Mitul Kajaria (Photograph)
Hiteshree Das (Collage), William Boles (Collage)
Home Bound
The demographic, economic, and societal contours of India’s villages and megapolises are continuously challenged by internal migration. According to the Census of India, a staggering 450 million citizens, representing over a third of the population, are internal migrants. They account for about half the population of cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad. In newer burgeoning urban centers like Pune and Hyderabad, migrants constitute two-thirds of the populace. Rural, agrarian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with some of poorest human development indices globally, account for nearly half of India’s internal migrants.
Economic aspirations and social imperatives are the dual engines that power this mass mobility. Among migrants, women constitute a significant majority, driven by the traditional practice of village exogamy, which necessitates a bride's relocation post-marriage. Beyond the bounds of social customs, economic motivations cast a wide net, drawing individuals and families alike in the often elusive pursuit of prosperity and stability. With low literacy and few skills to match the demands of the new urban economy, the jobs that await them are largely in the informal sector, lacking formal work contracts, paid leave, health benefits, and social security provisions. Many live in unstable housing; some sleep on the floors of the shops and factories they work in, others on the streets outside. The unrecognized labor of street vendors, waste-recyclers, headloaders, construction workers, cooks, home-based artisans, dairy workers, and farmers fuels India’s economic growth.
The national lockdown on March 24, 2020, that came without warning, had few plans for accommodating the migrants. Having definitively lost their already precarious jobs, and unable to process the new idioms of distancing, isolation, testing and sanitation, they yearned to reunite with their families - often hundreds of miles away. National highways turned into thoroughfares for one of the greatest exoduses India has ever witnessed, with an estimated 43.3 million interstate migrants returning home in the ensuing weeks. 4,621 special trains transported over 6 million migrants home, some of whom were hosed down with sanitizer before they entered their villages, while others were tested for COVID-19. An estimated 35 million migrants made this journey on foot, with some communities they passed through providing them with food and others turning their backs.
Kartikeya Bhatotia (Research)
Deepak Ramola (Video)
Hiteshree Das (Design)
William Boles (Collage)
Amit Dave (Photographs)
Mitul Kajaria (Photographs)