'When you compare Bihar's poverty from its earlier times, then there is a huge difference. Things have improved a lot. And migration has played an important role in reducing poverty.'
Nitish Kumar's sweeping victory in the Bihar assembly elections surprised many observers who expected economic distress, limited industrial growth and chronic unemployment to fuel public anger.
Yet Bihar's voters delivered a decisive mandate, signaling satisfaction with changes they felt in their daily lives.
To understand this paradox, Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff spoke with Alakh N Sharma, professor and director at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi.
Professor Sharma has conducted extensive research on migration in Bihar and offers crucial insights into why remittances, rising rural wages, better infrastructure and the growing influence of women voters played a decisive role in the victory for Nitish Kumar and the National Democratic Alliance.
What is your study on migration that commentators are talking about after Nitish Kumar's spectacular victory?
It is about the migration of people of Bihar to other states. This started in 1980s on a small scale but by the 1990s to 2000 the numbers started rising dramatically.
We then did a survey of rural households in Bihar and found out that 65 percent of them have migrated.
Don't confuse this with the whole population because children and women do not migrate in this survey. What we found was that those who migrated in the 1980s were poor people who migrated, but not more than four months. They used to go to Punjab and do agricultural labour or work in factories and come back.
The trend started changing after the 1990s when the poor migrated to other places in India and that duration was for a longer period of nine months. Women did not migrate in big numbers, only 5 percent of the women of Bihar migrated.
How did Nitish Kumar benefit in votes due to migration?
50 percent of migrant household income comes from remittance money. They cannot earn in their villages so they have no other option but to go out and earn.
As far as Nitish Kumar getting advantage on this factor, it is that the women of migrant workers started getting empowered. They started getting money straight in their hands. They could then take family decisions on their own. Plus these women get benefit from Nitish Kumar's government schemes and the old ladies get pension too.
The government has also constructed migration centres in many towns of Bihar but I have not done a study on how effective these centres function.
The most important factor, though, is the roads and electricity have improved a lot in Bihar. Migrant workers when they come back home, they see a huge difference as they see that it is easier to reach their home because of better infrastructure. This created goodwill for Nitish Kumar.
Migrant workers also feel happy to see that their homes have power supply in the night too which makes them happy as they do not have to worry that their families are sitting in the dark while they are happily sitting in the lit up cities of India. And here people talk of stopping the migration from Bihar.
Do you feel the Rashtriya Janata Dal's statement that it would halt migration from Bihar if it came to power backfired on the RJD?
I will not make a political comment on that because I am an academician and not a politician.
No country or state can stop migration. Mumbai city is full of migrants. And now if 2/3rds of the population in Bihar's villages are migrants, then this needs to slow down at some point of time.
You cannot stop the migration of people from Bihar overnight.
Human beings always look for opportunities that will make their lives better.
And one has to understand, people are migrating out of Bihar because there are no job opportunities in the state. Even if there are jobs, it does not provide quality employment.
So the job of the government is to gradually enable people to get good jobs but then this has to be done gradually and cannot be done overnight.
I only pray that in future the migration from Bihar drops to 50 percent from the current 65 percent. This needs to be done because no society can depend on migrants' money alone.
How has migration improved the quality of life for the people of Bihar under Nitish Kumar?
Prior to Nitish Kumar, that is before 2005, when Bihar's growth rate was less, migration remittance money played an important role in whatever growth the state had.
And the most important thing migration did to Bihar was it destroyed the feudal order of the state.
Today, people want to employ labourers but they do not get them in Bihar easily. This has resulted the bargaining power of labour force in Bihar as they demand more money.
Does it mean that Bihari labourers and agricultural workers get paid substantive amounts now?
Yes, their pay has increased three times compared to that in the last 30 years. There is a labour shortage and therefore the demand for workforce is huge.
Bihar consistently ranks among the poorest states, with one of the lowest per capita incomes in India. Conventional wisdom suggests that voters punish governments for economic distress. Why didn't this happen in Bihar?
Yes, it is true Bihar is the poorest state, but then there are other states too that are equally poor, like Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
But when you compare Bihar's poverty from its earlier times, then there is a huge difference. Things have improved a lot. And migration has played an important role in reducing poverty.
In our study, when the money trickles from outside Bihar into homes, the first thing the family does back home is that they ensure they get proper food daily. The second thing that they spend most is on making their homes. They want to make good homes so they spend on construction of their homes.
What kind of money is remitted on an average?
In our study the average annual remittances per migrant household in Bihar is about Rs 48,662, which translates to Rs 4,000 per month.
Is Rs 4,000 a month good enough for a family of, say, three in rural Bihar?
Yes, it is decent enough. 4-5 people stay in one room and they cook food and eat. They wander and stay in the village the whole day so they survive with decent meals.
It is a different thing that the migrant worker who has gone out of the village for his family is putting in a lot of hard work to keep his family well fed back home. This is the reason migration goes on from Bihar.
What impact does migration have on the women of rural Bihar?
Now if men are not at home, then it is the women taking decisions. Nitish Kumar by giving women dole from the government has already established goodwill for his party. This has given them financial independence.
Earlier, women never ventured out in the village markets but now they do and take decisions on buying household items. Women are more mobile in Bihar now. This has created a dedicated women vote bank for Nitish Kumar.
So what is Bihar lacking in right now?
Right now, the quality of education is what Bihar lacks. We have to improve that. One teacher, one school has become the norm in government schools. Nobody wants to go to government schools and everyone is rushing to private schools.
Is there no anger then on issues like education or for that matter unemployment due to lack of factories?
Bihar has only about three factories per lakh population, whereas Gujarat has around 43. Does this fact not make the voters of Bihar angry?
You've got to understand the mobility of labour from Bihar has improved a lot in the last 10 years. Many take flights to travel to Bihar from other states. There are fast trains that are well connected. People reach their native place in Bihar faster and these changes make them feel happy. They travel on good roads in Bihar.
They do compare what we were before Nitish and what we are now under Nitish. They feel good about it.
However, when an educated youth of Bihar sees the same things he finds it superficial and feels Bihar needs a change of government because there are no jobs.
Therefore, educated youth supported the RJD and uneducated youth supported Nitish.
There is a job crisis for sure as there are no good jobs in Bihar but that does not matter to the migratory unemployed youth who are out of the the state for a living and their family members.
Is this migration level sustainable in future?
Migration will always be there in Bihar and it is not good for the state. The population of youth is huge in Bihar. The fertility rate is very high in Bihar and the population size too is big.
Are you surprised by Nitish Kumar's victory?
I felt he would win for sure, but I did not expect this huge mandate. But these things happen in elections, so one should not be surprised.
And let us acknowledge the fact that women have voted in huge numbers for Nitish Kumar.