The migrant workers from Bihar are in the news again. The last time it was discussed was during the coronavirus pandemic when migrant labourers walked back to their homes amid the lockdown. Lakhs of Biharis leave their villages and towns for work in India’s more prosperous states. The thing is, despite tons of news articles and media coverage, political debates and outrages, the ground realities have not changed. If they had, they won’t be migrant workers from Bihar.
Futile promises of employment by the politicians of Bihar
No new big industries have been established n Bihar in the past decades. Without any big industry, labourers from Bihar move to the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh seeking jobs. Politicians from various parties cite different reasons for this. For example, Nitish Kumar once said during the 2020 assembly election campaign that Bihar doesn’t have industries because it doesn’t have a coastline. He essentially meant that large industries are established in states that have seashores.
On the other hand, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav looks at government jobs as the solution to this problem. He had promised to give 10 lakh government jobs in the very first cabinet meeting if his party is voted to power. Nitish Kumar and Tejaswi Yadav are ruling the state in an alliance they formed in August 2022, but the promise is yet not fulfilled despite so many cabinet meetings being held.
With the state government not fulfilling their promise of 10 lakh government jobs, students and young aspirants in Bihar protested for the jobs and the Bihar police lathi-charged the agitating youths. Now the veteran chief minister and young deputy chief minister have shifted their promise from 10 lakh government jobs to ‘generating opportunities for employment for 10 lakh people’.
It is evident in this situation to ponder a thought over the possible ways to stop the Bihari labourers from migrating to other states for jobs. Is government jobs the only way to stop the forced migration from Bihar? Or it is only the big industries that can bring about a change in the situation? Can’t employment be created in the state without big industries? Is it not possible to change the state without special category status or central package?
Bihar’s local industries died an unregistered death in the last three decades
To understand the problem and its root cause, let’s take the example of Kenar Chatti located at a distance of 28 kilometres from Gaya – one of the most crowded cities in Bihar. Once this place was known for the manufacturing of bronze and brass utensils. Traders used to come to Kenar Chatti from different parts of Bihar, nearby states, and even Nepal.
50 local families were directly involved in the work of making bronze and brass utensils. Today this number has reduced to 5 houses. The members of the rest of the families either became hawkers or turned from artisans to labourers. Some members of the families who are still associated with this work have now migrated to other states for earning their livelihoods.
As it happened
During a visit to Kenar Chatti in the year 2020, I met 60-year-old Rajmohan Kasera who said at that time, “As far as I remember, no government ever made any efforts to keep the industry afloat. So many MLAs came here, clicked photos, and went back after assuring us that they will do something to promote the local business. None of them looked back at us. This shattered the hope of our people, so we started doing other jobs. We have to do it to run the families. If government provides proper help and support, the 50 families who used to do this work will be uplifted and the work will be revived.”
In the 2020 assembly elections, politicians in Bihar made big promises to stop migration. But Kenar Chatti’s situation did not change even in 2023. In fact, those big promises were made because the migrant workers who returned home due to Corona were present in the state in large numbers to cast their votes. As the economy recovered from Corona, they again left their homes and went to different parts of the country for their jobs.
Villages in Bihar today are bereft of men of working age. The only males left are the ones too old or too young to travel for work.
There are so many similar cases in Bihar
This is not just the story of one place called Kenar Chatti. This is the story of the whole Bihar state. Every part of Bihar once had its own local industry. Most of these industries were agri-based. Because of this, farming was not a loss-making deal for farmers like it has become today. Also, migration to other states was not the only option for the workers in Bihar.
Recent migrations from Bihar are way different than the older ones
In his work Migration and Achievements of Maithil Pandits, Jagdish Chandra Jha mentions that Maithil people have always been going to other areas of the country for better opportunities, having greater economic benefits. However, there is a significant difference between the migrations then and the migrations in current times.
