Over the last few weeks, two peculiar problems that concern us have raised their heads in a significant manner. The first is the compulsions of State-level political leaders to be parochial in the preferential treatment of their own residents. This is leading to social tension in several corners of India. The second is the mania of renaming streets and chowks. This activity is also prompted by narrow considerations.
Migration of labour takes place both under economic distress and under economic opulence. Of late, Chief Ministers have been propagating the philosophy originally enunciated by the Shiv Sena, which took up the cause of Maharashtrians in the competitive labour market of Mumbai and other places. But India is one. The citizen has a right to reside and carry on an occupation in any part thereof. In that view of the matter, there is a need of avoiding extreme viewpoints in this sphere. Sympathetic treatment of local residents cannot be at the expense of other citizens, who are similarly situated. One is a victim of political platitudes; and no one wants to find a balanced solution. The BJP and the Congress, supposedly all-India parties with national footprints, are retreating into narrow localism. This is immoral, uneconomic and unconstitutional. Rabindranath Tagore dreamed of an era when “The world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.” However, both the leading national parties are energetically building such narrow domestic walls.
“One country, one market!” With that slogan, politicians of all parties cheered the launch of a unified Goods and Services Tax in 2017, ending the old era when every State had its own tax rates. Alas, unity for India’s market for goods and services is suddenly giving way to disunity for the labour market. The new Congress Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath, has scrapped State concessions for companies employing more than 30 per cent of workers from other States. Meanwhile, BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani, is drafting a law forcing new projects to hire at least 80 per cent of their workers from within the State, and 25 per cent from the same locality.
Article 15 of the Constitution says, “The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.” Neither Narendra Modi nor Rahul Gandhi. Vijay Rupani or Kamal Nath can wriggle out of that. Kamal Nath protests that whatever the Constitution may say, in practice many States have special benefits for locals; so, he is following what others have long done. This amounts to arguing that because many people violate the Constitutional ban on discriminating based on religion, caste, sex or place of birth, therefore State Governments are entitled to do so too, whereas the State Governments are supposed to enforce Constitutional rules and not break them.
India does not suffer from exceptionally large inter-State migration. This is very modest and should rise several times over as prosperity and communications improve. The Supreme Court in its judgment in Charu Khurana vs. Union of India (2013), upheld the right of citizens to freely migrate and take up employment anywhere in India. According to reliable sources, though 30 per cent of Indians are migrants (mostly for marriage), they typically do so within a district or a State. Inter-State migration, which is now a political issue, is very low by international standards. A 2018 paper by Kone and others in the Journal of Economic Geography showed that over a five-year period, inter-State migration in India represented only 1.06 per cent of the population, far lower than in comparable large countries like Brazil (3.6%), China (4.7%) and the US 10%. A study in the Population and Development Review by M Bell and others compared internal migration in 80 countries between 2000 and 2010 and found that India came last. Migration improves a nation’s diversity, economic growth and equality. Poor people from labour-surplus zones are able to migrate to richer labour-scarce zones, benefitting both the zones. The migrants bring skills and capital back to their villages and raise productivity there.
Stiff competition for jobs these days has induced many groups to seek job quotas and sanctions on people from other States. Politicians are tempted to woo these vote banks. But the object of fundamental rights in a Constitution is to check short-term populism that erodes the core principles needed for national unity. Modi harps on threats to national unity, but these come not just from Pakistan or Kashmiri separatists. Unity is threatened every time politicians discriminate against people from other States. Some years ago, attacks in Karnataka forced 15,000 immigrants from the north-east to flee. In Gujarat this year, a rape ascribed to an immigrant led to widespread attacks on all immigrants from north India, forcing up to 40,000 to flee. Today, Gujarat is going the Shiv Sena way. This is not just immoral and unconstitutional; it may also be political suicide. UP and Bihar have 130 Parliamentary seats against only 26 in Gujarat. The BJP’s new stance in Gujarat implicitly blesses the attacks on north Indian workers. This can lose Modi far more votes in UP and Bihar than he would gain in Gujarat.
Time has come for our leaders to find a balanced viewpoint on the issue of inter-State migration of labour. Till the imbalances in the development and progress are not rectified, people are bound to flock to the place which has the basic potential of greater opportunities. The youth power needs to pay its attention to a national policy in this regard so that we do not hate each other as Indians but help each other in the local endeavours that go on to make the national endeavour.
The Patna Municipal Corporation is said to be considering renaming the city’s main intersection Kavi Guru Rabindra Chowk after former Prime Minister Vajpayee. The move has stoked a controversy in Bihar. The proposal is said to have been made by BJP Mayor Sita Sahu. The chowk was named after Tagore in 2002 by the Rashtriya Janata Dal Government led by CM Rabri Devi following a demand by the State’s Bengali Association to commemorate Tagore’s visit to Patna in 1936. The Nobel laureate visited the city and stayed at the Dak Bungalow along with his music troupe. The troupe presented ‘Chintrangada’, a dance drama written by Tagore. Later, the Dak Bungalow was dismantled. Union Minister of State and BJP MP from Nawada Giriraj Singh has demanded that the State Government rename Bakhtiyarpur, home town of CM Nitish Kumar, in Barh sub-division of Patna district. He has not suggested an alternative name. Bakhtiyarpur is believed to have been named after Bakhtiyar Khalji, General of the slave dynasty founder Qutbuddin Aibakm who was said to have plundered the ancient Nalanda and Vikramshila universities around AD 1193. But Singh’s demand was opposed by Janata Dal (U) leaders. The civil society has opposed the move to rename the intersection. A delegation is likely to meet Nitish Kumar to apprise him of their objection. “Tagore has an international stature and Vajpayee was an illustrious son of India,” says Shaibal Gupta, member-secretary of the Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI). “If there is any move to rename the Dak Bungalow Chowk, there will be many to lodge their protests.”
The craze for re-naming the institutions, buildings, roads and chowks very often takes an ugly turn in their intrinsic form. History does not change by such alterations. Sometimes, it is desirable to continue with the old names so that lessons of history are always in our mind. But there should not be a mad rush just to rename institutions, buildings, streets and chowks. The younger generation will not know the background or history of the habitat that contributed to its growth. Men are supposed to be rational animals. Hence, it is natural to hope that this frenzy will be replaced by rationality; otherwise, it would distort our history.
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com )