For the first time, a Hindi state – Madhya Pradesh – has complained about migrants taking away jobs.
Hours after taking oath as the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 18, Kamal Nath declared that outsiders were grabbing jobs meant for locals. “People from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh come here and local people don’t get jobs,” he said. His government went on to issue an executive order promising incentives to industries that reserve 70% of the jobs they generate for Madhya Pradesh residents.
Nativist state politics is not new in India. In the seven decades since Independence, several Indian states have seen political rhetoric that targets outsiders or their culture. In the 1960s, Tamil Nadu witnessed riots after attempts to encourage the use of Hindi in the state. In Assam, waves of often-violent agitations have been directed at Bengalis as well as Hindi and Nepali speakers. In Maharashtra, Marathi politicians have covered much ground since the 1960s by attacking both South Indians and North Indian for taking away local jobs.
However, the past few years have seen a new wave of native politics in states where it was never very appealing. In 2017, Karnataka saw its own anti-Hindi agitation as politicians and activists railed against Hindi signage in Bengaluru in spite of – or due to? – large numbers of new migrants from North India. In October, thousands of migrants fled Gujarat after mob attacks on Hindi speakers. While most nativist politics in India has been directed at India’s largest language group, Hindi speakers, Madhya Pradesh is the first Hindi state to itself adopt the language of outsiders taking away jobs.
What explains this? One possible reason: a sharp spike in inter-state migration.
India on the move
The number of migrants in India is large: as per the 2011 Census, there were 453.6 million Indians who were migrants. However, the vast majority of this is intra-state migration, which tends to cause little political friction. Inter-state migration in India, however, is small. While the Union government is yet to release figures for 2011 on inter-state migration, as per Census 2001 data, inter-state migration accounted for only 13% of India’s total migrant numbers.
However, this number is changing fast. This could be the result of several factors – agrarian distress, increased urbanisation, better communication technology.
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