This blog is part of SLSA blog series ‘Exploring people’s experiences of ‘law’ through the lens of migration’ (Edited by Dr Fanni Gyurko and Dr Simran Kalra), which takes a socio-legal approach to migration related issues in a variety of contexts and jurisdictions. In this blog-series we shift the focus from the nation-state understanding of migration to the ‘migrant’s perspective’. This blog-series is an opportunity to exploring new, migration-related research agendas and perspectives.

Moving Between Law: Lived Experiences of Informal Migrant Workers in India

Ayesha Pattnaik, DPhil Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, Faculty of Law (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies)

By posing the question, ‘Who is a migrant’, Scheel and Tazzioli compel us to move away from the methodological nationalism entrenched in migration studies and adopt a more inclusive perspective of mobility. India’s internal migrants are a case study of how a legal right to mobility is insufficient to ensure safe migration. Although they are citizens, interstate migrants experience a loss of rights akin to international migrants at their destinations. By migrating from their rural domiciles to distant urban destinations in other states within India, these migrant workers are undocumented in the cities they work in and lack access to welfare schemes and labour laws. However, interstate migration remains an important livelihood strategy for rural households to resist financial insecurity and climate change uncertainty.

Migrants operate in a world of informality at their destinations. Internal migrants typically work in the informal economy doing hazardous jobs in the construction or industrial sector. They entirely lack legal visibility or workers’ rights in the destination. This piece draws on my year-long ethnography with internal labour migrants in India, which was funded by the SLSA fieldwork grant. I followed migrants from rural Odisha migrating to urban Ernakulam in Kerala, to explore how their access to law and rights is shaped as they cross internal borders. In this piece, I analyse ideas of formal rights and informal norms among migrants and focus on the role of informality in migration.

Migrating Out of Law

India’s decentralised system of governance creates barriers for migrants to register for various forms of government support in a new state. Most welfare schemes they access in their villages are not portable across India. Migrants are also excluded from labour legislation as they are employed in the informal economy, which forms 80 per cent of non-agricultural employment in South Asia. Internal migrant workers specifically have rights under the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act (1979). However, by only regulating employers and contractors, the law relegates migrant workers’ rights to an ‘extra-legal territory’. Although Kerala is the only Indian state to introduce schemes specifically for migrant workers, their reach and effectiveness are limited. In my research, I found that workers’ decisions to migrate to Kerala were not shaped by the presence of migrant-specific legislation in the state.

Though movement is a legal right, migrants have different expectations of state governments at their home and destination. Most migrants are not aware of having legal entitlements in Kerala and assume they can only access the state in their villages. However, migrants who knew that some welfare schemes were portable preferred not to avail of them at their destination, in order to reserve government benefits for their households in the village. For instance, India’s public distribution system offering subsidised food rations has had low uptake among interstate migrants. Migrants told me that they would rather have their families in the village collect extra rations in their name, and also worried about how using the card in Kerala could disrupt their families’ access to the scheme.

The challenges migrants face at the destination emerge from everyday experiences of navigating a new place as an outsider. Indian states are drawn along linguistic lines, and every state has distinct social and cultural norms. Language barriers and unfamiliar informal norms have a more significant impact on migrants’ struggles. East-Indian migrant workers form the majority of internal migrants coming to Kerala, which is in South India. Migrants described how the vast differences in socio-cultural norms deepen their experiences of exclusion.

An example I found in my fieldwork was the challenges migrants face while navigating public transport. Buses in the Ernakulam district of Kerala only display signs in the local language, Malayalam. Migrants who cannot understand Malayalam have trouble identifying which bus to take or how much a ticket costs. Not speaking the local language permeates most quotidian experiences, including not being able to communicate symptoms to a medical professional or not understanding employer instructions—both of which increase risks to their health.

The inability to communicate their needs inhibits migrant workers’ ability to be heard.

The Importance of Informality

Migrants rely heavily on informal support rather than formal law. Informal networks shape workers’ experiences of migration right from the village. Internal migrants I spoke to preferred to migrate with relatives or friends from the same village or district, rather than labour contractors with a history of exploiting workers in the region. On arriving in the city, migrants continue to move within extended networks of migrants from the same regional and caste communities due to convenience. Information on jobs or employers moves through these networks. All the migrants I met found employment through another migrant.

Informal networks are essential for migrants navigating labour disputes or accessing services in their destination. Engaging with the state and formal avenues is considered a waste of time and resources by most migrants. Language barriers impede migrants’ engagement with state officials. Migrants who have pursued legal cases against employers in Kerala for unpaid wages or injury compensation have been stuck in lengthy legal battles over several years. Instead, most migrants rely on other migrants for support in case of problems like employers not paying them their wages. Migrant workers help each other find new jobs, train in particular vocations, and lend money to help tide over periods of unemployment.
In contrast to wanting to be legible to the state, some migrants worry about how formal legal systems can interrupt their existing employment or living conditions. “I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone”, Krishna said after showing me his right hand, which was missing one finger. It was amputated eight months ago in Kerala following an injury from a welding machine. Now, Krishna continues to work for the same employer in the same line of work. When I informed him that he could be entitled to more compensation, he said he was happy with his employer’s support and did not want to cause trouble by involving the law. Following the injury, his employer covered his medical bills, gave him a month of leave, and paid him ten thousand Indian rupees (100 GBP) as compensation. This was more than what Krishna expected, and he said he would rather have a stable job and a good employer, over investing in a legal battle.

Most migrants have no expectations of legal visibility and prefer to compromise with employers instead of holding them accountable.

Defining Migrant “Success”

Over time, migrants establish networks of trusted contractors or employers. Most migrants learn enough Malayalam to navigate Kerala more easily. They recognise that there is little scope for social mobility, as they largely continue to work in the informal sector and live with other migrants. However, for many migrants, integration is not a goal. Instead, conforming to the ideal of being a ‘good migrant’, who learns to adapt to local ways is considered important.

Being a good migrant is a step towards the aim of finding a “good employer”. The “good employer” operates like a myth among migrant workers who switch between employers or sectors to find suitable working conditions. Some migrants who told me they had good employers did not just describe stable wages but also valued employers who provided proper accommodation, assisted with medical expenses, and, in some cases, helped them register for specific government welfare schemes. However, none of these migrants were ever registered as formal employees.

Migrants describe understanding informal norms and local ways of life as pathways to ‘success’ over formal visibility or legal inclusion. I met several migrant families who have settled in Kerala and are educating their children in local schools. After years of living in Kerala, they are gradually changing their official documentation like ID or ration cards to be officially registered as residents of Kerala. Learning the language and adhering to informal social codes enables migrants to settle into cities before the law begins to matter.

It was apparent to all my interlocutors across migrants, civil society, and government, that employers benefit the most from cheap migrant labour. Migrants are aware of their exploitation. However, compared to other states they have worked in, migrants told me that in Kerala they had better chances of finding dignified forms of work. Being able to take days off or live in clean accommodation is just as important to migrant workers as high wages.
For migrants who find relatively more security and dignity in employers over the law, navigating informal norms is not just a choice, but a necessity.