[Urbanstudy] Cities and journeys

[mythri]

I am one of the SARAI student stipendiaries. Focusing on the road construction sites in Trivandrum city managed by Punj-Lloyd Ltd, my research attempts to understand the political economy of urban infrastructure building in the context of a regime of privatisation. It explores the patterns and trajectories of relocations of ethnic communities of West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand in these new spaces of global capital. The post is based on my field work in village Banma in disrict saharsa in Bihar in march 2006

Cities and Journeys

In this posting, I attempt a sketch of the journeys, the workers of Banma village have undertaken in their search for work and their experience of the city . I feel that post-1990s migration in search for work meant many journeys to many cities and towns, mostly to sites of infrastructure building. 
By spatiality of roadwork I mean the lack of fixity of road construction sites as places of work and production that has immense implications on strategies of accumulation in terms of procurement of materials and labour. I argue that the experience of migration calls for descriptive strategies which takes into account the spatial narratives of movement-of journeys and cities. Labour migration in the post-liberalisation era, particularly to sites of infrastructure building, has been characterised by disparate journeys rather than circular movements to a specific place, say a factory or a mine.

The following account by Bindasree Sahni of village Banma, District Saharsa, Bihar brings to fore a map of city spaces as ‘labour markets’ as well as the everyday life as worker in the city. An extract from my field journal:

"He was 17-18 years old when he went out first for work in Gowahati which was in the late 1980s. He used to load and unload coal in a godam near the railway station. It was on piecework basis. Three-four workers used to join together and take dhekka of a particular load of coal. If it was a good day, they can make up to Rs. 300, but there used to be days when they made only Rs.100 or even less. He was there for only a month.  In Delhi, he went without the aid of a contractor. He used to search for work on a daily basis. There used to be places where labourers used to assemble and where employers or their agents came to pick up labourers as many as they want. These were called ‘labour chowks’. These are there everywhere in Delhi according to him. He did building construction work being a helper to a mesthri. He lived with two others from his village renting a room and cooking on their own, in Baroula in UP near Noida. He got Rs.40 which was very less and was not making any ‘profit’ after paying for rent and food. He came back after 3 months. He came back alone. He was not scared. Somebody commented “Bihari mein dar to nahin hota.”"

Bindasree’s son, 18 year old Mangal, went out for work in Delhi when he was just 12 with his Chacha (paternal uncle). Children are recruited for diverse tasks and under inhuman conditions of work.  The older relatives who accompany the children see to it that they are not given heavy work for which they negotiate with the contractor and later with the supervisors at the work site.

"He worked in a wedding card factory. He worked from 8 o’ clock in the morning to 5 in the evening delivering the wedding card to those who had placed orders. There was no break for lunch. He used to get Rs. 500 per month for working 30days. He never went to school. He used to play kancha (marbles). His friends went there first and told him about the work. His friends were getting get RS.1500 per month. They were trained in card printing and he was told that he would also become karigaar after getting some work experience. After coming back from Delhi, he went to Noida. He was the helper of a mesthri at a building site. He went with his younger brother. He used to cook for himself and his brother during the ‘free time’. The wage rate agreed upon was Rs. 80. The contractor went away without paying their wages when the work got over. His name was Purushottam and was from Munghyr District in Bihar. They could not locate him. Nobody got their wages." 

Ramvilas Ram, a worker who is trained to repair machines, including road building equipments, had roamed around all over Delhi. The city and its delights are treated with care and caution. An extract from my field journal:

"Under the Juma masjid I have seen the chor bazaar jahan pe doh number ka kaam hote hain. Suppose I see a walkman for Rs.2000 and bargained down to Rs.1000. Even if we buy it, we might be robbed of our money and the samaan. That is the kind of place. But if you are lucky you get nice stuff there. They sell Chori ka Saman (stolen goods) there."

Surendar Malekar, who is a district committee member of the Communist Party of India, went out first 10 years ago when he was 18. 
He lived in Sant Nagar in Delhi near Buradi gaav in a room rented out by a lawyer. He did loading and unloading sand (mathi) and used to get 50 rupees per trip. He used to load the sand from the banks of Yamuna to Santh Nagar where the construction of a building was taking place. Three or four men would take up a truckload of sand and they used to make 10-15 trips.  A worker would get something between Rs. 100 to Rs.200 . He met Muhilal in Delhi accidentally one day when he was buying pan at a shop. Mukhilal was also working in the same area. He was with another 10-12 men. The contractor was from Siwan. They had given Rs. 900 for their expenses on food to him. He disappeared with that without paying them anything. They lost the wages of 2 months. He said this person must have been doing the same thing by shifting his recruiting base to other areas. 

Cheating contractors are penalised by spreading the word about their practices among workers. Surendar recounts how he was tricked into doing agricultural work when he was taken to Ludhiana  where they were told by the contractor that the work was to lay telephone cables. But when they reached there they were asked to do harvesting work. Surendar had never done harvesting in his life. He was never into agricultural work, particularly harvesting. But he had no choice but do it since otherwise how would he eat after reaching a place where he knew no one?  His hands got swollen and it was paining a lot. He used to wash his hands everyday with hot water to ease pain.  All the 12 people from the village went because Surendar was going. Ham ko kya idea tha yeh dhan katvaenge?. Such instances underline the lack of informed choice in the recruitment process and the element of unfreedom involved in the forms of labour it perpetuates. 

"Ramkhilon Sada went to Delhi, when he was very young and spent six months there. He went when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. He had to come back from Khagariah railway station after hearing the news and he postponed the journey. He went after 10 days. The riots were still going on in the city. He was helping a mesthri in a building site. The wages were as low as Rs.11 a day. He used to sleep in a park near Subhash Nagar in Delhi. During those days very few people went out to work from these areas. Earlier he used to go to Haryana, Ludhiana etc for sowing and harvesting. Now he is 45-50. He went out for the first time when he was quite young. It was to Nepal for the construction of a bridge and he stayed there for 2 ½ months. He used to get 75 Nepali Rupees which are around Rs.35 according to him.
Ramkhilon added that when he used to go the rates were as low as 80-95 for Saharsa –Delhi, now it has become 250. They go in general compartment. Sometimes they used to enter first class but then the police picked them up; they had to shell out 10 or 15 rupees. They say “ kai chada first class mein? Then give us something too, khane pine ke liye
” General compartment will be very crowded. Those who are travelling alone would be thrown out of the train by bigger groups of workers." 
Workers from a nearby village Salkua in Saharsa District told me that the Railway Protection Force harassed them. They asked for identity card even if they had shown the ticket and would often tell the workers that they have boarded the wrong train. Workers are often picked up and thrown out of the train
These accounts urge for an understanding of the experience of migration in the light of journeys undertaken and the spaces they inhabit in the cities and towns they move to and the conditions under which they embark on these journeys. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20060701/4eb6e823/attachment.html