Migration: Biharis don’t have a Choice!

Of all states, Bihar has the highest rate of migration in India. The net immigration rate from Bihar is way higher than all other states and this worries our current Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He wants to stop it. I wonder why? Is it possible or even desirable in short term? I looked at the 2001 census data and future projections to figure out.

A few facts first:

•  At 964 persons/sq. km, Bihar is the most densely populated state in India after 
  West Bengal. In fact, Bihar with West Bengal and Bangladesh is the most densely populated area of the world.
• There will be more than 1000 people per sq. km in Bihar by the end of the decade and 1209 persons/sq. km by 2026.
• Bihar is also an overwhelmingly rural state, the most rural state in India after Himachal. 90% of our population lives in villages and by corollary depends on cultivable land for livelihood. This has not changed much in last 15 years (since 1991 census) and projections suggest only a minor increase in urbanization on future, from 10.4% now to 11.6% in 2026. 
• In absolute terms, our rural population is 81 million today; it will be 86 million in 2010 and over 100 million in 2026.
• Against that, the total urban population of Bihar in all its 37 district headquarters and smaller towns together is less than the population of Mumbai alone.

It is common to have high population density in urban areas but no other part of the world is so predominantly rural and yet so densely populated. When I told this to my American friends, their shocked response was: “Gosh! 880 people/sq. km. Then why the hell do you call these areas rural?” Well because people in these areas live off the land and other associated activities.

It is true that nature has been benign to Bihar as an incredibly high proportion of the total land area is cultivable here (60% or so), still there is not enough to engage and support the large rural population we have. 81 million people or 13.5 million households depend on 5.6 million ha of net cultivable land in Bihar. There will be 86 million people by the time Chief Minister Kumar seeks reelection in 2010 and over 100 million people in 20 years from now. This means that we have just about 0.0691 ha land per person or 0.415 ha land per rural household and this will go down to 0.390 ha per household in 2010 and 0.336 ha per household in 2026. In terms of land-labor ratio, we have 8 persons in 15-60 years age group living in rural areas for every hectare of cultivated land. Very soon this number would be 9 and it would climb up to 11.5 persons by 2026.

There are few places in the world (our neighbor Bengal is one), where so many have to live off so little.

There are two issues here: one, the land Bihar has is not enough to provide even subsistence to the number of people that depend on it. Two, even if subsistence is ensured, still a large number of people will remain underemployed if they depended only on agriculture and related activities. So, seasonal migration should not be discouraged in
Bihar. Since, we hardly have any large urban centers or industrial hubs; this migration has to be to other states. Without large-scale migration, the crises of subsistence and unemployment will create huge unrest in rural Bihar.

One does not have to be an agricultural expert to realize that 8 people cannot be gainfully employed year round on 1 ha of land. We are talking about 2000 man-days of work per ha of land here[1]. This is not possible even if we raise 3 crops in a year from every inch of land. As of now we take 2 crops in half of our land and just one on other half. Moreover, rice-wheat system, the predominant cropping system in Bihar, is not very labor intensive.  Especially wheat hardly needs any labor input. Sugarcane is the darling crop of Bihari landowners and the government is also promoting it in a big way. But it is also a lazy man’s crop not absorbing much labor.

Let’s be clear about one more thing: migration will be very much needed even if that impossible dream of effective land reforms is realized. There is no way that a hectare of land can provide employment to 12 persons and subsistence for 18 as is projected for 2026. There is only so much that one can gain from restructuring incentives. This doesn’t mean that land reforms are not needed. They are very much needed but migration from Bihar won’t go down even if land reforms are implemented successfully. 

Laborers’ migration enriches Bihar with all kinds of resources: cash, skills, exposure, awareness and confidence among its downtrodden. The migration that hurts is that of students. It is a drain of resources from the state which does not fetch us anything back. Most students never come back to Bihar and hardly remit anything even when they become self-sufficient. This emigration can be checked if we encourage private investors and trusts to set up quality institutions here.   

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[1] I am assuming here that all adults in 15-60 years age group, men and women, are participating in the labor market which is not true. A large number of women do not participate in the labor market at all for various reasons, while most others are active only for a part of the year. Even if we exclude all women from the picture, there is still an availability of 1000 man-days of work/ha of cultivable land, too much for any cropping system.

Bihari Kahawats

I intend to build a collection of idioms and adages from Bihar: a part of folk tradition that is being lost too fast. I love these and grew up hearing them from my grandparents and family. Brevity, acuity, humour, appropriateness, local flavor: they have all these qualities in them. They always pack a punch in them when used on right occasion and it seems there is one for every occasion. There are really clever ones that give an edge to expression like quotes of great people. I haven’t ever come across a collection of these kahawats except in people’s memory. There are just too many of them, sometimes common across regions, sometimes very specific to an area or even a village. Who coined them, how are they passed from generation to generation over decades, I don’t know. I have known some people who remember a great many and use them to great effect on every occasion. Women use them more than men, at least in my family.   

The thing i like the most about these kahawats is they are clever,wise and sharp without being scholarly which makes them accessible to all groups in the society. Unlike history or even myth, they have not been created by the victors and the dominant. The vanquished, the oppressed and the ridiculed have coined their own and those are equally popular and well known. It is in this sense that these kahawats are very democratic. If there are many that ridicule or taunt ahirs’ bluntness, there are an equal number that caution against bhumihaars’ meanness or maithils’ untrustworthiness. If there are kahawats about lazy servants, there are a good number about rapacious masters also. If many daugheters is a curse, so is a spoilt son.  

Another thing i appreciate a great deal in kahawats is their brevity and sharpness of expression. They are almost always brief, incredibly clever and pack punch like the great cartoons of RK Laxman. Even when  full of practical wisdom, they are not preachy. Take this for example: Na chinha ta naya keena.  They are catchy and earthy. The biases and prejudices of the society finds expression in them: sometimes subtly and indirectly but quite often meanly and bluntly also. I like both kinds. Kahawats are not only to preach and prescribe; there are many to just describe or to vent your elations and frustrations. And this is what makes them more interesting and exciting than the aphorisms or neeti-suktas.   I think i should use examples as i am writing about various facets of these Kahawats that make me like them. I will do so on a later date. For now let me just add my collection on this page, some 500+ of them. I wanted to have at least a 1000 good ones before putting it on web. But i could not quite enrich the collection while at home this summer. A missed opportunity, like many others. Some of the best ones are still missing from this list. I hope to keep enriching the list over the years. I have an abiding interest in them ….. almost bordering on a fascination.