Migration from the rural region

Migration from the Rural Region

Migration from the Rural Region:
A Study from Bihar in India 1
Abstract
Bihar presents a picture of the exemplary region, characterized by a pretty long history of
distress as well as voluntary outmigration in India. The colonial forced migration had its
own specific place in the demographic history of India during the nineteenth century. There
had been a heavy exodus of Bihari labourers even during the post-colonial period of the
second half of twentieth century. Punjab was the western El Dorado. It had the capacity to
absorb the rural Bihari outmigrants. It was not only because of enhanced seasonal
requirements of labour but also due to continuous out migration from Punjab itself
towards other attractive destinations. The cumulative effect of these favourable situations
had been witnessed in the form of improved bargaining position of the migrant labourers
in Punjab in the seventies and eighties in twentieth century. Such a bargaining advantage
did not exist at all in the semi-feudal backward agrarian region of Bihar. The steady flow of
Bihari outmigrants to the destinations in rural Punjab indicated therefore the operations of
not only considerable differentials in money wages but also in real wage earnings of rural
labourers during seventies between the two regions. The pretty high labour earnings had
been inducing the rural Bihari outmigrants to be ready to work at destination even in such
odd jobs like crushing sugarcane, loading and unloading, and that too at a lower wage rate
relative to that acceptable by the local workers in Punjab. In the light of the Rural Labour
Enquiries data on wages, employment and unemployment, it was an established fact that
nearly negligible differentials in the mandays of employment availability in the two states
existed during seventies and eighties of twentieth century. The claim of the decennial
Census Migration Tables of 1981 with regard to the employment being significant reason
for outmigration was thus essentially ill-founded, misleading and erroneous. The earnings
aspect had probably got subsumed in the Census category of employment. It was a fault to
be rectified in the light of findings of both the Rural Labour Enquiries and microlevel
researches.

Key Words: rural labour, seasonal migration, permanent migration, inmigration,
outmigration, Bihar, Punjab, wage, employment, earnings, colonialism,
voluntary migration, distress migration, rural economy

Background
In the demographic history of Bihar region in India, the mobility of men and materials
across spaces assumes an exemplary status. In the past, there existed all the qualitatively
different kinds of migration such as the catastrophe mobility, forced political displacement and
voluntary outflow of human labour across both short as well as long distanced geographic
locations in and outside the boundary of country. There had been in existence both the
It was originally published in the Journal of Assam University, vol.6, no.1, 2001, with an extended title
and abstract.
1

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moments of slowly developing streams as well as periods of time characterized by the almost
sudden, fast and large volume of streams of migration of the working population from Bihar to
the neighboring eastern regions, and even the overseas. Features and patterns of migration set
apart, it had acted in the past as a powerful demographic phenomenon, which at times brought
large-scale change and shifts in the volume, composition and quality of population both at the
origin as well as destination within short period of time. It is then quite normal that the Bihari
migration study remained a central focus of theorization and historical analysis in the discipline
of demography for a long time in India.
In the theoretical literature, the migration study proper in general does necessarily belong to the
domain of demography. The literature on studies of the colonial migration during nineteenth
century, and the distress as well as voluntary innovation migration during twentieth century in
Bihar did however establish that its origin had gone beyond the scope of demography and its
impact beyond merely transforming the demographic face of the region. It had also been
instrumental in catalyzing the process of social change and economic transformations at the
origin of migrants — be that Saran in the north or Santhal Paragana and Chhotanagpur in the
south of Bihar — as well as the destination areas of Assam, Bengal and overseas. Given the
nature of such observed complexity and diversity associated with the analysis of history of
migration and the effects of Bihari migration on society and economy, it had slowly but
unfailingly acquired the status of a multi-disciplinary subject.
In the inter-disciplinary perspective, the colonial mobility and post-Independence migration
have been separated as historical-analytical exercise. The history of migration of Bihari
population in the nineteenth and former half of twentieth centuries had been heavily influenced
by the colonial policies of redistribution of labour across spaces, and therefore, largely the
outcome of typical colonial maneuver of the recruitment agents and agencies. It needs to be
contrasted both in terms of causation process as well as the characteristics, selectivity and
pattern of Bihari outmigration with the post-Independence demographic regime of second half
of the twentieth century. This often takes the Bihari migration analyst however into the domain
of social and economic history discipline.
In the gamut of broad literature, the descriptive study of characteristics, selectivity and patterns
of Bihari outmigartion process pertaining to different periods of nineteenth and twentieth
centuries has already been undertaken. The tradition of studying migration behaviour under
such a descriptive framework was established in Britain by the cartographer and statistician,
E.G.Ravenstein (1885, 1889). It has as well been a dominant feature of Bihari scholarship. In its
long history, the Bihari migration has moreover given birth to the thesis of it being out and out
a multi-faceted, multi-factorial and plural-causal phenomenon and process. The push and pull
forces, acting upon the potential migrants and having roots in the institutional and structural
set-up of the origin and destinations, have thus been enumerated by a couple of analysts to
explain the mobility of Bihari population. The theoretical framework of push-pull paradigm of
causal analysis developed by Everett Lee (1966) on the basis of empirical data as collected by
Bogue (1959) has been widely used to advance the significant hypothesis on reasons for
migration. The attempts have so far been incomplete, however. What exist in the literature in
the name of explanations of migration in Bihar are therefore merely impressionistic
descriptions. The causal analysis of outmigration has thus remained essentially a peripheral
work. It is our intention to undertake such a work in systematic manner in this chapter.
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Colonial Migration
In the historical perspective, there existed an intricate network of migration streams in
eastern India at the turn of nineteenth century. The migrants were selected from both tribal as
well as general population. The movers originated from a number of districts of the region, and
were destined to far-off British colonies. The people from Chhotanagpur Plateau moved to
overseas British colonies in the 1870s. The indentured labour export which began with the
recruitment of tribal people from south Bihar came to depend later on the forced migration of
poor peasant and landless groups from the north Bihar and the eastern United Province as well
(Prakash, 1992). Towards the end of century, the migration streams originated even from the
districts of Balia, Ghazipur and Azamgarh in the United Province. The huge volume of
international emigration to Mauritius, Trinidad, Namibia, British Guinea and other countries
were recorded. The choice of leaving home, kins and kindred were forced upon under the
indentured labour recruitment system of the colonial empire, to which Hugh Tinker (1974)
rightly called ‘a new system of slavery’. It was substantial in volume during 1830-1870, and
continued till 1920. People numbering around 16 million emigrated from Indian in the second
half of nineteenth century; the majority of whom were from Bihar (Saha, 1970; Tinker, 1973;
Omvedt, 1980).
The colonial migration within the boundary of country was no less worthy of consideration; it
was an equally substantial stream of the population flows. Bihar was a major labour supplying
region, and Bengal rice fields, plantation belts and mines the attractive destinations of huge
volume of migrants during the nineteenth century (Haan, 1985; Tinker, 1974). The rural labour
from Bihar as well as Orissa and United Province migrated to rice and jute fields in the northern
and western districts of Bengal. There were migrations to Burma as well. Bihar, Bengal and
coastal Burma (Arakan) was therefore declared to have become joined together in a single
system of interlocking labour mobility by the early twentieth century (Schendel and Faraizi,
1984; Young, 1986; Schendel, 1991). Assam also emerged as the destination of Bihari migrants
towards the end of nineteenth century. The proportion of outmigrants in the total population of
Chhotanagpur and Santhal Paragana districts in Bihar was 10.5 in 1891, and the same kept on
increasing from 13.2 in 1901 to 13.8 in 1911. The proportion of migrants moving to Assam
destinations alone was high enough to be 4.2 in 1901. Bengal remained however the favoured
destination. In 1921, almost 126000 persons born in Ranchi (Bihar) were enumerated in
Jalpaiguri (Bengal), and 750000 people born in Chhotanagpur (Bihar) were found outside the
region in the tea districts of Rajshahi and Assam (Saha, 1970; Haan, 1985; Badgaiyan, 1986;
Choudhury and Bhowmik, 1986). The Royal Commission of Labour in India estimated nearly 2
millions migrants in Bengal in 1921, and the majority of these in-migrants were from Bihar
origin (RCLI, 1931). In 1931 and 1941, the Bihari migrants in Bengal originating mainly from
the tribal districts of south Bihar numbered 158000 and 156000 respectively (Birbhum District
Gazetteers, 1910 and 1951; Weiner, 1978).
The colonial migration of Bihari population was in retrospect, first, a clear violation of the
modernization paradigm based on the thesis of demographic transitions, advanced by Zelinsky
(1971) and Skeldon (1990). The modernization paradigm insists upon identifying the population
mobility as concomitant with the development of society and economy. In conflict with this
thesis, the huge volume of migration did take place in Bihar without any trace whatsoever
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version of modernity and development. Secondly, the colonialism per se was not the once and
for all determinate cause of migration. There had been infiltrations of non-tribal people in the
district of Chhotanagpur and Santhal Paragana from across the border of the state sicne the
Moghul period (Das, 1983). The Biharis had been resorting to outmigration over long-distances
in rural areas even in period earlier to the colonialism, and there were instances of huge volume
of long distance rural migration even after the collapse of colonialism, that is, during second half
of the twentieth century. There is thus nothing surprising in the proposition that Biharis would
had moved during the nineteenth century even in the absence of colonial policies and
maneuvers. In other words, some components of the migration from Bihar might therefore
have been solely the result of voluntary choices of people –autonomous mobility. This is not
however to deny the fact that the colonialism was of course highly instrumental in enhancing
the volume of Bihari mobility to be much larger than otherwise, and determined the specific
selectivity, pattern and direction of flows of tribal as well as non-tribal section of population.
In comparative historical perspective, the instances of pre-modern mobility phenomenon had
been found even in non-colonized societies elsewhere. The pre-modern Europe, for example,
was not at all immobile. There were remarkably huge volume of short as well as long distanced
seasonal and permanent internal migration within countries in the continent during seventeenth,
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The population registers of Sweden, Belgium and Italy, the
migration registers of Germany, the parish records of England and France, and the urban
records of the rest of Europe were testimony to it (Jackson and Moch, 1994). Major
international emigration from the old world of Europe to the new world of America and
Australia had been a characteristic feature of the second half of nineteenth and early twentieth
century (Taft and Richard, 1955). In short, the migration in pre-modern societies, be that a
colony or a free region, had been triggered by forces other than the colonialism and budding
modernity. In case of Bihar, as in Europe, the mobility had been the outcome of regional
economic dependencies which in turn was always fuelled by the regional unevenness of
development. The phenomenon of outmigration from tribal areas of Bihar was, to a large
extent, sustained by the debt-bondage, enslavement of households, land alienation and
occurrence of famines in succession in the plateau (Singh, 1975; Mundle, 1979). The colonialism
further aggravated the situation of regional dependencies, and thus, indirectly influenced the
volume and direction of labour flows and population redistribution through migration. All said,
a rigorous regional analysis of the causation process involved in the Bihari colonial migration,
particularly one in the form of a mathematised and quantified model does not however exist in
the literature till date.