In old times people used to bring with them new techniques of agriculture, ways to live a healthy life, and the tricks of setting up domestic industries as they returned to their homes. It was because of this exchange of ideas, knowledge, and techniques that the industry in Bihar was growing despite the usual migrations.
For example, the industry of muslin cloth in Madhubani, cheap clothes in Dulalganj, and paper in Kishanganj flourished despite migrations. Darbhanga became a major production centre of ivory goods. Areas like Khagaria and Kishanganj were known for brass, and bronze utensils. Bhagalpur was famous for Silk while Munger became famous for horseshoes, stoves, and shoes. Purnia was famous for Sindoor and for the production and export of tent house goods.
Local industries continued to flourish for a while after the independence
Apart from this, many public sector undertakings in independent India were also set up in different parts of the state. Sugar mills, textile industries, jute industries, tobacco processing units, dal mills, flour mills, oil mills, etc. are a few to name.
Big private sector companies like Rohtas Industries Limited (Dalmia Nagar), Ashok Paper Mill (Darbhanga), and Hind Engineering Company (Barauni) also started operating in Bihar. A fertilizer factory was established in Barauni in 1946. An oil refinery was also set up here. The railway workshop was started at Jamalpur in Munger and the Bharat Wagon and Engineering Company Limited started its unit in Mokama. The part of Jharkhand carved out of Bihar, was identified with industries and minerals.
Many cities in Bihar had industrial potential
Different cities in Bihar (and Jharkhand) were known for different industries. The below-mentioned list of cities and the industries they are known for briefly explains the extent of various sectors that used to flourish in Bihar and Jharkhand.
- Lac Production Industries: Gaya and Purniya
- Oil Mills: Patna, Munger, Shahabad
- Paper and Pulp Industry: Dalmia Nagar, Samastipur, Darbhanga, Patna, Barauni
- Plywood: Hajipur
- Leather Industry: Gaya, Digha, Mokama
- Cement Industry: Dalmia Nagar, Khelari
- Tobacco Industry: Munger, Buxar, Gaya, Ara
- Liquor Factory: Munger, Patna, Manpur, Panchrukhi
- Glass Industry: Patna
- Gun Industry: Munger
- Button Industry: Dalsinghsarai
- Matchbox Production: Katihar
- Blanket Industry: Gaya, Purniya, Aurangabad, Motihari
- Beedi Industry: Bihar Sharif, Jhajha, Jamui
- Handloom Industry: Madhubani, Bhagalpur, Bihar Sharif, Gaya, Patna, Munger
- Utensils Industry: Siwan, Bihta
None of these local industries is functioning today. The factories have turned into ruins and scrapyards. Those who were once artisans are working as labourers today, far away from their homes. On various occasions, these migrant Bihari labourers become targets of violence in different states.
Who is responsible for the migration of labourers from Bihar to other states?
There is not just a single factor responsible for this situation in Bihar. But the spurt in joblessness that Bihar has witnessed in the last few decades is only because of the policies framed by Congress, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Jungle Raj, and Nitish Kumar’s alleged “good governance”.
When Congress enjoyed uninterrupted power from the Centre to the state, it neglected these industries in Bihar. Rather, the Congress governments enacted laws that encouraged industrialists to set up industries outside Bihar.
When Lalu Prasad Yadav, the pioneer of the Jungle raj, came to power in Bihar, he started saying openly that development is not his agenda. He would claim that his agenda is to bring ‘social justice’. Due to this, Bihar almost came to a standstill in the race for development. Old industries were destroyed one after the other. Job creation and industrialisation were sacrificed at the altar of appeasement and virtue signalling.
In almost two decades of Nitish Kumar’s regime, there has been a lot of talk of development, but employment opportunities have not been created. This holds true despite Nitish Kumar sharing power with the BJP or with the RJD and other parties. This is why the local aspirants working in various industries in Bihar were forced to go away from their homeland because of a lack of opportunities.
