathetically viewed and addressed then they promote the cause of national integration. Only when these dimensions are overlooked contemptuously, the phenomenon takes a nasty turn towards the disintegration of the nation.

Bihar, over many years now, has been exporting manpower to various parts of the country. The middle and lower middle classes of Bihar, have over the years become highly “examination-driven”. They have done really well not only in the IAS and the IPS but in other States’ public service commission-conducted jobs. But, it is a mixed bag when the jobs turn out to be in the lower category. 

Bihari labourers comprise nearly 30% of Delhi's slum dwellers. They are an important component in Punjab’s agricultural success. Likewise, in factories of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, the Biharis constitute the bulk of the labour force. Interestingly, there are no protests against them in these States. Rather they are welcomed there. In contrast, there is immense antipathy against the Biharis in States such as Assam and Maharashtra. Why?

Examples from some other countries will help us understand the problem better and find an answer. When Sri Lanka became independent in 1947, the two largest ethnic groups were the Singhalese, 74% of the population; and the Tamils, 19%. The Sri Lankan Tamils were far better educated than the Singhalese, and dominated both the higher civil service and the business world. In 1956, amidst an economic recession, the upstart Sri Lankan Freedom Party defeated the old guard United National Party by blaming the Tamils for grabbing the best jobs. Shortly after its victory, the new government brought in the Official Language Act, which declared Sinhala the one official language.

This evoked an instant reaction among the Tamils, who perceived a threat to their language, culture and economic position. Though it induced a Satyagraha among the Tamils, it was not enough to make the ethnic division of the country so acute as to lead to a civil war, which is continuing even today. All told, the Act essentially affected the upper sections of the Tamils. However, in reality, the seeds for the division were sown when the Lankan government created the Gal Oya Development Board for settling landless peasants into the fertile area of the Eastern Province.

At first, most of the migration was by Tamils and Muslims from the poorer areas of the province, followed by a group of “Kandyan” Singhalese villagers from the Central Province, and finally by Singhalese from other provinces. These Singhalese, however, managed to receive better land and their migration into the Eastern Province provoked among the Tamils a sense of demographic threat. It got compounded by the fruits of modernity too being grabbed by the migrants. Under the demographic challenge, protest groups, parties, and self-protection (or provocation) militias began to be formed, leading to the birth of the dangerous LTTE. 

Similarly, 95% of the population of Pakistan’s Sindh province was Sindhi at the time of partition. However, by 1951, 50% of the urban population was made up of Mohajirs (who came from India) with Urdu as their mother tongue. This proportion went up to 80% in Karachi and 66% in Hyderabad. The migrants also took over the property of the Hindus, who had fled to India. But state policy quickly entered the equation, as early as July 1948, when Pakistan’s Governor General ordered the separation from Sindh of Karachi (and surrounding district), the seat of its provincial government. It thus turned Karachi into a separate federal area, under the jurisdiction of the central government. This also led  to a considerable financial loss for Sindh, as it was deprived of its most productive area from the point of view of its revenue-yielding capacity.

As a result, the urban-rural divide in terms of development widened, with Karachi receiving, almost exclusively, infrastructural support and new investment both in industry and the manufacturing sectors, and rural Sindh being almost ignored. Worse, the abstraction of a centre dominated by Punjabis was further brought home to the Sindhis by way of Punjabi landholders, who were occupying a substantial portion of the choicest lands in Sindh. Thus, the Sindhis began to see themselves as the sons of the soil, demographically challenged by Mohajirs and Punjabis. Clearly, the resultant tensions have been such that many Pakistani analysts believe that Sindh may well follow the example of what is today Bangladesh.

One can give similar examples of Chakma peoples in the Chitttagong Hills of Bangladesh, the Moros in the Philippines, the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, China and Achenese in Indonesia. The point that emerges from all this is: the cause of national integration is not strengthened by helping “migrants” to prosper amidst poverty and backwardness of the locals. If in the name of national integration, a Punjabi sets up a factory in Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh and fills up all the posts of sweepers and lower-level clerks with candidates from outside the State, then it is the surest way to promote national disintegration.

In other words, the “sons of the soil” slogan can only be confronted successfully by dealing more with the sources of migration (long decades of misrule, lack of land reforms and the much deeper class and caste divides that further marginalise the poor and illiterate people) than with its consequences.

If Biharis face no problem in Punjab or Tamil Nadu or Gujarat, it is mainly because there is a perennial shortage of manual labour, with more people graduating to better paying jobs in these States.  But in a State like Assam, Biharis are targeted because the number of jobs they seek or do is shrinking fast, a problem that has been further compounded by the influx of the alleged illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Similarly, there have been instances of resentment against Biharis for trying to get subordinate posts in the government and education sector in other States with substantial number of the educated being unemployed. Few years ago, the then Congress government in Rajasthan decided not to recognize Bihar degrees as the Biharis were flooding their subordinate posts.

Viewed thus, if the Biharis, or for that matter those from Uttar Pradesh are being disturbed in Mumbai, then the real reason goes beyond the aggressiveness of the Shiv Sainiks, who, all told, did send a first-generation Bihari migrant like Sanjay Nirupam, or a first generation Bengali migrant like Pritish Nandy to Parliament, not long ago. It is sad that the overall economy of Maharashtra, once among India’s richest States, is not doing well. It will be worth analysing the migration pattern of poor Maharashtrians from rural areas to Mumbai, in search of jobs that the Biharis are doing. It is not just a coincidence that farmers in Maharashtra are committing suicide in a large scale.---INFA

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