RAGE OF THE FAST AND FURIOUS

Southern states are angry despite being beneficiaries, along with western states, of the country's unequal industrial development. In their rush to gather new forms of industrial opulence, ... they continue to benefit from the cheap labour of central and eastern regions. Will the former share their riches for a more equitable growth of the union of states?

- ABDUL HALEEM SHERIF, PARTH SINGH AND AYAAN KARTIK

Twenty-four-year-old Ajay Kumar is in a state of quiet anticipation. His short-lived vacation at his native village in the Purnea district of Bihar is soon coming to an end. In a matter of days, he must leave his family behind and make an eight-hour bus journey to the state capital Patna. From there, the young labourer will board the Sanghamitra Superfast Express, which will take him to the southern metropolis of Bengaluru in Karnataka. The 44-hour-long train journey will move Kumar from an annual per capita differential of around ₹1,33,692 when it takes him back to a city where he cannot speak the local language and will have to toil 12 hours every day at a tile factory. But, for the promise of a better tomorrow and supporting his family, he will have to make this long journey across what is India’s great divide.

He is not alone in this quest. In search of better employment opportunities, millions like Kumar migrate from the central and eastern hinterland—this includes the eastern region of Uttar Pradesh as well—of India towards the more developed states of the southern and western coast. “There is a substantial transfer of labour from the eastern region to southern states, because workers get better wages in the more developed states. These are mostly people who give up rain-fed subsistence farming to take up informal labour in richer states,” observes Benoy Peter, executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, an Ernakulam-based non-profit that works on migration.