KIRAN RAO BATNI writes: There is a popular misconception among some big-city people—especially among those who work for multinational companies and the English media in cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi—that India is basically a country of nomads, i.e. people who have no other business in life but to migrate from place to place, even from one linguistic state to another.
This misconception drives them to an Idea of India in which languages like Kannada, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali are of near-zero importance, since people are anyway assumed to be nomads who go from one linguistic State to another (that Hindi is assumed to be some sort of universal language in India is something I won’t dwell on here, but it’s a disease in some Indians which works together with this misconception to corrupt the real, beautiful, vibrant and diverse India).
In addition, systems of education, governance and employment at the India level are basically built for migrants (that too, Hindi speakers); natives are simply regarded as “less Indian”.
I have argued elsewhere that this is the exact opposite of what ought to be.
So let’s look at the facts of migration in India. The hard facts. The hard-to-digest facts.
I took Census 2001 migration data and did some basic arithmetic to arrive at how many Indians stay put in the village or town of birth, in the district of birth, and finally in the State of birth. Normalized to every 1,000 Indians, the data looks like this (note that an error of 1 here is an error of 1 million, but the graphs do their job of illustrating the main point I’d like to make):
That is, for every 1,000 Indians questioned by the Census, 953 were born in the same State.
That is, they are not migrants from another state.
Simlarly, 878 out of 1,000 were born in the same district in which they were questioned. And finally, 701 out of 1,000 were born in the same village or town in which they were questioned—these are folks who haven’t migrated even within their own district!
The foregoing should offer sufficient evidence that India is not a country of nomads—we don’t migrate like nomads do. It should also offer sufficient reason to not build systems of education, governance and employment for migrants at the cost of natives. It should also offer sufficient discouragement to those people (including in the Government of India) who believe that Indian languages other than Hindi don’t characterize India.
But to drive home the point a bit more, here’s another graph which plots the actual number of inter-state “migrants” in India in comparison with “natives”. Note that a migrant here is a migrant crossing a State border, which is most often a border between two States which speak different languages; similarly, a native is a person born in the state of enumeration:
From what I know, children in kindergarten can recognize which bar is higher. It is not rocket science to decide which one should form the centre of policy attention at New Delhi. But, to put it somewhat humbly, New Delhi seems to have other plans.
Isn’t it time the folks who sit in New Delhi and run India, as well as some of our big-city friends, went back to kindergarten?
churumuri 
Infosys works on global delivery model. No one will be selected in their home state . migrants will be selected and given jobs. if they miss their
home food , culture and lingo , they will work better according to our terms.
even slaves were used like this in medieval age.
At any point there are more people who want to work than to manage . Find them and make them work for you.
Only English is world’s language since they ruled us, and sex is universal need. why do you people run from obvious natural instincts? Globalisation has given you free channels like FTV. almost all movies are a copy from west. Be a world citizen. Like MF Husain and NRN’s daughter. they have proclaimed it already and wordly success.
When Shilpa shetty and Aishwarya Rai are legendary examples embracing other languages why are you people into saving. Migrate and have fun.
2001 is old one. In about a decade your graph will be changed. This year’s census will even show you a better picture.
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Kiran Rao:
>Isn’t it time the folks who sit in New Delhi and run India, as well as some of our big-city friends, went back to kindergarten?
The statistics are wonderful and illuminating, but the inference isn’t correct.
You should have taken the statistics of growth of migration, and extrapolated that growth for the future, where the migrations are bound to increase.
As an economy progresses and people become less dependent on land, migration is bound to increase too, as people will go where their jobs take them.
USA is a prime example. They lifted massive numbers out of Agriculture a hundred years back, and today an American lives in an average of 8 different places in his lifetime.
India has about 75% people still in Agriculture. For India to be a developed country you’d need atleast 50% of current agriculturists to move on to other productive professions, leaving only about 25-35% producing the food for the entire nation.
However, inter-state Migration may not happen as massively as in US, due to language barriors as suggested by you. Is that a good thing?? I don’t know.
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Irrespective of the statistics of migration growth, the fact remains that migrants form a trivial percentage of the population and that this trivial percentage has received larger-than-life media, intelligentsia and union-government attention. The next census results will be out in a year or so, and then we’ll see how much it has grown.
“People will go where their jobs take them” is true, no doubt. But it is the job of governments to do their bit to ensure that jobs come to where people already are. The 13th Finance Commission tries to ensure this in its own way (which is flawed), but try it does – so that is a positive.
One could also say “People will go where there’s water” or “People will go where there’s food”, and also “People will go where life is possible”. If governments and the intelligentsia can do no better than make these observations, both can be dismantled with no net loss.
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Writeup is good with useful insight.
Thanks Kiran for the graph.
@MDP, I didn’t quite understand what you are trying to highlight?
You’ve clubbed it all.
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@Harkol
———-India has about 75% people still in Agriculture. For India to be a developed country you’d need atleast 50% of current agriculturists to move on to other productive professions, leaving only about 25-35% producing the food for the entire nation————
I totally disagree with u. In India at present most of the so called productive modern professions which u r talking about are “Service Industries”. Development of a nation doesn’t depend on what type of productivity u do, instead it depends on the volume of productivity that is the GDP. If effectively utilized, then 75% people can definitely increase India’s GDP growth. India can be made as a main supplier for many agricultural products, but unfortunately this is not happening.