Contemporary Mobility
The colonial migration and forced outflow of population of yesterdays set aside, it has
yet been difficult to forecast the magnitude and direction, and project the impact of even
contemporary voluntary mobility in Bihar during the second half of twentieth century. The
mobility has not been as readily amenable to neat mathematical treatment as the fertility and
mortality (other two vital determinants of the population transition) in the region. It is however
not to deny the solid existence of a mathematised economic theory of migration in the literature
elsewhere. There exists the popular model of aggregate dynamic equilibrium of labour demand
and supply and the conjoint model of rural-urban migration advanced by Michel Todaro (1967,
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1969, and 1976). The model has not yet been adopted and used thoroughly in the case of Bihari
migration. Be that as it may. The Bihari outmigration activity during the second half of
twentieth century is no less historically interesting. The post-colonial migration during the postIndependence period in Bihar had been characterized by a few novel specificities; merely
contrasting it with that of colonial times is thus not sufficient.
The post-colonial migration in Bihar must be studied in a comparative regional framework.
Under such a framework, it is worth consideration that, first, Bihar had remained a population
losing state in India. Assam, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh had however been the states
characterized by high in-migration rates in their rural locations. On the contrary, pretty high
outmigration had been witnessed in the rural areas of both Bihar as well as Uttar Pradesh in the
post-colonial demographic regime (Kshirsagar, 1973; Mukherjee and Banerjee, 1978). Second,
the international emigration from Bihar had lost its momentum during the post-second World
War era. It had been negligible. This was in sharp contrast to the features of migration in both
Europe and Asia-Pacific region. In Europe, the inter-European mobility as well as migration
from North Africa and Mediterranean countries to Europe increased vastly during the postsecond World Was era (Koemer, 1990). People numbering almost 100 million had been residing
outside their nations of citizenship in the continent in the nineties (Razin and Sadka, 1995;
Stanton-Russell and Teitelbaum, 1992). There had been startling growth in the intensity and
volume of international emigrations in the Asia Pacific region also. The south Asian workers
throughout the 1970s emigrated and South east and East Asian population throughout the
1980s drifted to principally oil-producing countries on a massive scale (Amjad, 1995).
Third, Bihari outmigration in huge volume was mainly confined to internal boundaries of the
country. In contrast to the rest of India, Bihari population had however maintained their history
of mobility. This was in continuity to the mobility witnessed during first half of twentieth
century. In the comparative framework, whereas the rural segment of the Indian population was
declared to be immobile throughout the former half of twentieth century (Davis, 1951;
Zachariah, 1961; Zachariah, 1956; Kshirsagar, 1973) and the proportion of migrants in the total
population could improve from barely 3.6 in 1931 to merely 11.0 in 1961 in the country, the
same was not true of Bihar mobility.
Fourth, Bihari tradition of long distance outmigration had remained intact even in the postcolonial times. A lot of Munda and Oraon tribal were observed to be moving to new
destinations in Madhya a Pradesh during 1961-71 (Chaudhury and Bhowmik, 1986). During
1971-81, the decennial Census enumerated nearly 13 lakh persons of Bihar origin in West
Bengal (Haan, 1995). Most significant development was however the phenomenon of Bihar to
Punjab outmigration since 1970s. In the mid-1990s, almost 7 to 8 lakhs Bihari were discovered
to be working as seasonal migrants, apart from thousands of permanent Bihari migrants in
Punjab (Singh, 1995). This tradition of long distance migration in Bihar contrasts with the
experiences elsewhere in India and Asian countries. The Indian mobility in general, despite
witnessing growth since 1960s afterwards, had remained confined to only the short-distances.
The population of country was more mobile within and among districts. In 1981, almost 31.0
percent of all male migrants in India were bound to intra-districts rural-rural stream; in case of
female migrants, the percentage of migrants moving within short distances in rural areas was as
high as 56.0 (Premi. 1989). In quite a large number of countries in the Asia-Pacific as well, the
short-distance migration had been a dominant stream. The rural migration stream over short
distance was reportedly yet of domineering quantitative importance in Lao, Cambodia,
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Myanmar and Vietnam till 1980s; the same was numerically significant in Indonesia till 1970 and
in Malaysia till 1980 (Hugo, 1991; Skeldon, 1992; Costello, et al., 1987).
Fifth, what was remarkable about the Bihari long-distance internal migration during the postcolonial period was that much of it originated from and was destined to the rural areas only. In
both absolute magnitude and relative significance, the rural-rural stream of Bihari migration
during the second half of twentieth century had been as predominant as in the colonial times.
The history of rural outmigration remained intact; it was destined to Bengal and Assam in the
colonial times, but Punjab and Haryana emerged as destinations in the post-colonial era. This
was however very much the feature of whole eastern India. In eastern India, almost 82.0 percent
of the migration was between rural areas only in the 1960s (Mahto, 1985). The rural migration
had been more dominant a stream even in the north India; the south India was an exception
(Gosal and Krishanan, 1975). In India as a whole, almost 74.0 percent of migration was
destined to the rural area during 1950s (Gosal and Krishanan, 1975; Zachariah, 1960, 1965). The
Census of 1961 enumerated 55.0 percent of all migrants in the country bound to the rural-rural
stream only. In 1981, 45 percent of all male migrants and almost 73.0 percent of all female
migrants remained bound to this steam in the country (Premi, 1989). In the Asia-Pacific, the
rural migration and circulation and village-based movements were of high volume in Indonesia
till 1970, in Malaysia and Thailand till 1980 and in Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal,
Srilanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan till late 1980s (Costello, et al., 1987; Hugo, 1991, 1992). The
phenomenon of ever increasing frequency of temporary internal migration in rural China has
been almost exemplary (Rowland, 1992; Young, 1992).
Lastly, the urban migration was not at all a dominant feature of Bihari outmigration even in the
post-independence period. The rural-urban and urban-urban streams were though increasing
but not then significant. This was in line with the trend in India as a whole. The rate of urban
growth, of which migration was the singular vital determinant, had by far been only moderate
and secular throughout the last few decades of twentieth century in the country (Premi, 1989;
Mathur, 1992). This was unlike what had been witnessed in the Asia-Pacific countries. The
increased level of individual mobility, accelerated tempo of substantial permanent redistribution
of population from rural to urban locations and enhanced pace of urbanization had emerged as
significant parameters of charges in the course of last two decades of the twentieth century in
the Asia-Pacific. There had been in action the process of remarkable convergence in the
characteristics of rural and urban sections of population, and the traditional dichotomy between
these two areas had been witnessed to be increasingly blurred-up in this duration (Hugo, 1992;
Skeldon, 1992). In Europe, the urbanization fed by urban stream of internal and international
migration had been a dominant feature till 1970 only. The international, inter-regional and intraregional mass migration underwent a transformation there after about 1970. The number of
migrants decreased, and the rapid urbanization was increasingly replaced by the phenomena of
sub-urbanization and counter-urbanization in the post-1970 era. There had ever been witnessed
decentralization through urban-urban migration and return migration phenomena as well
(Fielding, 1989). In contrast to Europe, the migration fostered by the urbanization acquired
significance only since the early 1970s, and not immediately after the War (Goldstein and
Goldstein, 1985) in the Asia-Pacific, and it has not yet become significant at all in India and its
region, Bihar.
In the present chapter, it would be beyond the scope and space to further delve deeper in a
detailed manner into the theoretical nuances and analytical history of Bihari outmigration
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phenomenon. In the background of the foregoing brief sketch, an attempt is thus made in the
succeeding sections to put forward an intensive empirical analysis of the characteristics,
selectivity and pattern of permanent as well as seasonal outmigration flow from rural Bihar to
rural Punjab in India during seventies, eighties and mid-nineties in the twentieth century. The
study is based on the analysis of aggregative data of the decennial Census Migration Tables of
1971 and 1981, and quantitative findings of the individual and institutional researchers in the
field. This is elaborated in the first section. The Bihari outmigration is explained by arguing that
the most important reason for regional migration lied there in the differentials in the earnings
prospects offered by the regional labour markets in Bihar and Punjab. The comparative
exercises on wage and employment conditions of two states is based on the aggregative data of
Rural Labour Enquiries of 1963-64, 1974-75 and 1977, and micro scale individual researchers’
findings in the field. This is taken up in the second section. Neither the aggregative official data
nor the micro-scale field survey findings indicated any considerable differences in the mandays
of annual employment offered in Bihar and Punjab. In view of this fact, the Census claim that
the majority of Bihari migrants moved to Punjab due to employment reason is found to be not
well-founded. The Census claim was misleading and rather erroneous. This point is argued at
the last.

