Guruprasad Mohapatra: Migrant labourers are product of ‘genuine need’

As per the demand-supply paradigm of economics, goods and services move from areas of abundance to areas where needed. That explains why countries and cities that require labour of various specialisations, but don't have them locally, attract them from other areas.

As a result, countries in Western Europe, Australia, the US and cities in India like Delhi, Mumbai, Surat, Ahmadabad etc have a very high influx of migrant labourers. Surat is a good case in point.

Due to the thriving textiles and diamond industry, Surat has seen large-scale migration from Saurashtra and north Gujarat from within Gujarat and large scale influx from states like Odisha, Andhra and Maharashtra.

The dependence of the thriving diamond and textiles industry on migrant labour is critical for the survival and growth of the industry. This arrangement brings a win-win situation for both the migrants and the locals.

As long as they integrate well and appreciate the mutual dependent nature of this relationship, there is never any social stress and discord. Surat's municipal corporation is an interesting case, where the elected corporators belong to Saurashtra, north Gujarat, Andhra, Odisha, Maharashtra and even Punjab—a mini-India represented in the municipal body.

Since the employers and the employees realise the critical mutual dependence factor, there has never been any visible social discord or strife, unlike in some of the other cities in India and abroad.

In Western Europe, locals don't like to engage in blue collar menial jobs and this space is filled up from migrants from countries like Turkey, Morocco, African countries and the relatively less-affluent eastern European countries.

Rather than integrating, this has resulted in resentment, tensions and strife. Further, there is a growing apprehension amongst the local population about their own socio-cultural identity being swamped by the outsiders. Such tensions exist in some Indian cities, too. Mumbai is a case in point.

What needs to be realised that migration takes place simply because there was no local supply and there was a genuine need. Also with increasing globalisation and the centers of development shifting to the Asian countries from Europe and America, the migration patterns would change.

The increasing numbers of job-visa seekers from other countries to work in China and India illustrates this better. Such influx has to be accepted as an inevitable consequence of globalised and integrated commerce-an opportunity rather than a case for social apprehensions.

History is replete with such examples of inter-mingling and emergence and evolution of new cultures and societies. India, home to so many migrations over several centuries, presents the best case of such an evolved civilisation-'the wonder that is India'.