Abstract –

This paper aims to understand Migration and its underlying reasons and also its impact on the world and in India, specifically. As and through we go through the content of the given topics, we will have a better insight.

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INTRODUCTION

Migration is said to be one of the notable processes and has played a significant role by changing the history of people, economy in countries and patterns of culture around the globe. The beginning of urbanization and coming of cities in different places and the force that provided a need for labour, economic growth and safe space for humans, is credited to the process of Migration. Although, it is still seen as a failure for development and leaders see no way but to find solutions in the hope, it decreases. India is noted as one of the countries where migration invites poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. Today, recruitment of laborers through the wrong means is an industry worth 150 billion dollars. India sees a mass movement of people every year called “annual migration”, where people from the city of Odisha set out in thousands every autumn season looking out for work all over the country and are prey to agents seeking to hire them at lower prices and just for the mere purposes of using their bodies for their industrial work that is dangerous and risky. Most also become victims of giving themselves to work as security to pay a debt off by their families. Activists say, these people are put under rigorous environments of construction work for six months or more, for which their bodies are not ready and also picked up by labour agents at a very minimal price, very less than they deserve, but they have no choice but in order to ensure to feed their families, they have to take any job they are given. However, in today’s world, International Migration can also be seen as a major world issue that affects the well-being of society in economic, social, and political ways. In this era of globalization, migration can be seen as the process that includes humans from different backgrounds and places and cities and states, going through similar circumstances of struggles. But migration can not only be seen in a negative sense, but has also positively affected the trade, businesses and communities; it’s also given a chance of work for people of any cultures and benefits many. It’s been a force in people’s lives and helped provide opportunities for everyone, even those going abroad and starting new lives. Saying all this, migration also occurs through negative circumstances and creates displacement for many. It occurs due to lack of security and most times bias in opportunities provided in some places, environmental issues, and war.

INTERNATIONAL STANDING

The International Organization for Migration postulated the world migration report which estimates that there are 244 million international migrants globally (3.3% of the world’s population).[1] Not everyone prefers to stay in their home country and look for opportunities. Some poor countries have scarce opportunities as well. To deal with that and on the contrary to popular opinion, a lot of people opt to move outside their native countries, countries that are richer, for better opportunities and employment. International migrants mainly and largely consist of migrant workers. They mostly engage in the service sector and live in countries that have a high income. With that being said, global displacement is at an all-time high, in addition to the high number of refugees. The reason behind the sudden growth of global migration is the issue of refuges and asylum seekers.

A major consequence of war-torn countries is the production of a large refugee population. The past few years has seen a surge in the numbers of such refugees and the G20 countries are at the centre of such asylum seekers. Millions of applications have been filed by asylum seekers. Countries like, Germany, Lebanon Turkey and Jordan have granted shelter to millions of such refugees. Not to forget, legal migration is also a reality and the student population, in search of better academic opportunities has gained mobility internationally.

It is essential for the G20 countries to realize and acknowledge the consequences of migration because only then will these countries be able to engineer policies and schemes that are effective for the migrant population. It is also important to do so because the G20 countries have to ensure that the rights of such workers are not hampered and that they are provided with healthy living circumstances. Naturally, the policies in each country may differ but the ultimate goal of all such policies will be to highlight and enhance the advantages of migration and it’s a win-win situation for all; the host and the origin country, and the migrants as well.

The New Urban Agenda[2] re-establishes the goals of SDGs for attaining the idea of sustainable cities and urbanization. It mandates that safe, planned and regulated migration through well thought out and effective migration policies enable the positive input of migrants to cities and secure urban-rural linkages (UN-Habitat 2017). These policy linked advancements increasingly recognize the role of migration and urbanization in achieving human development, equity and wellbeing.

THEOROTICAL UNDERPINNINGS AND POLICY IMPERATIVES

The relationship between the various factors of migration, labour market, wages and capital accumulation has been a matter of talk whilst its progress. Migration is a result from the changes of the standard rural sector with exceeding labour into a modern industrial sector which works in association with capital accumulation. Urbanization completely rejuvenates an area and place, gives rise to a collection of economies making beneficial conditions for the economic process to build up a more intensive and profitable process. During this method, diverse spatial flows same as the flow of products and services, capital, labour and knowledge square amount the natural outcome of an economic process. The more the rate of economic process, diverse sorts of facial flows too will be at an increasing level. Labour quality is said to be the result of growing economic developments and urbanization. Although the connection between the three is complex, even so moderate by world and the native processes, each spatial and historical in its own way.

