Meenakshi B.

It is chilly. Hyderabad is waking up as the early summer heat is kicking in. The sun has risen enough to burn off the damp mist.

However, there are no signs of seasonal change in the life of the city’s migrant workers. For them, it is just another day of struggle and survival.

The hubbub in the ‘labour adda’ is audible from afar. This is where workers are hired for the day by contractors. Each labourer is excited to see a hirer walking towards them. If not hired by 10 or 10:30 AM, their wage of the day is down the drain.

Dashrath Dhakkal, 22, a seasonal migrant from Medak district of Telangana, has already given up on the tussle. He has agreed to talk over tea in a nearby stall.

“I had to fight with my family to move to Hyderabad. Finding jobs in my village is hard when the farming season ends, especially for the lower castes. Although the payment is reasonable, I miss hanging out with my friends from the village,” says Dhakkal as he takes the last sip of tea. He lives in a room shared with six others, but it never occurred to him to call them friends.

Is Hyderabad Home?

Katravath Radhika, 23, is excited about the day as she cooks bhakri [round flatbread] for her Hyderabadi friends. She cooks for them often and feels that sharing authentic food has been one of the best ways to bond with them.

“I am the first one to get educated in my family. The facilities we live in are unimaginable in our village in Maharashtra,” she says.

As she puts it, it took 18 years for her daily wager father to call Hyderabad his home as a Maharashtrian. But for her, Hyderabad is home. 

When asked about building her own family here, she paused for a moment. “If people would take a Maharashtrian girl as their daughter-in-law, then why not,” she says with an awkward smile.

The day has just started for her, and now she must rush to her skill training class with NGO United Way of Hyderabad (UWH), where she learns basic writing and learning, hoping to find work in places like supermarkets.

“In the past five years, hundreds of migrants were skill trained through various programmes throughout the city,” UWH camp coordinator Ashfaq Ahmed says.

Migrants constitute 67 per cent of Hyderabad’s population, with 7.1 per cent of those being interstate migrants, the Journal of Social and Economical Development cites. The invisible labour of migrants gets the job done and makes our lives easier. Economic opportunities are what draw workers from other states to Hyderabad. However, that is not the only reason.

For Anjaney Mogiya, an idol maker from Mewar district of Rajasthan, Hyderabad has been more like his own state. Each year he migrates to the city for about ten months (July–April) to make and sell idols.

“Since this city has a lot of people from different cultures, we get to make idols for various festivals. Unlike Delhi and other major cities, the competition among vendors is also less,” says Mongiya, who had tried his luck in several cities.

“The amount of diversity in the place where migrants settle, the migrants’ social location in terms of race, gender, religion, and language, and the migrants’ prior interactions with varied communities as a result of migration are three elements that influence migrants’ sense of belonging. Hyderabad epitomises the symbols of cultural integrity and opportunities people seek and helps them live without compromising their authenticity,” Dr Manish Jha, a professor at TISS Mumbai who has studied migration, explains.

Sense of Belonging

Migrant workers face discrimination every day.

People think of them as different, Dr Manisha Jha said. “In this country, it is unsurprising that migrant workers are treated poorly. We overlook the fact that the poor experience numerous forms of deprivation because we assume there are significant distinctions between them and us, including social, cultural, familial, and spiritual ones, in addition to material ones,” she says.

Poornima Nagaraja, psychiatrist and founder of the Dhrithi Foundation, who has closely worked with the migrants, says, “Their sense of alienation from the city comes from the lack of familiarity with the food, culture, and lack of empathy from the locals and living away from family. Otherwise, most migrants find Hyderabad far better than many other metro cities.”

Having access to public places instigates a great sense of belonging in people. 

Having no access to public facilities like crematoriums and hospitals has created a sense of antipathy among migrants. The only way for them to access a toilet is to stay near a public one.

The officials are confident that they will be able to address these problems soon. The government plans to roll out a migrant workers policy to assure them numerous benefits, including accident insurance, ration cards, affordable rental house, and school admission for their children.

“The data collection process is almost over and we are striding toward the implementation. We are trying to increase their inclusivity in public places through different initiatives,” says Deputy Commissioner of Labour M. Neelamma about the initiative’s progress.

Migrant workers are looking forward to the long-due reforms. 

Vaktiar Rathore got back to his toy business after learning about the government project that is underway.

“If things get better, I will be much happier staying here. It is just that sometimes I miss eating our home food. But if my living conditions get better, I can buy things from the market and tell my wife to cook for us,” he says.

Rathore looked at his 11-year-old nephew sitting nearby with hope in his eyes.

This article was published on 26 April, 2023.