Scholar suggests political and policy initiatives to help migrants

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Patna : The Patna Centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and History Department of Patna University jointly organised a seminar on “Migrations and India’s Future Development Trajectory” on April 8, 2017. The Speaker was Prof Subir Sinha, who teaches at the Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Prof. Subir Sinha speculated on certain likely medium-term trends and problems in Indian development and derived from it possible trajectories of migration in India.

Prof Sinha traced the following trends: continued agrarian crisis in relation to all crops and livestock, climate instability and extreme weather events, civil war-like conditions in some parts of rural India, persistence of informal economy though with reduced degree of state support to the sector, and haphazard urbanisation.

According to Prof. Sinha, in addition to intensifying already existing dynamics of migration, some new issues would arise, such as the inability of informal work to absorb new migrants, the political victimisation of migrants, and inability of  ‘return to point of origin’ in providing a cushion to migrants. He suggested some political and policy initiatives that might mitigate the condition of the migrants of the future, according to Pushpendra Kumar, Professor and Incharge, TISS Patna Centre. Prof Daisy Narain of the History Department, Patna University, welcomed the audience. The event was chaired by Prof. Vinoy Kanth.  Prof. Pushpendra of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) said that this was the ninth lecture under the seminar series on migration.

The lectures have covered various aspects of migration such as labour processes, globalisation and liberalisation, partition, gender, land and tenancy, urbanisation, state policies, violence, migration in the North-East and folk literature. The seminar was attended by students, university teachers and the intelligentsia of Patna.