Biharis alone cannot bring Mumbai to a halt

If Biharis in Delhi decide to strike, they can bring it to a halt, according to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. They are about a fifth of the national capital, he said, while celebrating the centenary of Bihar’s formation on Sunday. And he said this in New Delhi. And can they bring Mumbai to its knees if they choose to? Unlikely. Before we deal with why they can’t, let’s cut back to Nitish Kumar. He is the first Bihari of stature to say the following, explicitly or by implication: the migrant Bihari population in Delhi has not just a right to livelihood but a right to the city as well. They have also influenced the social, economic and cultural life. Having done that, they can no longer be seen with disdain but deserve respect because they matter to Delhi. People and political parties, as the Indian Express reported, should take ‘respectful note’ of the migrants. Anecdotal narratives by long-time Delhi residents reflect that the Punjabiness of the city is slowly withering away and Bihariness – the language, and ways of interacting with other Delhiwallas ­– is palpable, substantially altering the scene. Also, given their size, there is some assertiveness, which would be missing had the migrants been poor and in minority. [caption id=“attachment_250228” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Though Biharis do migrate to Mumbai, they do not seem to have the strength they do in Delhi. Reuters”]  [/caption] This is the assertiveness Nitish Kumar showed when speaking on their behalf in New Delhi. It was not a rhetorical flourish but a statement of fact. No migrant community asserts itself till the numbers show a substantial accretion to their strength. Nitish Kumar’s articulation is such a huge change from earlier screams of Bihari politicians who only claimed a right to livelihood, not to a city itself. One can rewind to what Lalu Prasad Yadav said whenever the Shiv Sena, and later the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), either protested at outsiders taking away jobs from the locals or prevented them from seeking jobs. So had Mulayam Singh and Mayawati from Uttar Pradesh. What about Mumbai? Though Biharis do migrate to Mumbai, they do not seem to have the strength they do in Delhi, Kolkata and rural Punjab. Their lower preference for Mumbai is pronounced apparently because of the long distances. There are no empirical studies as yet to point that out. Since about a decade, their flow into Mumbai may have slowed down because one hears whispers about the lack of the right kind of labour for jobs that locals won’t do: backbreaking chores like laundry work, etc. Bihari workers currently belong to the strata that finds jobs thrown up by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) more useful than wages they earn from irregular jobs in Mumbai. Despite the lower wages under MNREGA, they get to work where their families are and the costs are lower than in Mumbai. Though Nitish Kumar claims that efficient implementation of the rural jobs programme has stemmed migration, the latest Planning Commission data, using a lowered bar, indicates higher absolute poverty numbers in Bihar. As things stand, the Biharis in Mumbai would make a difference to its informal sector, but not as much as if they joined hands with their co-migrants from Uttar Pradesh. If they did, they could bring large parts of Mumbai to a standstill, which is what Nitish Kumar said about Delhi. This assessment lies in the numbers of migrants from these states. Bihar has, decade upon decade — as census reports for each decade till 2001 show — sent fewer people to Mumbai than Uttar Pradesh has. Each decadal census from 1961 shows that migrants from UP were 12.01 percent, 13.46 percent, 15.9 percent, 19.28 percent and 24.28 percent of all migrants from all states. Compared to that, Biharis who arrived were only 0.22 percent, 0.41 percent, 0.8 percent, 1.4 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. Both states’ migrants into Mumbai have shown an increasing trend, but Bihar’s has been rising at a faster clip. If it doubled each decade, it more than quadrupled in the census decade between 1991 and 2001. The figures for  2001-2011 will be available once detailed census findings are out. Together, by 2001 figures, Biharis and bhaiyyas – those from Uttar Pradesh — are at over a fourth of Mumbai’s population compared with a fifth for Delhi. Mumbai’s Marathis – or sons of the soil – tend to believe that migrants are a menace to the city: they take away jobs which are their’s by right, and they complain of the Marathiness eroding because of the influx. What is ignored is that Mumbai has always been a city of migrants, both Marathis as well as non-Marathis. No major city can be without inter-state or intra-state migrants. In Mumbai’s case, there has been substantial intra-state movement as well. The sons of the soil, however – regardless of legitimacy or otherwise of complaints stemming from paranoia – have to understand that as a gross, the all-time share of migrants has been declining over the decades, having fallen from 64.24 percent of the total population in 1961 to 43.70 percent as per the 2001 census. So, it is ultimately the numbers that provide sinews to a community and that scares the locals. But as long as locals frown at low-rung jobs, the migrants – not that there are no white collared among them – will come and pluck the low-hanging fruit.