1. Empirical Description of Regional Migration
In the post-colonial period during second half of the twentieth century in India, there
had been rigorous attempts to reduce and rather eliminate the regional unevenness which was a
part of the drive for the economic development. There had been rather mixed success in this
endeavour. Bihar, for example, could not break the shackle of semi-feudal agrarian system, and
Punjab could transform its rural economy successfully into fast developing capitalist system.
The decennial Census enumerates the whole population universe. It provides information on
the lifetime (permanent) migrants in India. It furnishes information on the distribution of
migrant population among districts of the state of destination as well. There exist two estimates
of the lifetime migrants in the Census Migration Tables: one based on replies to the question on
the place of birth, and another based on that of the place of last residence. It is only with the
second estimate of lifetime migrants that the phenomena of step as well as return migrations are
well captured, and thus, the possibility of underestimation of the volume of migrants is avoided.
Moreover, it is only with regard to the second estimate that the Censuses of 1971 and 1981
attempted to further disaggregate the data to furnish tabulations on the age-distribution, marital
status and duration-cohorts of residence of migrants at destination. In rural Punjab, there
existed in these period two segments of Bihari rural migrants –permanent and seasonal. The
Census of India fails however to capture the short-duration residing seasonal movers. A rich
estimate and details of such migrants are nonetheless provided by the non-official findings of
individual and institutional researchers in the survey-fields.
The section is divided into three sub-sections. A very brief socio-economic profile of Bihar and
Punjab regions in furnished in the first sub section so as to have an insight into the place of
origin and destination of long-distance regional outmigrants in India. The volume,
characteristics and selectivity of Bihari rural permanent migrants as enumerated on the basis of
replies to the questions on the place of last residence and tabulated in the Census Migration
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tables of 1971 and 1981 are analyzed in the second sub-section. The volume, characteristics,
selectivity and pattern of Bihari seasonal migrants in Punjab during seventies, eighties and early
nineties of the twentieth century are described on the basis of the micro-scale findings in the last
part of this section.
1.1. Regions Profile
Bihar is a region characterized by the semi-feudal relations of production. It still
presents the picture of a densely populated ruralised agrarian economy. The perpetuation of
informal bondage through debt obligation of petty peasant, tenant and landless agricultural
labour has survived to be the characteristic feature of rural land market. The capital investments
in agriculture have genuinely been constrained in the backdrop of historically given poor
infrastructural setup. The distress sale of land has not been uncommon. The majority of small
peasant and tenant households are quite often characterized by deficit nature, and the
prevalence of petty production is widespread. In other words, the dominant mode of
appropriation of surplus in the agricultural sector in Bihar has primarily been the sharecropping
tenancy and usury mediated by interlocked non-market power relations (Prasad, 1974; Bhadhuri,
1973; Chandra, 1974; Prasad, 1979; RBI Report, 1984; Prasad, 1988). The per capita rural
income in the state has already been the lowest in India. The widespread poverty has been an
unmasked reality. The incidence of droughts and foods has been quite high.
The fluctuation in agricultural productivity and production has been very large (RBI Report,
1984). The net irrigated area, cropping intensity and fertilizer consumption are all very low
(CMIE), 1984; RBI Report, 1984). The share of male agricultural labourers of Bihar in total
male agricultural labourers in India was the highest in 1981; the proportion of wage labourers in
total male workforce and the proportion of casual wage labour in total male wage labour in the
State were also considerably high in the late eighties (Census of India, 1981; National Sample
Survey, 1977-78; Jose, 1988; Vaidyanathan, 1986), signifying the presence of a huge volume of
pauperized section of rural population. The state comprises of two geographically delineated
sub-regions divided by the Ganges River — north and south Bihar Gangetic plains, and
Chhotanagpur Plateau hilly tracts. The Gangetic plains are among the most fertile tracts,
whereas the fertility of Plateau hilly tracts is very low. The north Bihar plain is heavily populated
region followed by south Bihar plain and then Chhotanagpur Plateau (Geddes, 1982). There has
therefore been unevenness in economic development and retardation with the boundary of the
state (Sharma, 1996).
Punjab is a region however characterized by the capitalist structural transformation in
agriculture. A section of peasantry having greater command over land and non-land resources
has been transformed into capitalist farmers since the late sixties (Gill, 1988; Chowdhury and
Dasgupta, 1985; Bhalla and Chadha, 1983). A high degree of concentration of the means of
production has been accompanied by a high degree of differentiation within the cultivating
population (Patnaik, 1987). The capitalist farmers often supplement their family labour
necessarily with hired casual labour (Singh, 1983; Kumar, 1981). The pure tenancy has almost
disappeared; the ownership cultivation has been the principal form of tenure (Chadha, 1986;
Patnaik, 1986; Sidhu and Grewal, 1987). The strata among peasantry have solidified in the
region of late. The state today is agriculturally a highly prosperous and commercially developed
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region in India. Since mid-1960s, very rapid enhancement in agricultural production and
productivity of food as well as non-food crops has been taking place (Bhalla and Chadha, 1983).
A very high per capita rural income, considerable increase in the annual rate of food grains
production and employment of large value of capital stock in agriculture are a few marked
features of regional rural development in Punjab (CMIE, 1984; Alagh and Sharma, 1980;
Chowdhury and Dasgupta, 1985). The region is administratively and spatially a small state
(Chowdhury and Dasgupta, 1985). It is divided, agriculturally and geographically, into three subregions: central, middle and foothill Punjab. The new technology has been concentrated in the
central part whereas the backward submontane foothill did not feel the full impact of the green
revolution (Chadha, 1989). The improved agricultural technology has been moderate in
application in the rest of areas.
In the post-independence period, the formation and growth in the size of rural labour had
accelerated in both the states. The economic conditions of rural labour had continuously
deteriorated, and they increasingly joined the ranks of proletariat over the years. The process
and rate of proletarianistion in the two states had however been different. The rate of
proletarianisation in both Bihar and Punjab had though slowed down during 1971 and 1981;
nonetheless, the increase was still higher in Punjab vis-à-vis Bihar, according to the Census.
Whereas the eviction of tenants-at-will, pauperized peasants, ruined artisans and migrant labour
flows were the sources of growth in rural Punjab as well as Bihar, the mechanisms at work
pushing these categories to seek employment and earnings as agricultural labour were different.
In Punjab, the mechanisms were successful land reforms and new technology accompanied by
sharp rise in food grains price, dwindling scope of Self-employment, and rationalization of
production process and modernization of rural society of artisans (Patnaik 1987; Bardhan, 1977;
Gill, 1988). The inadequate growth in productivity and production in agriculture, failure of land
reforms, deficit nature of indebted households and historically existing mass of landless
agricultural labourers hit by recurrent natural calamities were the key features setting the
dynamics in rural Bihar.
The growth of rural population as well as rural workforce had been stable in Bihar during 1961
to 1981, according to the Census of India. The growth of rural workforce had been actually
lagging behind the growth of rural population during 1961 to 1981. Consequently, the workerpopulation ration had also been declining in rural Bihar since 1960s. In Punjab, the trend was
however different. The growth of rural workforce and rural population remained at par and
proportionate to each other during 1961 to 1981. The percentile growth in both rural
population and rural workforce between 1961 and 1971 had been rather higher than that
observed between 1971 and 1981. The worker-population ration as such witnessed ups and
downs within a very narrow margin. The numerical value of worker-population ration was
however higher in rural Punjab in comparison to rural Bihar in both 1971 and 1981 Censal
years. The growth of agricultural labourers had been slower during 1971 to 1981 than that
observed during 1961 to 1971 in both the states. Nevertheless, rural Punjab witnessed still
higher percentile increase in agricultural labourers than that in the workforce during both
periods. The opposite was the case with rural Bihar. The proportion of agricultural labourer to
the rural workforce was higher in Bihar in comparison to that in Punjab in all observation years
of the Census. The gap in the proportion declined over the last two decades due to
comparatively faster rise in the ration in Punjab. There were again sharp growth of wage
labourers in both rural Bihar and Punjab since mid-1098s.
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The National Sample Survey data available for 1971 and 1977 nonetheless did not contradict the
Census findings pertaining to the period of 1971 to 1981. However, the National Sample Survey
data shows a declining ration of wage labourers to the rural workforce in Punjab against the
background of a still moderate increase of the same in Bihar during 1977 to 1983. The decline in
Punjab in the ration may be explained by the increase in non-agricultural other-than-wage
employment opportunities of late in Punjab (Vaidyanathan, 1986). Be that as it may. In short,
Bihar and Punjab presented a picture of highly dissimilar regions of India, separated apart by the
differences in features of the agrarian economic system and labour market situation.