MIGRATION TRENDS IN INDIA

The fact remains that in India there is a high level of migration which is caused by various reasons – poor infrastructure, poverty, rise in population, scarcity of natural resources etc. Due to these reasons, people find that they have very limited living choices and they feel that migrating to another place would be a better choice for their future. There is no doubt about what urbanization in the big cities has to offer – higher employment rate, academic opportunities, transportation etc. However, there are always two sides to a coin. The shift in the economic landscape of this country has also led to forceful migration. The shift in focus from the agriculture to trade has something that has proved to be a catalyst to migration. Further investigation into the dynamics of migration and its patterns is something that is being studied since the past few years now. Such changes and patterns are in the ambit of socio- economic changes that have implications.

It is conjointly necessary to look at the pattern of internal migration by stream of migration so as to assess the role of economic and social factors during this development.3 The flow of migration are: from rural to urban, urban to rural, rural to rural, rural and from urban to urban regions. From the perspective of the push or pull factors, rural-to urban migration is the most prominent stream. Rural-to urban migration is primarily a very important part of urbanization. According to calculations, one fifth of the urban growth, throughout the years of 1991-2001, was contributed by the rural to urban migration.[3]

By contrast; there have been geographical disparities across the different states. Understanding rural-to-rural migration can be done by looking into the agricultural and infrastructural advancements of the area. Urban-to urban migration, on the contrary, showed an increased movement from one town to another for work- and business-related purposes. However, the stream that looked the most bleak was urban-to-rural migration because of the disparity in the fundamental amenities and services between these 2 positions, rural areas within the vicinity large cities appeared more appealing for several people and several of the metropolitan residents could go back to their villages to visit or live in their parental property, and utilize the property.

In India, each earlier and up to date studies ensure that there’s an in-depth relationship between urbanization and economic development regarding 65% of gross domestic product stems from the urban areas that consists India’s one third of population (31 and concrete in keeping with 2011 Census). Though India has regarding 8000 cities and cities, 53 million plus cities consists of forty-three per cent of India’s urban population showing massive concentration of population and economic activities.[4] On the contrary, Migration is a stream connecting places that are termed as rural and urban.

As we mentioned earlier, every coin has two sides. With the age of urbanization, come several other problems. For instance, Pollution, Overcrowding, Disparity in income, Crime etc. The big question for policy makers is, whether or not urbanization is a blessing; should it be welcomed or resisted? The answer to this is, consider it fortunate or unfortunate, urbanization is a reality that is inevitable since the age of urbanization is a force that has hit the entire world. As per UN estimate India’s urban population is projected to be 814 million i.e., 50 per cent of total population by 2050 (United Nations 2015). In circumstances such as these, Ideally, the negative effect of urbanization must be kept controlled as much as possible whereas its ability to reduce poverty, induce economic growth and innovations should be tapped into.

The process of making urbanization a reality is not easy. It requires skill and thorough planning. However, in India, the method of urbanization is creating regional differences and there needs to be a solution to reduce the increasing agricultural distress in different parts of the country. A geographically spread urbanization that encourages growth of tiny and medium sized cities, in the proximity of rural areas is an ideal situation as it ensures the wholesome growth of society. Furthermore, the place-based policies require urgent attention and evaluation, in addition to the household and sectoral policies in India and various other developing countries (World Bank 2009).

Studies have shown that in some cases, migration can be a prove to be a way out of poverty. Though, it is something that hasn’t been emphasized on much but internal migration, if compared to international migration can prove to be more beneficial as it promises the added benefits of financial gain and wealth. It can also improve social status but all of this goes pretty much unnoticed as researchers are mainly involved and concerned with the economy.

One advantage of migration that is often overlooked is the fact that lots of workers move to different places and learn new skills, form new abilities, become more capable. These workers further, bring their relatives and the same cycle begins again. This creates a sense of independence and confidence amongst the workers and the feeling that their contribution is of some value. It is found that emigrants also prefer returning to India as there has certainly been a rise in opportunities.

However, migration isn’t viewed in a positive light in our country and policies are specifically engineered to reduce the rural to urban flow of migration. Such as, MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005) because of this, there is an absence of integration of migration coupled with development. Migration has undoubtedly, emerged as an attainable way of reconciliation within the context of global climate change and also the prevalence of maximum weather events like floods, droughts, and cyclones etc. On the opposite hand, it can even be the underlying causes of degradation of the place migrants have moved to.

