MIGRATION IN INDIA : Links to Urbanization, Regional Disparities and Development Policies

There is a great dearth of a meaningful study on migration and urbanization in India. Most are descriptive; they are neither analytical, nor theoretical, nor policy-oriented. Filling up these lacunae, the book discusses acute problems of distressed migration and urban involution in India, focusing on five P’s: (a) patterns of migration, (b) phenomena of migration-urbanization system, (c) poverty, (d) processes, and (e) policies. The book has three parts: while the first deals with 1991 census, the second analyses 2001 census, and the third pinpoints future issues and challenges. It has analysed many aspects of migration-urbanization at six levels: all-India, district, state, class I city, million city and megacity. About 221 million people moved in 1991, swelling to 327 million by 2001 (out of one billion), i.e., every third Indian is a migrant. By 2011, their number has perhaps risen to 450 million! During 1991-2001 alone, 96 million people migrated. So, the study deals with the ebbs and flows of one of the largest numbers of migrants in the world, the greatest in the human history! It rightly emphasizes upon human dimensions of migration problems, lacking in most studies. It also unravels causal links between migration, urbanization and regional disparities, focusing on many burgeoning issues like poverty-induced migration, widespread rural poverty, urban decay, choking slums, rampant corruption, and widening social and regional disparities. Thus, the book envisages development policies and strategies, not only for the poor migrants, but also for the masses, for ushering in a just and egalitarian society. Such a seminal book is very relevant to the geographers, demographers, population specialists, economists, social scientists, urban and regional planners, management scholars and the policy makers.