But its a very dangerous decision if 75% people starts moving towards city to serve in a service industry. Hope that doesn’t happen
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Interesting article. One has to ponder over the question of what rate of migration is culturally acceptable to the natives so as to not generate xenophobia or the trap of “politics of scarcity.” I am sure the constitution makers did not expect levels of migrations to be significant and most states were only formed at a later stage. The likes of Raj Thakeray can be easily rubbished by media/intelligentsia, but this question is not going to go away.
As far as Hindi goes, I think the educated natives know that it is just the language other English in which official business between Union and States of union gets transacted. It never was anything more than that and it never will be–no matter how forceful this self proclamations of National Language be.
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Gowda:
Harkol is right. We need more people working in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. No amount of ‘productivity increase’ in agriculture will enable comparable growth and earning.
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Gowda sir:
>instead it depends on the volume of productivity that is the GDP.
Point well taken. But here is the factoid that stops that from happening. India has 0.3hectares of land per farmer as opposed to over 11hectares per farmers in more developed economies, where the productivity of a farm laborer is far higher.
>75% people starts moving towards city to serve in a service industry
No, that’s not necessarily service industry. It could be manufacturing as well, but what ever it is it’ll need to be massively employment generating. Coming from a Farming family, I know how impossible it is for a farmer with small land holding to survive, so, Farming can’t be the future employment (thus productivity) solution.
:(
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@priyank,
I meant NRN’s daughter has 1500+ crores but that will go and get invested in developed countries and she doesn’t even live here.
If someone thinks a woman with so many crores can start an all woman oriented industry – empowering women in small and large scale industry and education, then that is a myth. They will always invest in secondary and tertiary sectors for more profits.
Even govt helps by freeing taxes to global industry. There is nothing wrong in making profits and move on in life in the pursuit of happiness.
There will always people who crib about love – they will live and die like that only. pathetic people.
So become more intelligent and migrate to developed world and learn their culture. All these our culture etc are all myths. globalisation is truth.
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@Harkol
——–India has 0.3hectares of land per farmer as opposed to over 11hectares per farmers in more developed economies, where the productivity of a farm laborer is far higher——–
Yes, the farmland per farmer in India is low. But the 0.3 hectares of land is not a Dry Land or a Desert. To remind u, Isreal is the first nation to start farming in a Desert type of land. So i dont think 0.3 acres of farming land will never leave our Farmers hand. We have many types of commercial crops, if utilized properly, definitely productivity will be in its peak.
——–No, that’s not necessarily service industry. It could be manufacturing as well, but what ever it is it’ll need to be massively employment generating. Coming from a Farming family, I know how impossible it is for a farmer with small land holding to survive, so, Farming can’t be the future employment (thus productivity) solution.————-
India has manufacturing industry even before the economic liberalization. But productivity from Manufacturing industry hasn’t increased to much height even after 1991. Let it be any type of manufacturing, but where is the raw material available for that? India basically serves as a secondary product delivery industry in manufacturing sector.
For eg. Small component manufacturing which runs in Batch type of production across india. There are no mass production industries such as automobile industry(Our Own).
So again the shining sector will be the service industries. But there is nothing wrong in serving in servicing sector.But servicing sector never allows india to beat china or to become one of the most power states of the World.
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@harkol,
manufacturing can never absorb such a huge workforce as ours. It will be massively deflationary as is happening in China and why they are in deep doodoo. Pure services is the only way a huge workforce can be kept employed productively i.e they can contribute to growth.
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@MDP,
Migration is good for people is what you are saying.
I don’t see the article mentioning anywhere that migration is bad.
Also, the article doesn’t seem to be classifying anywhere that globalisation is bad and culture is good.
The author I believe has tried to underscore that there isn’t much migration happening in the country. Hence, there is a need to devise the governing setup in such a way that it facilitates the people of the place rather than the migrants.
A pragmatic approach I must say.
—
Priyank
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Natives of Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi dont say that India is a country of nomads. They are worried about mindless migration of outsiders into Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi. The results are there for all to see in these cities. Note the perception among visitors and localites is that a city like Chennai with its emphasis on the local language as an official language makes migration from outside difficult thus providing a degree of insulation (protection from excess outside migration?) for the inhabitants.
Also it would be useful to know the method the census bureau used to determine people born in a state and outside. Not questioning the analysis, but if the data was collected without cross checking birth certificates (which in a significant number of cases may not even be available) or using some other method, it does make the numbers on cross border movement less reliable.
Minor quibbles – for a change, data is being used to support a convincing argument, good stuff.
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Priyank,
“there is a need to devise the governing setup in such a way that it facilitates the people of the place rather than the migrants”
how would it be pragmatic? local regional flavours should be curbed and disturbed ; they should be taken as slaves and made to work to make them understand globalization. that was what british did and churchill is even praised now for it by all enterpreneurs. locals should first learn to be slaves to them ; then they can learn more things.
and slaves eventually have to migrate under lords for their living.
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@MDP,
I would consider your comments as baseless.
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http://business.rediff.com/report/2010/mar/11/indian-workforce-is-most-mobile-in-world.htm
“Indian workfore is the ‘most mobile’ in the world followed by Mexio, China and Turkey, a survey by a leading human resource service provider said on Thursday. ”
“Employees in Bangalore were the most mobile in India.”
Whatever that means :)
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@Priyank,
But I have given brightest examples. How is it baseless.
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