1.2. Permanent Outmigration
The eastern-western axis of north Indian regional migration of permanent nature during
the sixties and seventies was very well captured by the decennial Census Migration Tables of
1971 and 1981. It was revealed that there existed in 1971 a positive net interchange of
population in Bihar i.e. the difference between total lifetime outmigration from Bihar to Punjab
and total lifetime inmigration in Bihar from Punjab. Bihar gained almost 19000 persons in this
process of permanent mobility. It was simply because only 8005 persons could out-migrate
from this state towards Punjab by March 1971 — the month and the year of Census operations
in India. The rate of migration subsequently increased however within a decade, and there was
witnessed a six-fold growth in the volume of outmigration from Bihar. In 1981 Census, Bihari
population numbering 48061 persons were enumerated to have moved to Punjab destinations,
and the net negative interchange of population in Bihar was certainly a phenomenon. What was
though more remarkable was the observation that Bihar was specially losing the population to
the long-distanced destinations in rural Punjab by the early eighties of twentieth century. The
rural-rural stream of Bihar-Punjab outmigration constituted nearly 34.0 percent of the sum total
of four streams in 1981. In this stream, there were merely 1110 persons enumerated by the
Census agents in 1971. It however increased 14 times within a decade. In 1981, Biharis
numbering 16186 persons migrated to Punjab along rural-rural stream of flow (Given the
significance of rural-rural stream of migration, only this stream is dealt with unless specified
otherwise in the following).
There exists quantitative information in the Migration Tables which are conducive to highly
interesting comparisons among various population flows destined to Punjab. It is observed that
the percentile growth in the number of migrants bound to Bihar-Punjab direction was much
higher than that in the direction from places-elsewhere-in-India to Punjab between the two
censal years of enumeration. The long-distance Bihar-Punjab stream of outmigration activity
increased much faster even in comparison to the short-distance outmigration stream within
Bihar in this duration. In short, the regional outmigration from Bihar was undoubtedly
phenomenal. It may be hypothesized that the so-called push factors operating there in Bihar
were probably comparatively more powerful in thrusting mobile population out than the same
operating therein the places of other states in India; such a hunch however remains tentative in
nature till the statistical correlation between the migration rate and identified push forces are
established by further researches. Be that as it may.
In matter of gender selectivity, the Bihar-Punjab stream of rural outmigration was dominated by
females in 1971. There were 660 females out of 1110 total migrants. It was however a male
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dominated activity in 1981 i.e. 13631 males out of 16189 migrant persons. Majority of migrants
bound to this stream were in the age group of 13-27 and 23-32 years in 1981. They were
certainly not so young persons in comparison to the rest of enumerated migrants in Punjab who
moved from place-elsewhere-in-India. The age-profile was not available in the 1971 Census. It
is also not possible to ascertain either the marital status or educational attainment or caste
composition or occupational profile of these migrants, since neither the Census of 1971 nor of
1981 had tabulated these characteristics nor selectivity profile separately for the rural-rural
stream bound movers.
The rate and intensity of mobility was not at all uniform. It varied year after year during the
sixties as well as seventies. The classification of migrants according to the cohort-size based on
duration of residence at destination showed different volume of migrants. The largest
percentage of total outmigrants in the Bihar-Punjab stream moved only during the last quarter
of sixties and seventies. The percentile level in the duration cohort-size of 1977-80 was however
much larger than that in the duration cohort-size of 1967-70. It simply meant that the majority
of Bihari migrants were of recent permanent residence in Punjab; they were certainly of less
than four years of stay at destination. This was in sharp contrast to the observation that shortdistance stream of migration within the boundary of Bihar witnessed the majority of movers
having more than twenty years of stay at destination villages and districts, according to the
Census.
The Census estimate of lifetime migrants did distinguish between workers and non-workers at
the place of destination. In 1971, there were only 547 male workers in the rural-rural stream of
Bihar to Punjab male migrant population. The migrant workers constituted 60 percent of total
migrants in this stream in 1971. In 1981, the male migrant workers in the total male migrant
population of this stream was however approximately 85.0. In terms of the absolute magnitude,
there was growth of 43 times, and therefore, the number of migrant workers of rural Bihar
origin was 11588 in rural Punjab by 1981. The analysis of data showed that out of every ten lakh
persons, males and females in the occupation of rural workers in Bihar population, almost 17
persons, 20 males and zero female outmigrated to rural Punjab by 1971; the same increased to
597 persons, 728 males and 124 females respectively by the completion of 1981 Census. The
Bihari workers were certainly a significant section of migrant workers residing in Punjab rural
locations in the early eighties.
What is more interesting is the fact that other streams of worker migration destined to Punjab
declined however between the two censal years. The outmigrant workers who moved from
district to district within the state of Punjab declined in volume. The workers stream inmigrating
into Punjab from places elsewhere in India also declined. Read with the phenomenon of
increase in the proportion of outmigrant workers constituting total outmigrant persons of ruralrural stream in Bihar-Punjab direction, the deceleration trend in other streams may tentatively
be taken as an outcome of either the growing evenness in economic opportunities among
districts of Punjab in reality or at least the perception of it in the eyes of migrant population.
With regard to the sexual selectivity, what was observed in case of the rural-rural stream of
Bihar-Punjab worker migration in 1971 was male domination amounting to hundred percent; it
was due to the zero-base of female migrant workers. In 1981, the same however turned into
merely a male majority. It seems that the long distanced dependent female worker migration
phenomenon was rare, and even those females who accompanied male workers by virtue of the
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family membership did not all take up the workers job at the destination. Nothing could be said
with regard to the marital status, age-distribution and caste-composition dimensions of
demographic and social characteristics of migrant workers of Bihar-Punjab stream since the
same pertaining to the rural-rural stream were not separately tabulated in the Census of either
1971 or 1981. This was certainly the limitation of an aggregative data source on migration like
the Census.
The Census nonetheless provided the occupational classification of migrant workers but only
for the year 1971. A comparative analysis with situation in the early eighties is therefore not
possible. Given the zero for female workers, the occupation of only male migrant workers can
be analysed. In 1971, the profession of agricultural labour and workers in construction and
allied activities attracted 41percent of all Bihari male out-migrant workers to rural Punjab. The
agricultural labour profession alone attracted 30 percent of the same; the rest 11 percent were
employed in construction and allied activities. This may reflect the low level of skill as well as
ambition on the part of rural Bihari migrant workers in rural Punjab, because all the three
professions together could pull only 24 percent of migrant workers of districts within Punjab
and 28 percent of migrant workers from places elsewhere in India in 1971. Be that as it may.
A phenomenon of very recent moves of population in workers’ occupation was note-worthy.
Majority of workers bound to rural Bihari-rural Punjab stream of outmigration were enumerated
to have taken up residence at destination only during 1977-80 and 1980-81. They were therefore
of very fresh permanence. The information on the duration of residence cohort-size was not
available with the 1970 Census tabulation. No comparison can thus be made between sixties
and seventies.
All the twelve districts of Punjab did not pull equivalent volume of Bihari migrant population
and labour. There was disproportionate distribution of migrants among destination districts
both during sixties as well as seventies throughout. The Bihari rural migrants gravitated towards
merely a couple of districts of Punjab. In 1971, they were mostly concentrated in Jullundar,
Grurdaspur and Hoshiarpur district in descending order. Almost 56 percent of all migrants were
enumerated in these three districts together. In 1981, Ludhiana emerged as the new choice
along-with the old choice of Jullundar and Hoshiarpur. There were nearly 52 percent of total
Bihari rural migrant workers residing in these three districts’ rural locations. The outmigrant
workers however showed the choice of Roopnagar as well in 1971. The 1981 data on choice of
district on the part of migrant workers was not tabulated by the Census. The Biharis were
comparatively more dispersed lot. The migrant from the neighboring states of Jammu and
Kashmir, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in Punjab along the rural-rural stream
were more concentrated in a few districts. The gravitation tendency on the part of these
migrants from the neighboring states was stronger in 1981 than in 1971. Given the fact of
compactness and smallness of geographical area of Punjab and relatively developed network of
transportation and communication all over Punjab, the distance-decay hypothesis may not
probably explain the choice of a district unit. It is therefore admitted that such a thesis of
demographic geographical modeling gets weakened.

1.3. Seasonal Circulation

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The field surveys undertaken by individual researchers have produced a rich reservoir of
empirical findings on the theme of seasonal outmigration from eastern agrarian Indian regions
to the western EI Dorado. These supplement the findings of the Census in many regards. It was
affirmed that Rajasthani migrant labourers used to visit Punjab since the Independence, but
stopped migrating as seasonal labourers in huge numbers by the late 1970s. Their place was
already taken over in the late 1960s by Uttar Pradesh migrant workers in Punjab. The Seasonal
migrants from Bihar also started visiting Punjab for work mainly since the last quarter of 1960s.
The migration into Punjab from eastern Uttar Pradesh and from the drought prone areas of
Madhya Pradesh also joined them. The Uttar Pradesh migrants who were earlier employed in
agricultural and rural activities got shifted subsequently to works in industrial complex of urban
Punjab. Bihari filled up the vacuum in rural locations of Punjab hence after (Gill, 1984; Singh,
1995).
The seasonal Bihari migrants used to come and go every year; a few groups however used to
stay for a couple of months only. In the peak period of agricultural season in Punjab during
1970s, every year approximately 2 lakh migrant workers used to land up in Punjab (Grewal and
Sidhu, 1979). In 1980, it increased to 3 lakhs, and the same volume of arrival continued till 1988.
Except for a lull observed during the height of terrorist attacks even on migrants for a few
years, the 1980s flow was restored by April 1991 (Singh, 1995). The move went on, and the
activists gathered in the National Workshop conducted by the Punjab University during 26-28
September 197 opined that the annual flow must be then hovering around 7 to 8 lakhs. The
migrants used to arrive by trains via Muzaffarpur to Delhi to Punjab route or north Bihar
railway stations to Lucknow to Punjab route. They had often been subjected to the malpractices
and embarrassment caused by the railway staffs, police and commission agents in Punjab (Gill,
1984; Singh, 1995). These did not however prove to be a deterrent, given the powerful pull
forces of Punjab.
The seasonal Bihari out-migrant workers arrived in Punjab mostly during the second week of
April to May, and stayed during June and July – the peak season in Punjab. The peak season of
labour demand in Punjab and Bihar for a few crops did coincide, but it failed to deter the Bihari
workers on move. The lean season in Bihar for other crops was however also the period of
migration to Punjab (Singh, 1995). The flow of migrant labour coincided with the peak seasons
for paddy and wheat crops in Punjab. There was therefore a broad dissimilarity in the seasonal
labour demand between Jullundher and Ludiana on the one hand and eastern Champaran on
the other. The paddy transplantation takes place in the month of July in both the states, and
nevertheless, the Bihari migrants were there in Punjab in the same month. Ludhiana and
Jullunder gradually emerged as the principal centres of destination for non-tribal Bihari outmigrants (Frankel, 1971; Gill, 1984; Singh 1995; IER, 1980; Singh, 1981; Gupta and Bhakoo;
1980, Grewal and Sidhu, 1979; Arora and Kumar, 1980; Oberai and Singh, 1980; Sidhu and
Grewal, 1984).
The characteristics and selectivity profile of the seasonal migrants had been captured by a
number of studies. These established that the tribal out-migrants were mostly centered in
Hoshiarpur, and the majority was of Ranchi district origin in Bihar. The case studies of three
districts of Jullunder, Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur help establishing the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the Bihari out-migrants in Punjab. They were mostly males, of 18-35
years of age, married and illiterate, and the majority belonged to backward castes. They owned
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some small patch of landed property, despite suffering periodically from indebtedness of
household and generally being underemployed due to the seasonal nature of work in agriculture
and the lack of non-agricultural employment at origin places back in Bihar (Grewal and Sidhu,
1979; Sidhu and Grewal, 1984; Gupta and Bhakoo, 1980; IER, 1980; Gill, 1984; Singh 1981).
They are still today mostly again male-biased; however of younger age between 15-25 years,
illiterate, unmarried, belonging to Munda, Oraon and Kharia tribal castes and owing some land
of low fertility back at places of origin (Singh, 1981; Singh; 1995; Arora and Kumar, 1980). They
worked in the agriculture of Punjab; however, those recruited for construction sites worked later
as agricultural labour as well (Gill, 1984). These migrants were generally single person household
(IER, 1980).
The Bihari migrants in Punjab were reportedly sometime forcefully withheld with the particular
employers like attached labourers (Singh, 1995). A few tribal migrants had been recruited by
force and deceit committed by the contractors in Hoshiarpur; the latter acted in cooperation
with the Teli and Punjabi agents situated at Ranchi. Sometimes, the out-migrants had been
virtually sold to Punjab employers as bonded labour also (Singh, 1995). The Bihari migrants
worked in 5-50 group under a ‘tolidar’ who himself was an agent of ‘Jamadar’. The ‘jamadar’ and
‘tolidar’ as leaders used to act as a link between Punjab employer and Bihari ‘bhayya’ migrant
labour, recruit labour at origin places, finance taravel costs of migrants by giving loans, find jobs
for them, supervise their work and collect due commissions from labourers in the group per
day. In retrospect, the early construction activities, financed by the remittances of Punjab outmigrants in the middle-east countries and North America, were conducive in establishing
migration contact between Bihar and Punjab in the seventies. Once contact was established in
the construction activities, migration to the rural locations of Punjab became a regular
phenomenon. Majority of migrants later got employed in agricultural activities only (Singh,
1995). Some of these migrants stayed back in Punjab permanently. These permanent settler
migrants were often enumerated by the Census, each after ten years.

