During the peak of Covid-19 pandemic, newscasts repeatedly showed a large number of immigrants trying to go back to their native places. As regular transport services were disturbed, families with women and children even trudged towards their faraway homes. They carried their meagre possessions in cloth bundles and boxes on their heads. Some, walking on the railway line, lost their lives under speeding trains. With the fear of the pandemic waning, most have returned to their urban workplaces, but some have stayed back.
Migration to cities has been going on for years. During my school days, most people acquired English typewriting and shorthand skills after passing their school-leaving examinations. After a year or so, they left for North-Indian cities in search of a job. I have heard stories of people going to Burma to work on road construction or Malaya as estate workers. Apart from heroes of the black-and-white movies, the first person I saw wearing a pair of trousers was my uncle, who had come on vacation from Malaya.
I grew up in Kerala. Most households had paddy fields. The rich kept several cows and bullocks. Their dung and urine were used, along with green manure, as the only fertilizers. Ploughing was done with bullocks. Water was drawn to the fields from canals and rivers by a man sitting on a raised wooden platform, rotating a large wooden wheel with his legs. All farm-related works were done manually and the labourers were paid in kind. Most houses had a large storeroom called ‘Nilavara’ where paddy was stored. Paddy straw was preserved in haystacks called ‘kachithuru’ to feed cows, bullocks and calves.
Now that almost all agricultural work has been mechanised, there has been a change in the rural economy. As small farmers cannot afford mechanical farming, and manual labour has become very expensive – about a thousand rupees for a day’s work according to timings fixed by labour unions – people have been leaving agricultural fields fallow.
Rural artisans also need encouragement to retain their traditional profession, which is being abandoned by the new generation. In the past, my village had artisans who made bronze vessels of different kinds. Every other house used to be a manufacturing hub. Now that the market for their produce has almost disappeared, there are hardly a couple of units in the village.
Governments have been trying to stem the migration of people to cities. Piped water is being supplied to villages, though only a fraction of the population has benefited till now. Many continue to use water from wells and become victims of water-borne diseases. Wood is being replaced with gas as cooking fuel. Electricity is slowly making inroads into villages. People are being cajoled to use hygienic toilets instead of using the open field for answering calls of nature. Among other things, free education and free healthcare are being provided to the rural population though not at the desired speed.
It is a herculean task to convince villagers not to migrate to cities. They prefer to live even in urban ghettoes under pathetic conditions. Honest politicians in power are trying to stem the flow with the help of bureaucrats, but much more needs to be done.
