They stimulate and
facilitate growth and development.
Ashok Kumar Updhyaya, about 50, came to Bombay in 1974 and has been
working here since. He started in the suburbs as an auto-driver and
moved into the city in the late 90s. He is today a driver to a senior
multinational executive. He still has land in his hometown in
Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, maintained by his elder brother. He is
married with three children. Ashok’s wife and daughter spend six months
in their native town, the rest with him. His dreams that his daughter
gets married into a good family, his sons, pass school and get a
permanent job in a company. He could then retire and go back to his
‘gaon’ and lead a less stressful life. He currently owns a ‘kholi’
(chawl) in central Mumbai.
Thakur is about 45 years old. He is married with six daughters and a
son. His wife and children stay in Shahabad, a little village outside
Ghaziabad. His younger brother has usurped whatever little land the
family had and so Thakur was forced to come to Mumbai to earn a living.
He works as a masseur at a local gymnasium and on his weekly off-days
does massages to individuals at their homes for side income. His
‘salary’ income is sent home to his family in Shahabad while he uses
whatever he earns in ‘freelance’ to survive in Mumbai. He shares in a
10 by 10 foot flat with seven fellow migrants. He travels as much as
possible on foot to save travel costs. His dream is to get all his
daughters settled one day — he however doesn’t know how to make that
possible but keeps working at it.
Both Ashok and Thakur go home once in six months. They speak Hindi but
their hometowns are now only “break” destinations. They are city
evangelists who tell people about city opportunities and get others
from their “biradari” (brotherhood) to come and find work in Mumbai.
These are typical stories of migrants coming to big towns in search of
jobs and better lives. If one were to typify the IT worker migrating
from small towns to cities like Bangalore and Delhi, the stories may
not be as grim but the essence of living and dreams is quite similar.
Whether low income or high income, migrants are those who leave the
security and comfort of home turf in search of better living to explore
new opportunities for growth. They struggle, fight, adapt and then
adopt the new environment to survive and thrive.
Migration is a product of the fundamental human need to progress. Big
cities are the centres of opportunities and so people move from small
towns to big cities. Unfortunately this often means extensions of
existing urban centres rather than growth of more “urban” centres. And
this is the root cause of “pressure” of migration on existing cities
and metropolises. Urbanisation is both a requisite of and an output of
economic development. So fighting migration is fighting development and
progress. The challenge for administration and growth managers is to
ensure that urban infrastructure is simultaneously developed and
integration of migrants is well managed.
There are, however, economic, social and cultural benefits of migrants
and migration in a country like India. It stimulates economic equity.
Migrants are the window to better products and lifestyles to their
brethren who are in the villages. Rural and semi-urban adoption of a
number of new products like clothes to shampoos to music systems to
two-wheelers can be traced back to migrants who see them in the big
towns and take them back home. Kerala owes much of its both material
and intellectual progress to the widespread migration to West Asia in
the 70s and 80s. Little conscious attempts have, however, been made by
marketers to actually target migrants — it is often a fallout of their
larger effort to drive consumption in large urban centres — an
opportunity waiting to be tapped!
Migrants create social restlessness. Restlessness is good: it provides
the stimulus for progress. The United States has been built by the
restless energy of Europeans who left their continent to discover new
lives in a new land. There is no place for complacency for migrants as
they need to first survive and then prove themselves in a new
environment. The laziest races at home suddenly transform into
hardworking ones once displaced into a new environment. In an era of
growth and development, this is necessary and provides energy that can
be positively harnessed.
They provide a platform for cultural exchange of ideas. It forces
society to appreciate multiple viewpoints and learn to live with
diversity. It helps to get cultures to adapt best practices of each
other and that makes for a more evolved and mature society. As the
western world is coming east, they are beginning to realise the value
of new ways of doing things. This could help evolve a new business and
management philosophy that brings together the performance orientation
of the west and merge it with the people-centric view of the east.
Paradoxically, as cultural integration takes place, it strengthens
traditional roots … as people mingle with a new culture, they work
doubly hard to protect the better rituals and values of their roots and
this provides for a good balance between progress and tradition.
In 1990, Norman Tebbit proposed his ‘cricket test’ in the Los Angeles
Times. He said that the ultimate test of social and cultural
integration was a migrant’s answer to the question: “Which side do you
cheer for?” in a cricket match. He went on to criticise Asian and
African immigrants into the UK with the claim that they mostly rooted
for England’s opponents and this was unacceptable. In fact, when two
West Indian-born bowlers bowled fast against their own people — the
West Indies — he said they had proven their loyalty. This was roundly
condemned — recognising that with an open economy, one must accept open
society. Indian critics of migrants may well consider this.
In an age of market supremacy, mass migration is a natural product.
Indians will move westwards and give glory to the country. Small
towners will move to large towns to seek glory. It’s inevitable and
it’s more prudent to think of how to manage this rather than fight it
or attempt to stop it.
Something worth thinking about.
madhukar.sabnavis@ogilvy.com
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