2. Causal Analysis of Rural Migration
The Law of Migration of E.G. Ravenstein was a grand and monumental work of
generalization about the characteristics, selectivity, pattern and directions of human migration.
Such a generalization flourished during the last quarter of nineteenth century. Despite the fact
that it was called ‘the law’, there was however no rigorous attempt at the causal analysis of
migration. Inspired by Ravensteinian framework, what subsequently prospered in the name of
migration study proper had therefore been in essence a documentation exercise for a long time
in the discipline of demography. Such documentation attempts had again been heavily tilted
toward collecting data only on the characteristics, selectivity and pattern of international
migration. Ravenstein’s only remark of significance, which was more often than not forgotten in
subsequent geographical and demographic modeling on the migration, was to the effect that the
major cause of migration everywhere was economic in nature. It was the economic inducement
which finally entered the decision-making process of a potential migrant. In the ESCAP
(Economic and Social Commission on the Asia-Pacific) region, the documentation of data and
information on the pattern and direction of intra-local, metropolitan and international migration
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had though been refined in line with the various guidelines and manuals published by the
United Nations in the 1970s, the study of reasons for migration has nonetheless been in the
process a very late starter. Be that as it may.
In the literature on migration during the last quarter of twentieth century, there existed at least
two kinds of causal analysis of migration behaviour and activity: one, macro-analysis and
another, microanalysis, the study of motivations of individual potential or actual migrant is the
central focus. The reasons for migration are discovered by mapping the underlying individual
motivational forces on the basis of replies to questionnaires. The decennial Census of India of
1981 tabulates the reasons for migration on the basis of replies to direct questions put to
individuals enumerated, and it is therefore conducive to micro causal analysis. In the macroanalysis, the aggregate data on the volume of migration is shown to be in relation with the
aggregative data on, say, employment variable, which is presumed to be the cause of migration.
The statistical techniques of correlation exercise and regression analysis are widely used to
establish the relation. It is of course an indirect method of explanation of migration
phenomenon. In the Asia-Pacific region, the economic disparities between different locations in
general and the differential in employment opportunities and income potential between
geographical areas have been declared in the post-war studies to be the overriding reasons for
migration. The employment differentials have been ranked at the top of the list as primary
factor inducing mobility (UN-ECAFE, 1967). The macro-analysis based on the aggregative data
has been the popular framework. Thanks to the works of Everett Lee (1966) and Michel Todaro
(1967, 1969); the study of reasons for migration has of late been emerging as a dominant
concern in both official and academic research. The neoclassical economic theory of migration
in its modified form of Todaro model has the distinction of having both the microeconomic as
well as macroeconomic foundation, and bringing the factor of expected real income differentials
(a product of differentials of real wage earning and probability of finding a job at the
destination) to the center-stage in the causal analysis of migration.
The section is divided into three sub-sections. In the first sub-section, a theoretical framework
on the relation between wage and employment on the one hand and migration on the other is
developed along a simplified scheme. Todaro model on migration is certainly the inspiration.
Given however the irrelevance of the concept of probability of finding a job in rural areas in
India where gainful employments is often substituted by underemployment and the difference
between informal and formal sector of rural employment is not meaningful, the Todaro model
is sacrificed in favour of the simplified theoretical framework of the present paper. The Rural
Labour Enquiry data on employment of various kinds and the daily and annual money and real
wage earnings available to labour in Bihar and Punjab is compared in the second part. The
argument that the differentials in wage earnings of labour of two states might be the principal
reason of rural-rural stream bound Bihar-Punjab directed migration during sixties and seventies
in he second half of twentieth century is developed at the last.

2.1. Theoretical Framework

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In the domain of neoclassical theory of migration, the economic model propounded by
Michael Todaro (1967, 1969, and 1976) survives as a casual model par excellence. It is one of
the most formalized models in the migration study. The migration rate along rural-urban stream
is here assumed to be a function of the real income differential between rural and urban sector.
The individual decision to migrate is not therefore only influenced by the average rural real
income and urban real wage rate but also the probability of finding a job in the modern sector
within a given time period; the ratio of new job creation to the number of accumulated job
aspirants influenced that probability. The microeconomic model of rural-urban migration and
the derived aggregate dynamic equilibrium model of urban labour demand and supply are cast in
the mathematised from as the following:
S = fs (d);
d = w. – r; and,
p = . N/(S – N)

implying

S = fs [w. .N/(S - N] and
V (o) = [p(t) – Y u(t) – Yr(t)] e-nt dt – C(O)
In the above, ‘S’ refers to the aggregate labour supply, ‘N’ to the level of urban employment,
‘w’ to the urban real wage rate, ‘r’ to the average rural real income, ‘’ to the net rate of new
urban job creation, ‘’ to the ratio of new job opening relative to the number of accumulated
job aspirants in urban sector, ‘d’ to the expected real income differential between urban and
rural sector, ‘V(O)’ to the discounted present value of the expected net urban-rural income
stream over the migrants’ time-horizon, ‘C(O)’ to the costs of migration, ‘P(t)’ to the probability
of findings a job in the urban sector within t period after migration, ‘Y u,r.(t)’ to the average real
income in t period in the urban and rural sector, ‘n’ to the number of time-periods in the
planning horizon of the migrant, and ‘fs’ to the functional notion. If V (O) is positive, the
migration phenomenon takes place. In case of it being negative, no decision to migrate
fructifies.
Given the obsessed preoccupation of theorists, researchers and model builders with the popular
dualistic growth models and highlighted problem of sectoral scarce resource allocation in the
face of phenomenal reality of ubiquitous urbanization in the developing economies of Asia
during the sixties, the rural-urban migration had occupied the central focus in migration,
urbanization and regional growth studies. Todaro model addressed to this problem of ruralurban migration rather successfully. In case of rural-rural migration however, such a formal
model and its assumptions were somewhat found to be irrelevant or at least not very meaningful
and operational. The informal sector and formal sector of employments is, for example, not so
easily distinguishable in rural India. Moreover, the probability of finding a job in rural sector by
a rural migrant is not a meaningful exercise since a migrant would generally get a job — be that
a gainful employment or underemployment – at least in a country like India. All said the relation
between the rate of migration and real income differential in rural areas as discovered by Michel
Todaro has remained of paramount significance. A simplified framework relevant to the ruralrural stream of migration is, therefore, still relevant. Such a framework, which is adopted in the
present study, is presented below in a literary mould.

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The nature of economic system at the origin and destination of migrants determines the decisive
factors that directly, and quite often indirectly, influence the strength of pull or push or both
factors combined in generating the rural out-migration. The structural set-up of regional
economy may show the influence on triggering out-migration rather indirectly through its
impact on rural labour market. It is often the wage and employment conditions and overall
working environment that indirectly make the economic system one of the major determinants
of the phenomenon of out-migration of rural labour in particular. In a situation of narrow and
declining employment opportunity, sometimes combined with low and very slowly increasing
daily wage towards through, the workers may typically resort to al least two options. In this case,
they may either rise in debt obligations to meet the consumption and other requirements of the
households over and above the expenditure sanctioned by the existing level of low income or,
alternatively, they may move to destinations where average wage earnings are high or
employment opportunity is ample and/or both are increasing over time to enhance the level of
earnings.
The long-distance rural migration is a distinct kind of mobility. In the case of voluntary
innovative migration, which a long-distance mobility generally happens to be, a migrant mostly
follows the ambition of improving rather that just maintaining the level of standard of living at
the destination. A slowly increasing wage earning and employment opportunity at destinations
combined with even small differentials in wage earnings and employment conditions between
origin and destination may as such prove to be a sufficient inducement to take decisions to
move on the part of segment of the population above subsistence level. The condition is that
the small differential must be over and above the costs of long-distance move which is involved
in crossing over the intervening obstacles. The segment of rural population, who are not only
above the subsistence level of income but also have the capability to finance either through selffinancing or through borrowed money raised by leasing assets, may thus resort to the longdistance movement as such. The rest of rural population, failing to finance the costs of
transportation of man and materials, may have to contend with either migration over short
distance (conservative move) or, in the worst situation, rise in debt-obligation, and therefore,
remain immobile.
What is of crucial importance which needs to be taken care of particularly in an aggregative
analysis is however that there happens to be often a lagged response of out-migration
phenomenon to economic variables. The out-migration of a particular temporal dimension may
not necessarily respond to the economic factors of the same temporal dimension always. The
information about the wage-employment situations at destination pertaining to a couple of years
back may trigger out-migration from the origin only today. This lagged response pattern prove
to be more so a feature of long-distance regional migration, since it generally involves a long
drawn-out decision-making process. In other words, while analyzing the patterns of flow of
population among regions of long-distance in an aggregative analysis, it is to be examined
whether these flows are consistent with the location as well as trend of changes therein the wage
conditions and employment opportunities for the last couple of years. Finally, the definite
assertions on the causal relations may not be convincingly and validly advanced on the basis of
such aggregative data. Nevertheless, the aggregative analysis of such nature has informative
value even when they are not as good as evidence. The interesting hypotheses still could be
formulated.

