Researchers have stated that lack of opportunities, unemployment and lack of facilities in rural areas including extremely small villages are the biggest cause of increased migration. The conditions of villagers are pathetic. The only work which can support them financially is agriculture or working in factories. They are poor because there’s no development done in terms of technology and industrialization. So there aren’t any chances for them to work in good firms and thus earn a respectable wage. The lack of education facilities is one other problem. Because the people are illiterate they fail to find alternatives which are innovative, creative and financially stabilizing. Whatever the issue in a way migration becomes beneficial to the urban setup because they require a large amount of labor. Also, the poor people are able to make their ends meet. So it becomes beneficial to both the receiving and sending party.
According to a 2014 survey on emigration, there would be 2-5.5% increase in wages of the sending country by a 10% emigrant supply shock. Talking of India, the states of U.P, Bihar alone account for the largest number of migrants and shares one/third of the total population. And the reason being employment alone. They not only are forced to do meager jobs but also get limited wages. They experience loss of familial ties too because they can’t afford to take their families along being financially insecure.
However, it is not only the extremely poor who shift. It also includes aspirational people which could belong to any class, say the economically rich or poor, the landlords, businessmen, farmers, underprivileged etc. They have different motives to migrate. For a businessman it could be about working with bigger firms and profit-making, for landlords it could be about excellent investment opportunities and for a farmer just about earning as much is sufficient to provide him food twice in a day. The existing patterns of agriculture practice empower the rich landlords to keep extracting surplus from the poor farmers thus ruining their conditions even more. They are then compelled to take debts because they are threatened that the land will be taken away from them.
India is an agrarian country and here around 70% of the 1.324 billion population directly or indirectly depends on agriculture. Due to failed monsoons, debts burdens, family problems major being getting the girl in the family married with a good dowry, and stupid government policies like GST the farmers undergo pressure and commit suicides. Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of the total suicides in India. The National Crime Records Bureau in 2014, had reported around 5,650 farmer suicides in India. But this was in 2014. The condition is becoming worse with each passing year. According to the most recent report of The Indian Express, most farmer suicides happened in the Hadoti region of Rajasthan where seventy-five cash-strapped farmers have committed suicide. And all the government does is express its grief and condolences and launch inefficient schemes like the Kissan and Bima Yojana.
Literature Student at Delhi University!