00:00It's 8 in the morning and these streets are teeming with people waiting for their
00:09morning commute to work.
00:11Not an unusual scene in a township like Perumbavur in the Ernakulam district of Kerala in South
00:16India, known for its plywood factories and manufacturing units.
00:21But look closer and these faces and the languages that they speak set them apart from the native
00:27population.
00:29These are Kerala's migrant workers.
00:32Migration is currently an issue which is at the centre of political discourses across
00:36the world.
00:37Even in the southern Indian state of Kerala, migration is changing the socio-economic dynamics
00:42as hundreds and thousands of interstate migrant workers are pouring into the state.
00:48They are coming from places like West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jharkhand
00:53etc.
00:55And they have become the dominant labour force in the state.
00:58Perumbavur is Kerala's migration hub with more than 1.5 lakh interstate workers.
01:05But the Hindi-speaking, paan-chewing bhais, as they are called, have become a ubiquitous
01:10presence not only in Perumbavur but across the state.
01:15At the industrial hubs, at construction sites, at restaurants or even in the verdant hinterlands
01:20of this God's own country, they can be seen quietly turning the economic wheel of the
01:26state.
01:27In a communist stronghold where trade unions have flourished, it is but an irony that Kerala
01:32is at the mercy of its migrants.
01:35Without them, the state will come to a screeching halt.
01:57The kind of demographic scenario Kerala has, we actually have an acute shortage of blue-collar
02:09labour force, whereas there is high level of educated unemployment.
02:16Given the wage rates in Kerala, which are very high compared to some of those backward
02:21districts or backward states in the country such as Odisha, Assam, there is a huge migration
02:28happening as of now and it is estimated, though whatever crude estimates we have, it is estimated
02:34that there are about three to four million people working in Kerala from various states.
02:40Even in Kerala's traditional sectors like fishing, cashew and farming, migrant labourers
02:46are playing a major role.
02:48In a state that is around 50 million people, there is an estimated three to four million
02:54migrant workers and the numbers keep rising as dozens of trains are arriving in the state
03:00every week, carrying more migrants.
03:03For them, Kerala is their promised land, the biggest attraction being plenty of jobs, good
03:09salaries and better living conditions.
03:11We are poor people, we have come to work.
03:15Two children have left us at home.
03:18I have come to work in Kerala.
03:20I earn money and send it home.
03:23My parents are doing well.
03:26My brothers and sisters are studying in school.
03:29What will I do at home?
03:31I am poor.
03:32I don't have any work at home.
03:34What will I do?
03:37I get salary, I get a job.
03:40I get everything.
03:42I came here from my village.
03:45I don't have any money.
03:47I have a big brother.
03:49I have four sisters.
03:51Three of them got married.
03:53One is still at home.
03:55I don't have any money.
03:57That's why I came to Kerala.
03:59Most of the migrant workers have no complaints.
04:02Migrating to Kerala was an easy escape from poverty, social discrimination and even communal
04:08violence back home.
04:09But all is not well here.
04:11According to NGOs and migrant experts, these workers are not treated fairly.
04:16When you travel across the state, it is difficult to ignore their misery.
04:21Most of them live in unhygienic conditions next to their workplace.
04:25Often 10 or even 15 men share a room or a temporary shack.
04:29There are hardly any sanitation facilities.
04:32Those with families cram into one-room dwellings.
04:35Migrants are not even paid on par with the native workers.
04:40If a Keralite is paid 600 rupees, a Bengali or a Bihari will earn 450 rupees or even less
04:47for the same job.
04:48Overworked and underpaid, they are an exploited lot in Kerala.
04:53We are at a steel factory in the Kanjikode area of Palkad district.
04:58One of the major problems faced by migrant workers in Kerala is lack of access to health care.
05:04The government and various non-governmental organizations are trying to address the problem
05:09through targeted interventions like this one.
05:12According to NGOs and medical staff working with migrant laborers,
05:16many of them are vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases.
05:20The Salvation Army, an NGO that conducts monthly medical camps and screening programs at labor camps,
05:27says it is a pressing problem.
05:32In order to improve the living conditions of migrant workers,
05:35the government of Kerala has introduced an Apna Khar project.
05:39This one coming up in the Palkad district of Kerala is the first such labor accommodation in Kerala.
05:45This four-story building, when completed, can accommodate more than 700 workers.
05:50There are four floors and each floor has eight rooms and each room is meant for 12 workers.
05:56There are separate toilet and kitchen facilities.
05:59The next plan, the 13th 5-year plan of Kerala will also have solutions regarding the labor migration to Kerala.
06:07The planning board has constituted a working group particularly on this issue
06:12and experts including people who work at grassroot level are part of this working group.
06:21Kerala is not new to migration.
06:24Its people form one of the biggest diaspora in the Gulf countries.
06:29In UAE alone, there are an estimated one million Keralites.
06:33There are also huge numbers of Keralites living and working in India's metro cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta.
06:42But when it comes to accepting migrants from other states, Kerala is going into a dizzy.
06:48The local population resents the presence of migrants.
06:51They are often viewed with suspicion.
06:53We are very scared of migrants.
06:56When we came here in the 1960s, there were 300-400 migrants.
07:00We have not stopped working here.
07:03It has been a long time since they have come here.
07:06The government must bring some sort of control over the migrants.
07:12Otherwise, there will be more and more murders and rapes in our country.
07:20There is no way to say less.
07:22They are criminals.
07:25We can say that.
07:27The recent indictment of some interstate workers in ghastly crimes such as rape and murder
07:33has created a wave of anti-migration sentiments in Kerala.
07:38According to the State Home Department,
07:40a total of 1770 cases involving migrants have been reported across Kerala since May 2011.
07:50But there are many positive stories that prove these prejudices wrong.
07:55Basu Nayak from Odisha, who works in a packing company in Perumbavur,
08:00came to Kerala way back in 1998.
08:03His wife Manjulata and two children followed later
08:07when communal violence flared up in their state.
08:10Now both children go to school here and they can speak and write in Malayalam.
08:15We have come here because we have work to do.
08:19We have come here because we have money.
08:21There are so many children here.
08:23We don't have enough money to go to school.
08:26I would like to stay here.
08:28There is no good school here.
08:32If there is a good school here, I would like to go there.
08:37The attitude towards migrants may or may not change in the long run.
08:42But it's time Kerala wakes up to the fact
08:44that it cannot make noise on migrant rights elsewhere
08:48unless it walks the talk at home.
08:51Anjana Shankar for Gulf News.
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