The ‘Push Factor’
Dr Praveen Jha is the author of ‘Coolie Lines’, a book on indentured labourers. He lives in Norway. He told OpIndia in 2020, “If migration is called relocation or travel, it is an opportunity. This is the reason why migration has also been taking place from the prosperous states of India (Gujarat and Punjab). The influx of foreign money has been enriching them. This is called the ‘pull factor’ in displacement. That is when you go to a place for a better opportunity. That is when the better opportunity pulls you towards itself. But the word ‘migration’ is associated with anger when it has the role of ‘push factor’ more than ‘pull factor’. The ‘push factor’ is a major reason for migration from Bihar. The reason for this migration has been the closure of local industries and jungle raj.”
The push factor means the people are forced to leave their native places to survive, to earn a basic livelihood, not for ‘better prospects’ of socio-economic ambitions.
Reasons of migration
Senior sociologist Naval Kishor Chaudhary, a former principal of Patna College, considers both social and economic reasons for this. According to him, migration from Bihar gained momentum due to the following reasons:
- 1. In the decade of 90s, Bihar witnessed widespread caste discrimination and subsequent violence. This caused a mass migration of different classes from different parts of the affected areas.
- 2. Industries in the state were closing one after the other and no new businesses were established. This not only stopped new employment opportunities but also eliminated the already available jobs. This forced people to go to other states of the country in large numbers to work as labourers.
- 3. With changing power equations, the backward classes started tending more toward working as a labourer in a metro city rather than doing a similar job in their villages and towns. Our social structure is such that people quite comfortably do jobs in metro cities that they are otherwise ashamed to do in their own villages or towns. They feel that no one watches them doing it in the city.
- 4. The abolition of ancestral occupations also forced people to migrate as labourers. It happened in two ways. For example, there was a section of barbers, iron smiths, and potters who were doing their ancestral works in the villages and were not ready to take this work forward. They went to the cities. For those who wanted to stay associated with the ancestral business, there was a crisis of livelihood due to the migration of other classes from the villages. Gradually, they also moved to metros.
- 5. Every year, floods and droughts also force people in large numbers to migrate from rural areas to work as labourers in metros.
Effects of certain acts
Senior journalist Surendra Kishor hails from Bihar. He observes that one of the major reasons for this is the Rail Fare Normalization Act. This law was made by the central government after independence and it ended in the 90s. Under this law, the freight rate for the transportation of coal from Dhanbad to Ranchi was the same as it would take to reach Chennai. It encouraged industrialists to set up coal-based industries near the seashore.
Surendra Kishor told OpIndia, “Had this law been there in the British era, there would be no Tata Nagar. Then Tatas would set up their industry in cities like Mumbai. Due to this dishonest approach of the central government, Bihar suffered a loss of at least Rs 10 lakh crore. Industries did not develop as expected in the state. Agriculture has not developed like in Punjab. The population increased. Employment opportunities were not being created at the local level. In such a situation, migration for jobs became a must.”
Will the people of Bihar be able to change this?
The way out to stop migration from Bihar is not just big industries, government jobs, special status, or central government packages. It can be stopped only by reestablishing industries according to different areas of the state. The Yogi Adityanath government is promoting the One District One Product scheme to encourage the flourishing of local industries in various districts across the state. Likewise, efforts can be taken in Bihar too. This is a tried and tested model. The improvement in education standards, vocational training from an earlier age and general entrepreneur-friendly governance can go a long distance in creating job opportunities at different levels.
But, finding solutions to address the crisis is neither a priority for the common people of Bihar nor for the political parties. In such a situation, no one knows when this trend of migrating for jobs will end. Bihar will continue to be a BIMARU state, and the word ‘Bihari’ will be used as abuse until the ‘Bihari’ stereotype is a poor migrant worker in a perpetual state of fleeing, either from his village to a big city, or running from a big city to his village because he is scared to stay there.
The Hindi version of this article can be read here.
