Party, Voter & The Outsider

Of the 102 crore people the country counted at the turn of the last millennium, nearly 31 crore had not been born at the place where they were found lodging and working. The migrants' stories typically began with an individual search for livelihood and opportunity. But where they have most significantly come together to get exploited is in the electoral machine — on the cogs of poll planks and political rhetoric. For, election victories are wrested on the way migrants collectively affect their host populations, in turn affecting the polity.

'The Others'

Agriculture in Punjab, industries in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and roads in the cold, uninhabitable deserts of Kashmir's Ladakh owe their existence and continuation to labourers from other states, even if their hosts have often ignored their contribution. Maharashtra leads the numbers with 7.9 million migrants, followed by Delhi with 5.6 million and West Bengal with 5.5 million.

The latest Economic Survey suggests there are another 100 million people, driven by a combination of aspiration and desperation, who work for a few months in various regions through the year, and return to their native places.
Sometimes, they get caught in unanticipated events. Recently, workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh were ousted from Gujarat following violent protests over the rape of a 14-month-old baby in Sabarkantha district on September 28.

Ravindra Sahu, a labourer from Bihar, was arrested the same day. But the suspect's apprehension did little to quell the anger, which spread like wildfire and erupted in a slew of assaults targeting migrants across Mehsana, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Patan and Surendranagar districts. The police lodged over 60 cases for hate-related crimes and arrested over 500 people.

The anger seen during the episode against non-locals flowed along similar lines as Jammu and Kashmir's northern region in 2007, when a wave of protests over the brutalisation of a 13-year-old girl drove migrants out. The teenager was raped and murdered, allegedly by Mocha Jahangir Ansari from West Bengal and Suresh Kumar from Rajasthan.

According to Shyam Singh Thakur, president of Uttar Bharatiya Vikas Parishad, a welfare body for north Indians, around 70,000 people from Hindi-speaking states left Gujarat in the week that followed the episode, amid hate propaganda being cycled through social media and messaging platforms.

Political parties fuelled the discontent. Many of those arrested for violence were believed to be associated with Congress legislator Alpesh Thakor's outfit Thakor Sena, which had staged protests demanding death sentence for the child rapist.

Part of the problem for migrants in the state is that they haven't become a potent political force. Nor do they find adequate representation in the state legislature — of 182 MLAs, three to four are non-Gujaratis. This, despite the fact that they are key contributors to the state's economy.

A recent study by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, which outranks all of the country's business schools, suggested that migrants make up 70 per cent of diamond city Surat's workforce and 50 per cent of the state's largest city, Ahmedabad.

A Class Apart

But a little to the south, in neighbouring Maharashtra, where Gujaratis themselves form a significant chunk of the migrant population, the story is slightly different. Over the years, migrants from have proven their might and claimed their due, forcing political parties to adapt.

The dwindling fortunes of Shiv Sena and ascendance of its political moiety, the Bharatiya Janata Party, are owed to migrant votes. Since the Bal Thackeray-founded party allied with the BJP in 1995, the latter has edged out the Sena, today boasting 123 MLAs in the state assembly to Shiv Sena's 63, courtesy the migrants, essentially non-Maharashtrians.

Powerhouse Mumbai, traditionally seen as a Sena redoubt, has also undergone a sea change. In the 2017 civic polls, BJP improved its tally from 31 to 83 corporators in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. It checkmated the Sena by uniting elite migrants from Gujarat and Rajasthan with their lesser privileged counterparts from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh, bearing in mind that over 30 per cent of the megapolis's 1.2 crore population — 80 lakh of them voters — is made up of North Indians.

Wealthy migrants have also edged out south Mumbai's native dwellers to the suburbs, taking over the swanky island city's redeveloped high rises, some of the priciest in the world. The city's Marathi-speaking population has whittled down from around 52 per cent in 1960 to a quarter today.

Slowly, though, Shiv Sena is catching up. The party, founded in 1966 to further the cause of the Marathi manoos, is seemingly sloughing off its prejudice to woo outsiders by adapting a wider, pro-Hindutva line.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), led by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's estranged cousin Raj Thackeray who attempted to emulate its anti-North Indian stance, has also mended his ways.

"Contrary to the perception, regional sentiment in Maharashtra is not as strong as it is in southern states, where regional parties thrive on the brand of sub-nationalism which first led to Shiv Sena tying up with BJP. It was unable to come to power on its own. But now, the reality is different. It has forced MNS to dilute its original agenda," said an MNS leader.

Vinay Dubey of the Uttar Bharatiya Mahapanchayat, who has invited Raj Thackery to address North Indians in December, said voting patterns have necessitated a strategic realignment.

"The North Indian vote swings. No party can take our loyalties for granted," Dubey said, adding that after the Congress and the BJP, the North Indians could also shift to the Shiv Sena if it came out of its xenophobic shell and served their interests. North Indians, most of whom hail from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Bihar, can influence results in 14 assembly seats.

Capital Retreat

In the National Capital, which has been a melting pot for people from across the country, the migrant phenomenon has forced political parties to balance the equation. Till three decades ago, urban villagers, businessmen and migrant Punjabis used to dominate Delhi politics. But now, a third of the city's 1.92 crore people is constituted of Purvanchalis. Purvanchal stretches from the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh to the western end of Bihar. A recent survey done across Bihar's 10 districts revealed that 40 per cent of all migrant workers flocked to the state of Delhi.

The outsides have found political representation over the years. The 70-member assembly has 22 legislators belonging to western UP and Bihar. Of the seven parliamentarians representing the city, two — Manoj Tiwari and Udit Raj — are from Purvanchal.

Purvanchalis hold sway over 55 per cent of the assembly seats in the national capital.

Looked at from the 'insider' point of view, of Delhi state's seven ministers, just one, Kailash Gahlot, can claim to be an original Dilliwala.

Senior Congress leader Chattar Singh links his party's rule form 1998 to 2013 to the support of Purvanchali voters. "Congress has always given due recognition to migrants. Leaders from the community have been given prominent roles to play," he said.

The BJP, in its earlier Jan Sangh avatar, used to entice Punjabis, businessmen and refugee population, also changed tack three decades ago. The triumvirate of Madanlal Khurana, Kedar Nath Sahni and Inder Kumar Malhotra unravelled to give way to the leadership of Manoj Tiwari, from Purvanchal. "Today, 42 per cent voters in Delhi are from Purvanchal. You can't ignore them. These are the people who get out of their houses to stand in queues to cast their votes. We had to mould ourselves to the changing realities," said BJP leader Manish Singh.

—Inputs by Dhaval Kulkarni, Shailendra Paranjpe, Sumit Khanna & Sumit Kumar Singh; edited by Manavi Deopura