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2.2. Employment and Wages: Rural Labour Enquiries
The Rural Labour Enquiry is a relatively comprehensive source of the aggregate official
data on the state-level situations of rural employment, unemployment and wages in India. It
provides quantitative information on both the structure of employment as well as anatomy of
unemployment (Planning Commission, 1970; Dantwala, 1972). Given the fact of the
phenomenon of seasonality of employment being often interspersed with the spells of
unemployment and underemployment, it renders the possibility of chronic and open
unemployment being very minimal in agriculture. There exists therefore all the possibility of
underestimation of rural unemployment. The Rural Labour Enquiry captures rather
successfully the phenomenon of underemployment, and therefore, escapes the possibility of
underestimation of unemployment. It provides thereby meaningful, reliable and information on
rural unemployment and employment. Its data are moreover comparable and compatible due
to its welcome practice of keeping uniformity in the methodology of compiling data over
various rounds of enquiry. This further makes its data superior in comparison to other sources
of aggregate information (Unni, 1998). We have used and relied on the RLE data also because it
is the only source where the information on both the wages and employment/ unemployment
are available at one place and compiled by the single agency. Since our purpose is served by the
periodic data, this is very much available with the Rural Labour Enquiries of 1964-65, 1974-75
and 1977. The limitations of RLF is that is that it neither provides the information on the
seasonal pattern of wage rate variations within a year (Sethuraman, 1988) nor affords the
estimation of trend of yearly charges in the wage-rate (Nayyar, 1976; Lal, 1996; Jose, 1978).
These limitations do not mar our purpose. In lieu of providing the classification of labour force
into employed and unemployed, it rather estimates moreover the number of annual mandays of
employment and unemployment, and in lieu of giving the prevailing wage rate, it estimates the
average wages of member of the rural labour households. These serve our purpose very well.
The Rural Labour Enquiries data on employment suggested that the annual mandays of
employment available to male members of rural labour households in Punjab was considerably
higher than the same available in Bihar in the mid-sixties i.e. 1964-65. This was the case
observed more so in the category of wage-paid-employment status. On the contrary, the
mandays of other-than-wage-employment category was higher in Bihar than that in Punjab in
the same year. The gap in annual mandays of overall employment opportunity available to male
members of rural labour households between the two States had largely decreased a decade after
i.e. 1974-75. The same was higher in Bihar vis-à-vis Punjab in 1977-78; even, the mandays in
wage-paid category as well as other-than-wage paid category of employment of male members
of rural labour household were both higher in Bihar vis-à-vis Punjab by 1977-78. In the
seventies, there did not thus seem to be any considerable difference in employment prospects
between the two states. The very wide gap in the mandays not worked i.e. unemployment
between the two states in the mid-sixties had also declined quite fast by mid seventies, and
almost vanished 1977-78. A detailed examination is warranted.
The total mandays in all categories of employment of labourer in all occupations was 58 days
higher in 1964-65 and 38 days higher in 1974-75 but 20 days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab than
Bihar respectively. The total mandays of wage-employment of a labourer in all occupations was
72 days higher in 1964-65 and 30 days higher 1974-75 but 17 days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab
than Bihar respectively again. But, the total mandays of other-than-wage employment of a
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labourer in all occupations was 14 days lower in 1964-65, 8 days higher in 1974-75 and again 3
days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab than Bihar respectively. The percentage changes over the years
for each state are again interesting. In Bihar, there was faster percentage improvement in the
mandays of other-than-wage-employment category than that in Punjab during 1974-75 to 197778. In comparison to the wage-employment category with Bihar, the mandays of other-thanwage-employment improved fast during 1974-75 to 1977-78 against the higher percentage
decline of the same during 1964-65 to 1974-75.
The Rural Labour Enquiries provide data on employment mandays of a labour in different
occupations separately. The total mandays in all categories of employment of a labourer in
agricultural labour occupation was 65 days higher in 1964-65 and 39 days higher in 1974-75 but
14 days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab than that in Bihar respectively. The total mandays of wagepaid category of employment was again 83 days higher in 1964-65 and 42 days higher in 1974-75
but 15 days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab that than in Bihar respectively. The total mandays of
other-than-wage-employment of a labourer in agricultural labourer occupation was however 18
days lower in 1964-65 and 3 days lower in 1974-75 but 1 day higher in 1977-78 in Punjab than
that in Bihar respectively. The employment in the agricultural labour occupations had improved
in Punjab but later during 1974-75 to 1977-78 the pace of percentage improvement of the same
in Punjab slowed down. A very moderate percentage improvement in the mandays of wage
employment was discernible in Punjab against the fast percentage improvement in that in Bihar.
The tendency was just opposite in the scenario of mandays of other-than-wage-employment.
The total number of mandays in all categories of employment of a labour in non-agricultural
labourer occupation was 43 days higher in 1964-65 but 25 days lower in 1974-75 and again 1 day
lower in 1977-78 in Punjab than that in Bihar respectively. The mandays in wage-paid
employment category was 44 days higher in 1964-65, 8 days higher in 1974-75 and again 8 days
higher in 1977-78 in Punjab than that in Bihar respectively. And, total mandays of other-thanwage-employment of a labourer in non-agricultural labour occupation was only one day lower in
1964-65 but 33 days lower in 1974-75 and again still 9 days lower in 1977-78 in Punjab than that
in Bihar respectively. In percentile terms, the mandays of wage employment witnessed an
improvement in Bihar against the decline in Punjab during 1964-65 to 1974-75. During 1974-75
to 1977-78, the condition however improved in both the states. The same was true for the
mandays of other-than-wage-employment in the states during 1964-65 to 1974-75 to 1977-78;
nonetheless, the percentile decline in this category in Bihar was higher than that in Punjab in
this period.
It becomes clear from the elaborate comparison that the rural workers in non-agricultural
labourer occupation had been privileged to have the availability of higher number of mandays of
other-than-wage employment as well as aggregate mandays of employment opportunities than
the counterpart in agricultural labourer occupation in Bihar in all the three reference years. In
the case of wage-employment availability such a privilege was although attainable only in 197475. In Punjab, however, the rural workers in non-agricultural labour occupation had been
enjoying higher number of mandays of other-than-wage-employment only than the counterpart
in agricultural labour occupation in all the three reference years. The advantage followed in the
case of wage-employment and aggregate employment was observed only in 1977-78.
The comparative estimate of unemployment situation is equally interesting. The total number
of mandays not worked by a labourer irrespective of occupation was 40 days higher in 1964-65,
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13 days higher in 1974-75 and 1 day higher in 1977-78 in Bihar than that in Punjab respectively.
The mandays not worked by a labourer of agricultural labour occupation was 1 day lower in
1964-65 but 13 days higher and again 1 day lower in Bihar than that in Punjab respectively. The
mandays not worked by a labourer of non-agricultural labourer occupation was 2 days lower in
1964-65, 37 days lower in 1974-75 and again 10 days lower in 1977-78 in Bihar than that in
Punjab respectively. The percentage increase in the mandays not worked by worker in
agricultural labourer occupation was higher than that of a worker in non-agricultural labourer
occupation during 1964-65 to 1975-76 in both the States. The number of mandays not worked
by a labourer of agricultural labourer occupation through remaining larger than that of a worker
in non-agricultural labour occupation in both the States even in 1977-78 was however more
noticeable in the case of Bihar vis-à-vis Punjab. This was the situation in the backdrop of the
fact that the unemployment situation faced by a worker in non-agricultural labour occupation in
Punjab was worse than that in Bihar in all the reference years.
In short, the capitalist framework of rural economy seems to have afforded no remarkable
advantage and edge over to Punjab vis-à-vis the backward semi-feudal agrarian economy of
Bihar in matter of availability of rural employment. Given the pace of proletarianisation of rural
labour in Punjab, the employment opportunities scenario had not improved in any considerable
way vis-à-vis rural Bihar. In other words, the rate and direction of migration from Bihar does
not seem to be consistent with the location and magnitude of labour employment and
unemployment. It does not seem to be the case that the employment situation of rural Punjab
could had acted as a vital pull factor for rural Bihari out-migrants. What is left then to be
investigated is the location and magnitude of wage earnings of labour.
The Rural Labour Enquiry data established it that the average daily money wage earnings (we
are dealing throughout the text with the male worker only) in all occupations of rural labour
households had however been higher in Punjab vis-à-vis Bihar in all the reference years. The
range of difference was from 1.39 to 2.07 times. The average daily money wage earning of a
rural labour in all operations was 1.9 times higher in 1974-75 and 2.0 times in 1977-78 in Punjab
than that in Bihar (1964-65 data was not available). In agricultural operations, it was 1.52 times
higher in 1964-65, 1.5 times higher in 1974-75, and 2.07 times higher in 1977-78 in Punjab than
those in Bihar respectively. In non agricultural operation, it was however merely 1.39 times, 1.58
times and 1.45 times higher in 1964-65, 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively in Punjab than those
in Bihar. The percentage increase observed in wage earnings in agricultural operations was
higher than that in non-agricultural operation in both the states during 1964-65 to 1974-75. But
during 1974-75 to 1977-78, the opposite was observed in both the States.
The same features are again discernible in the case of annual average money wage earning in all
the operations. It was consistently higher in Punjab in comparison to Bihar in all the reference
years. The range of differentials was from 1.50 to 2.38 times. A worker of all occupations in all
operations earned 2.18 and 1.86 times higher annual average money wage income in Punjab
than Bihar in 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively. In agricultural operations, it was 2.09, 2.38 and
1.95 times higher in 1964-65, 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively in Punjab vis-à-vis Bihar. In the
case of non-agricultural operations, it was 1.09, 1.64 and 1.50 times higher in 1964-65, 1974-75
and 1977-78 respectively in Punjab than Bihar. Again, the annual earnings of a worker of nonagricultural labour occupation in non-agricultural operations had been higher than that of a
worker of agricultural labour occupation in agricultural operations in both the states exception
being Punjab in 1974-75. In Bihar, the former witnessed higher percentile increase than the
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latter during both 1964-65 to 1974-75 and 1974-75 to 1977-78. In Punjab, it was so during
1974-75 to 1977-78 only; however, the growth was much faster in comparison to that in Bihar.
It seems that the sharp increases in daily, and therefore, annual money wage earning of rural
labour in the duration since 1964-65 to 1977-78 reflected mainly the price changes. The
consumer price index (general) for agricultural labourers was higher in Bihar in comparison to
Punjab in all the three reference years. The indices for both the states were however above the
average index for all-India in 1977-78. Though, the index in Punjab was lower than the average
index for all India in 1964-65 as well as 1974-75, the same was repeatedly higher in Bihar in
both years. Both the States witnessed sharp rise in the indices between 1964-65 and 1974-75
and then dropped by 1977-78. In this background, the changes in the real wage earnings of
labour had been faster in Bihar vis-à-vis Punjab, but that was principally the outcome of price
increase. It is therefore necessary to discuss the situation of real wages.
The average daily real wage earnings of a labourer in all operations was 2.21 times higher in
1974-75 and merely 2.06 times higher in 1977-78 in Punjab than that in Bihar. The same in
agricultural operations was 1.64, 2.31 and 2.31 higher in 1964-65, 1974-75 and 1977-78
respectively in Punjab than that in Bihar. In case of the non-agricultural operation, it was only
1.50, 1.84 and 1.49 times higher in 1964-65, 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively in Punjab than
that in Bihar. The percentile decline in real wage earning in agricultural operation had been a bit
lower figure than that in the non-agricultural operation in Bihar during 1964-65 and 1974-75.
During 1974-75 to 1977-78, however, the percentage improvement in real wage earnings in
non-agricultural operations was substantially higher than that in agricultural operation in Bihar.
The same trend followed in Punjab but at a lower pace.
Likewise, the annual real wage earnings of a labourer in all occupations and in all operations was
2.54 and 1.92 times higher in 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively in Punjab than that in Bihar. In
the agricultural labourer occupation in agricultural operation, it was 2.26, 2.80 and 2.01 times
higher in 1964-65, 1974-75 and 1977-78 respectively. In case of the non-agricultural labour
occupation in non-agricultural operations, it was merely 1.82, 1.91 and 1.54 times higher in the
respective reference years. Again, the annual real wage earning of labour in non-agricultural
occupations had consistently been higher to that in agricultural operations in both States
exception being 1974-75 in Punjab. In terms of percentage improvement and decline in Bihar
and Punjab in the real earnings in different categories of operations, the same conclusion as
above holds.
It is therefore not outrageous to conclude that the rate and direction of labour migration from
Bihar was consistent with the location and size of wage earnings in India. The higher wage
earning possibility in Punjab might have acted as a powerful pull factor for Bihari migrants. The
factor of wages might have entered into the decision-making process of Bihari migrants in the
sixties and seventies in the twentieth century.