LABOUR RIGHTS

It all boils down to the rights of the workers. Let’s look at the different facets of labour and their rights. When it comes to laws and policies guaranteed to the labour force, social security tops the chart which has a hard time finding work temporarily or permanently. The concept of “Social Security” for the first time was created during French Revolution when the Declaration of the Rights of man was declared. It worked as a preamble to the French Constitution of 1793.Which stated; inter-alia public help could be a sacred duty. Consistent with Article twenty-two of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, each member of society possesses a right to Social Security.[5]

The United Nations agency declaration on elementary principles and rights at work was also one of the documents which made way for social security. Development should aim at improving the basic living conditions of people. It should, to the very least also consider the human rights of these individuals as well. The Indian Constitution provides for citizenship rights part II. Citizenship rights are considered as basic rights which should naturally be provided to any person irrespectively since they are so fundamental in nature based on ethical and religious grounds.

The assurance of the minimum rights at the work can modify folks to assert and realize a good share of the wealth. The protection of those rights can guarantee a method of translating economic growth into social equality. The event so becomes similar to the agenda of integrated development. In light of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian Constitution, the government is required to assure; the right to vote, to both men and women, the right of equal pay of equal work, protection against exploitation of any kind, for the workers, preserving their right to life, right to live in conditions of freedom and opportunities.

The government is additionally needed to secure equal justice and free legal aid, to create effective provisions for right to figure, to education and to public help in cases of unmerited need, to make sure simply and humane circumstances of labor and maternity relief, to secure work, a pay and a good commonplace of life to participation of staff within the management of industries. However, citizens should be provided with their voting rights as an essential and basic right as governed under natural law. When citizens are provided with incomplete and restricted use or denial of these civil rights like – freedom of expression, rule of law, right against bias and towards justice or political rights like- voting rights in a fair and democratic manner or socio-economic rights like- right to property, right of fair trade, right to compulsory education, all of these rights lead to squaring of measures as key dimensions leading to an impoverished life. Besides, one needs to acknowledge that to maneuver from one a part of the territory to another without imposing restrictions or one a part of the world to a different could be a basic right that shouldn’t be denied to workers.

CONCLUSION

Migration within India is a way more complex in comparison with international migration. What needs to be worked upon is to minimize the effect of push factors and maximize the effect of pull factors so that the return on investment in terms of considering human resource as capital is put across at the highest efficiency. There have been a lot of arguments that it would be extremely unreasonable to put migration at halt since it acts as a necessary factor towards development of a particular nation. Preventing migration might even be harmful (UNDP 2009; World Bank 2009; United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization 2013; Foresight 2011). The recent United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (2013) publication mentioned that the arrangements and projects encouraging unification of migrants when destination or area based remains powerless or fictional and insisted insertion of migrants in development.

In any case, it’s important to push that migration is indeed characteristic and important in furtherance of succession of humans and their growth. Nonetheless its effect is likewise place restricted. Laws and recommendations that reduce the expenditure towards migration, eradicate discrimination against migrants, and protection of their rights will lead to humungous gains for development (Sutherland 2013). A continued understanding of urban development is additionally essential for developing an acceptable structural plan of urbanization that is less complex and more feasible. Within the context of India, there’s a requirement of consolidation of migration in urbanization and progressive policies.

REFERENCES

1. Internal Migration in India: Are the Underprivileged Migrating More? (Article in AsiaPacific Population Journal) – R.B Bhagat, International Institute for Population sciences
2. Migration and Urban Transition in India: Implications for Development -Ram B. Bhagat Professor and Head, Department of Migration and Urban Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences.
3. The Changing Pattern of Internal Migration in India, Issues and Challenges – Sandhya Rani Mahapatro
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305777030_Patterns_and_Implications_of_Rur al-Urban_Migration_in_the_Uttarakhand_Himalaya_India
5. https://www.thebetterindia.com/784/the-mountain-man/

6.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294121027_Impact_of_RuralUrban_Labour_Migration_on_Education_of_Children_A_Case_Study_of_Left_Behind_a nd_Accompanied_Migrant_Children_in_India

7. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/history/lang–en/index.htm
8. http://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/
9. https://www.un.org/en/

[1] The world migration report, 2018

[2] The new urban agenda, 2016

[3] Internal Migration in India: Are the underclass Migrating More?

[4] Migration and concrete Transition in India: Implications for Development

[5] ilo.org

Authored By:

PRAGYA MISRA

Student of Law, Amity Law School, Noida, Amity University Uttar Pradesh

Disclaimer: This article has been published in Legal Desire International Journal on Law, ISSN 2347-3525 , Issue 22, Vol 7