2.3. Employment and Wages in Punjab
A number of research works based on primary as well as secondary data-sources on the
rural wages and employment situations in Punjab were published in the early and late seventies.
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The controversy raged, and the debates prolonged on the issue of relation between the labour
market conditions and green revolution. Nonetheless, the final conclusion was in favour of the
thesis that whereas the wages increased, the employment declined in Punjab in the late phase of
green revolution. A survey of literature in brief is warranted.
It was claimed in the beginning that the high yielding varieties technology basing itself on highpay-off inputs model assumed significance as it contributed not only to enhanced productivity
but also to the increased employment opportunities in agriculture (Hyami and Ruttan, 1971).
The growth in income, which resulted from higher output, was projected to have indirect
positive impact on employment as well. The higher frequency of cropping and resulting higher
input per acre in Punjab tended to make for slightly higher labour-input use on even the tractorusing farms (Grewal and Kahlon, 1972). It was also argued vehemently that mechanization on a
large scale was effective in breaking the time-bottleneck. It provided the incentive for doublecropping. If at all, there were negative effects of limited mechanization, it got neutralized by the
positive effects of higher yields, shifts to labour-intensive crops, double cropping and large-scale
use of new inputs. In terms of individual operation, the new technology through tended to
reduce the demand for labour in activities associated with the land preparation by tractor and
threshing by machine, it increased however the demand for labour in almost all other operations
and particularly harvesting and transplanting. The overall result was the increase in the volume
of work as well as the use of hired labour. An extensive survey of numerous individual studies
established the fact in Punjab (Dasgupta, 1977). In empirical studies, it was discovered that the
application of HYV seeds in Punjab agriculture during 1967-68 and 1968-69 resulted, for
example, in reduction of unemployed labour days by 50 percent. The demand for labour per
hectare of net cultivated area rose by 6.0 percent. In other words, the demand for labour in
mandays unit as percentage of total unemployed labour mandays witnessed increase of 24.3.
This was established however on the basis of analysis of data provided by the Farm
Management Survey and Program Evaluation Organisation (Lahiri, 1970). It was further
estimated that the annual labour use per cropped area in Punjab increased not only during 195455 to 1956-57 but also during 1967-68 to 1969-70 to 1972-73 finally. The improvement was the
result of significant shift in the cropping patterns towards expansion of area under HYV seed
i.e. more labour-intensive seed vis-à-vis local varieties of seed. It was equally the contributions
of cropping intensity increase coupled with increase in total cropped area by 23.76 percent over
the period 1965-66 to 1973-74 (Singh and Sidhu, 1976). Moreover, theoretically speaking, the
introduction of irrigation in agriculture had the potential of a facilitating an increase in labour
employment in a number of direct and indirect ways. An improvement in the cropping intensity
and intensity of input-use tended to boost the potential of employment creation further up
(Patel, 1981). In nutshell, the per-hectare use of human labour declined in Punjab only for some
highly mechanized crop operations —an example of specific cases. The total impact of farm
mechanization was however in the direction of bullock-labour displacement rather that human
labour displacement. This was what was established by a majority of studies (Chadha, 1986).
In the face of these theoretical and empirical claims, the counter thesis was relatively powerfully
advanced. It was argued time and again: first, allowing the control on farming size, and familybased/wage based labour, a strong inverse relationship between farm-size and overall labouruse per unit of cultivated land was convincingly established for the so-called green revolution
technology belt of India, for example, Punjab. This was observed in the course of household
surveys in 26 villages of Ludhiana district in Punjab (Oberai and Ahmed, 1981). Second, the
potential of generating indirect employment by the new technology was rather limited. The
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initial increase in income and employment experienced with the introduction of HYV seeds in
wheat, rice and bajra was of course there, but it was because of the greater productivity attained
per acre rather than greater potential of labour intensity associated with it. It was remarked as a
way of caution that unless the productivity was maintained and rising at the earliest high rate
and labour-saving mechanization such as harvester-combines discouraged, the total employment
was bound to decline ultimately (Bhalla, 1976). In the mid-1960s, a Punjab farmer with wellirrigated land, use of Persian wheel, fertilizers and pesticides used to attain an average 150
percent cropping intensity which in turn led to the increase in demand for labour per acre from
51 to 60 mandays. The use of tractors, pump sets, wheat threshers and corn shellers pushed the
demand however down to 25.6 mandays. Given the possibility in the case of Punjab of
increasing the cropping intensity to 220 percent, the demand was projected to have worked out
to be 49.4 mandays. It was nearly 3 mandays less than that required in the case of basic
traditional Persian wheel based technology in agriculture (Billings and Singh, 1969).
The ‘additive model’ in the case of Punjab was constructed using various sources of data. An
attempt was made to explain the direct and indirect changes in the use of family labour due to
introduction of HYV seeds, irrigation, chemical fertilizers, tube wells and tractors. The
wrapping up of this model was: the post-green revolution technology in Punjab during 1967-68
to 1972-73 undoubtedly resulted in a decline in the labour-use per cropped acre (Krishna, 1975).
The data of the Comprehensive Scheme for Studying the Cost of Cultivation of Principal Crops
narrated nearly similar account of Punjab. A sustained rise in labour use per hectare was the
usual initial response. This trend peaked hade however in the mid seventies. Further increase in
yields afterwards witnessed only decline in per hectare labour absorption. In the coming
decade, the total agricultural employment might have gone down further in Punjab. Punjab
belonged to the low labour-absorption states in India. The per-hectare labour-absorption for all
corps combined was only 65 mandays during the triennium, 1981-82 to 1983-84. The growth
rate in production over 3 percent, and the trend growth in gross cropped area under all crops
was 2.002 during 1971-72 to 1983-84. But in spite of all these positive values, the trend rate of
growth in per hectare labour absorption was 0.887 in the same duration. The trend rate of
growth in the total labour absorption was nonetheless maintained at positive level of 1.079, and
it was solely due to gross crop area expansion together with shift of area to more labourintensive crops. The same would not have remained the story, however, in the coming decade
(Bhalla, 1987).
The literature shows that conflicts in opinions and findings on wages in Punjab were no less
noteworthy than on employment. The agricultural production in Punjab had increased by more
than 60 percent between 1960-61 and 1967-68. But the average real wages of male agricultural
labourer in Punjab witnessed a slight decline in the same period as data of the Agricultural
Wages in India showed (Bardhan, 1970). The money wages of agricultural labour improved by
89 percent in Punjab and Haryana in 1986 compared with the daily money wages of agricultural
labour in 1961. In spite of substantial increases in agricultural production, the rise in prices was
however 93 percent over the same period. The so-called gain in money wages was then totally
offset, and the trickle-down effect of the green revolution was therefore only partially visible
(HDG Report, 1973). With regard to real wages, it was argued that the agricultural output went
up to more than two and half times its level attained in 1961 but real wages at best registered a
rise of approximately 15 percent only during 1961-1977 in Punjab. This is what was clearly
shown by the data of Statistical Abstract of Punjab. The output dropped below the 1961 level in
only one year of 1963 but the real wages fell of 1961 standard in standard in several years in the
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case of operations other than harvest. There was utterly slow response of money wages to
changes in the consumer price index even during the 1970s (Bhalla, 1979).
As regards the real wage rate of agricultural labour in Punjab, it of course declined by 1.98
percent between 1956-57 and 1964-65. The real wage index declined further by nearly 3 percent
between 1970-71 and 1984-85. The first through in real wages movement was reached in 197475 followed by that in 1980-81 when the index dropped by almost 15 percent. But the real wage
rate recorded an increase of approximately 50 percent in the whole duration between 1956-57
and 1984-85 (Jose, 1978). It was later argued that the whole problem lies with the choice of base
year. The year 1967-68 was a year of rising prices, and the green revolution had not gained
momentum till 1968-69, and therefore, there was a decline witnessed in the real wages till 196768 (Lal, 1976). What was required was to take the base year 1956-57 and the index of real wages
in Punjab rose to 138 by 1970-71, as per the NSS data. In the same manner, what was required
was to take the same year 1956-57 as base year, and the index of real wages in Punjab was 118 in
1967-68 and 153 in 1970-71, as per the AWI data. In other words, the analysis of data of the
National Sample Survey and the Agricultural Wages in India did show the increase in the real
wages as well. Undoubtedly, the green revolution in prosperous Punjab led to the introduction
of formal contract between employers and employees, and replaced the paternalistic relation of
yesteryears. But then the bargaining position of the Punjab workers was undoubtedly depressed
by the mechanization process and migration of workers from less favoured areas (Bagchi, 1982).
All said, Punjab continued to offer the highest absolute level of money wages among all the
Indian states till mid- 1980.
Our conclusions on the basis of RLE data and secondary sources got strengthened in the light
of a later sample survey undertaken by a research scholar ML Khurana (quoted in Chadha,
1989). The survey was based on small number of samples, and pertained to the year 1981-82.
The methodology adopted was of course different. It estimated that the mandays of wage
employment available on-farm and off-farm per non-cultivating rural labour house-hold in
Bihar was higher than in Punjab. The same was the case with mandays of other-than-wage
employment including self-employment off-farm. But, given the more than double mandays of
on-farm employment opportunities in dairy and poultry activities available in rural Punjab in
comparison to Bihar, the total mandays of overall employment of all categories was slightly
higher in Punjab than that in Bihar. There was however large differentials still existing between
the two States in average daily earnings as well as net earnings per labour household. The
average daily earnings in total employment was 1.19 times higher and net earnings in total
employment 2.02 times higher in Punjab in comparison to those respectively in Bihar. The
average daily earnings and net earnings in wage employment were 1.55 times and 1.43 times
higher on farms of Punjab than those respectively of Bihar. In other words, whereas Bihar and
Punjab offered the more or less equivalent mandays of employment opportunity to rural labour,
the rewards in terms of earnings had wide differential between the States even in the beginning
of 1980s.
In short, despite the fact that the different studies utilize different source of data and such data
sources have various kinds of shortcomings, the overall conclusion from these studies
strengthen the findings based on the Rural Labour Enquiries on wages and employment in
Punjab. Notwithstanding the employment availability scenario, there were marked high
differences in the absolute amount of daily and annual money wage rewards earned by male
labour in different occupations and operations in rural areas of Bihar and Punjab. The inequality
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between the two States assumes more importance in matter of real daily wage earnings and
annual real wage earnings. The differentials in real earnings magnitude though decreased since
mid-seventies. Nevertheless, it remained substantial to act as pull and push factor.

Remarks
In the pretty long history of migration in Bihar, the colonial migration of indentured
labour, which had been caused by the historical facts of regional dependence at the origin and
which gave rise to the phenomenon of segmented labour market alike institutional arrangement
at the destination, provided a fine illustration of forced nature of residential displacement during
the nineteenth century. In contrast, the recent migration during the second half of twentieth
century offered glimpses of more or less voluntary mobility induced by the imperfect labour
market itself. There was however elements of both innovation and distress contained in this
long-distance regional migration. The post-colonial outmigration from Bihar as like the colonial
one had also been equally significant in volume and size. The pattern and direction of rural
migration had however changed in the course of time. The reasons for migration changed as
well in the post-independence India.
The Bihar migrants arrived in Punjab due to unavailability of regular jobs, economic sufferings
caused by the natural calamities, agricultural stagnation and backwardness leading to meager and
unassured income and lack of sufficient opportunities of agricultural and non-agricultural
employment at the origin, according to a number of individual and institutional researchers
(who had relied on field-survey as method of enquiry). There had been a consensus that the
most important overriding reason behind migration had however been the pull factors of
assured employment and higher wages and income potentiality offered in Punjab (Gupta and
Bhakoo, 1980; Singh, 1995; IER, 1980). The migration continued even in face of the fact that
the migrants casually failed to get the Minimum Wages Act implemented, and to share the
benefits of public distribution system at the destination (Gill, 1984; Singh, 1995). Moreover, the
migrants worked sometimes under the harsh conditions. This was very well illustrated by the
news that out of 5000 deaths resulting from the farm machine accidents in India in 1978, almost
500 deaths, mostly of the migrants, took place in Punjab only—the damaging fall-out of farm
mechanization (Dhanagre, 1985). The incapacitation of workers in the form of loss of limbs in
thresher accidents had been high enough, and over the years on the increase in Punjab, and the
majority of victims of such accidents had been the migratory labour from Orissa, Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar (Times of India, 4 April, 1986). In short, the pull factors of first, the assured
employment, and second, the high income offered by the capitalist Punjab had successfully
worked in attracting Bihari migrants even in the backdrop of hazardous nature of work and
work-related casualty during the seventies and eighties. The harsh conditions could not deter the
migrants to undertake the costly long-distance travels, over-come the intervening obstacles
created by the railway staffs, police and commission agents, and seek work in an alien culturalresidential milieu.
The micro-scale field-survey based observations on the reasons for Bihari migration had been
corroborated by the large-scale enumeration-census findings. The Census also used the
questionnaire method and survey techniques to elicit the responses of individual migrant on the
reason for migration. The Census however came to the conclusion that the employment
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singularly was the motivation factor, and therefore, the overriding reason behind migration.
According to the Census of 1981, the highest percentage of male migrants enumerated in rural
Punjab reporting employment to be the reason came only from Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar
rural location. The Bihari rural male migrants comprised 19.0 percent of all rural male migrants
in Punjab. But, among those who reported employment to be reason for migration, it
constituted 26.0 percent. Within the population of rural-rural stream bound Bihar-Punjab
directed male migrants having 0-4 year’s duration of residence at destination, almost 88.0
percent reported employment as the reason and the rest 12.0 percent other reasons for
migration in the 1981 Census enumeration. The Census had however been silent on the status
of ‘wages and earnings’ as probable reason for migration. In other words, the individual
motivation enquiry oriented questionnaires based surveys of origin and destination areas of
Bihari migrants had led to the conclusion of employment being the most significant reason of
migration to Punjab.
In the present paper, the indirect method of causal analysis of migration has been used. The
comparative analysis of the aggregate data on employment and wages in Bihar and Punjab has
established it that there did not exist any considerable difference between the rural pockets of
two states in matter of availability of the mandays of annual employment and unemployment of
male labour in the mid-seventies and last quarter of seventies. Given the magnitude of
employment and unemployment and the trend of changes observed by the Rural Labour
Enquiries between mid-sixties and late seventies, it seems strange to conclude that the better
prospect of employment in rural Punjab might really had been the cause of Bihari migration.
However, there did exist significantly wide differential in daily and annual money and real wage
earnings of male labour between the states under consideration. The information might have
been accessible to the potential migrants. The pull of large earnings might had conditioned and
triggered the seasonal as well as permanent migration from rural Bihar. What was thus
important was the prospect of annual earnings rather than employment as such.
In view of the relations established between wage earnings and migration on the basis of
aggregate data, it is worth arguing that the Census in particular had somehow failed in capturing
the exact reason for migration. It could not succeed in furnishing the objective realistic picture
in this regard because it harped on the perception of migrants as conditioned by their present
status at the destination rather than actual position with regard to the long thought-out reason.
The Census while asking question on reason for migration did not distinguish among situations
of actually employed, seeking work already and just arrived to seek work. All were clubbed
together, and therefore, the question put by the Census agents was certainly vague enough to
leave scope for confused reporting by the respondent migrants. The migrants who might have
been primarily motivated by the prospect of higher earnings (from employment) rather than
employment per se might nevertheless report employment to be the reason for mobility, when
no separate specific question was asked on the earnings. Among the five categories of reasons
classified and tabulated by the Census, there was no separate category of earnings. In such a
circumstance, if there is any germ of truth in the proposition that the Indian Census agents had
been ill-motivated due to lower remuneration as well as lack of training, there did exist a real
possibility that the enumerators were not sufficiently trained themselves to put questions on
reasons for migration in proper ways. Be that as it may. In the fact of shortcomings of the
Census operation, the aggregative data-based conclusion on the positive relation between wage
earnings and outmigration from Bihar to Punjab holds strongly.
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