According to the Economic Survey of 2017, 5 million people migrated out of Jharkhand between 2001 and 2011, making the state one of the highest in terms of the net outflow of the working-age population in the country.
Despite the abundant natural resources in the state, distress migration is common place due to impoverished living conditions, agrarian crisis, and lack of opportunities. Fragmentation of agricultural land, increasing water scarcity, and decreasing access to Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) push the PVTG and Dalit communities towards work in the brick kilns of other states. While workers usually migrate to states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, some even migrate to faraway states like Tripura. More than 2 million Indians are employed in brick kilns (NSS 2011-12) and contribute to making India’s brick industry second only to China in terms of production (PSCST website).
Harsh realities of the brick industry
Migration to the brick kiln is driven by conditions of debt bondage, where labour contractors, known as ‘Sardars,’ provide ‘Dadan’ or advance amounts to workers, compelling them to work in brick kilns until the debt is repaid. They are often subjected to excessively long working hours, contributing to physical and mental fatigue. Brick kiln workers receive low wages that often do not commensurate with the arduous nature of their work. Brick kilns rely on extended family labour, which leads to children dropping out of school and ending up as child labourers. There are also unsafe work environments for women due to higher incidences of sexual harassment and a lack of maternity and childcare support systems.
A new paradigm – Graduation Approach
What can an economically viable and resilient livelihood mean for such marginalised communities? Exploring this question at The/Nudge, led us to the ‘Graduation Approach’ which was pioneered by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). The approach is a multifaceted, sequenced and timebound model that is built around four pillars— livelihood promotion, social protection, social empowerment, and social and financial inclusion. At an intervention level, this translates into productive asset transfer, temporary cash transfers, technical training, home visits for coaching and support, access to a savings account, and communication for behavioural change.
Nudge towards self-reliance and resilience
Inspired by the Graduation Approach, The/Nudge initiated the Economic Inclusion Program (EIP) in 2019 with a set of 500 highly marginalised Didis living in the rural districts of Lohardaga, Latehar, and Gumla.
Community Development Officers (CDOs), a cadre of community mobilisers, acted as the lynchpin of the program’s outreach and implementation. Each CDO intensively worked with around 40 Didis to ensure quality and depth of engagement. Through weekly visits to the hamlet, CDOs provide hand-holding support to program participants (Didis) regarding accessing social protection and entitlements, banks, and joining self-help groups (SHGs). Through constant support, Didis’ capacities were built on growing vegetables, rearing and caring for cattle like goats and pigs. Particular emphasis was placed on building rapport with Didi, enhancing her self-confidence, and improving her social capital by forming small groups in the hamlets.
The story that data tells us
Endline evaluation data of the first cohort of EIP shows that the proportion of program participants (Didis) who reported migrating for work has decreased from 70% in baseline to 15% in end-line (for a longitudinal panel of 309 Didis). Despite brick kiln work forming a significant migration stream in the program districts of Lohardaga, Latehar, and Gumla, this substantial reduction reflects how Didis have chosen to stay back in their villages. Informal conversations reveal their why.
Backbone of resilient livelihoods — Diversification
Due to capacity building and capital support provided under EIP, Didis successfully diversified into local livelihoods such as vegetable cultivation, goat-rearing, and pig-rearing in the village. Nanki Devi, an EIP graduate, says, “Although we could bring back remittances of around ₹30,000 in a year from brick kilns in Tripura, we had to pay a huge physical price for it. Whereas, by the third year of the program, through vegetable farming and goat-rearing, we could earn a decent annual income of ₹25,000 by getting to stay in our village.”
Didis reported better physical well-being and a lower labour burden in the village compared to the brick kiln. An EIP graduate, Lalu Didi, says, “I enjoy the time I spend with my goats. Taking goats to the forest for grazing is a peaceful form of work. In the brick kiln, I had to lift ten bricks in one go and was fed up with that kind of work.”
Didis and their husbands reported improved social well-being in the village compared to the brick kiln. Nanki Didi opines that her social ties and relationships have improved in the last three years as she has not migrated to the brick kiln and has become part of social functions like marriages, festivals, etc., back in the village. Her husband, Lalku Dada, says, “The most significant advantage of staying back and working in the village is that the entire family gets to stay together, spend more time with each other, and develop and sustain familial relationships.”
Previously, children were forced to drop out, migrate, and work with their parents in the brick kiln. Now, Didis report a significant improvement in the well-being of children in the village. When Lalu Didi stopped migrating to the brick kilns, she started to send all her children, two boys and two girls, to the school. Before the last two months, she also enrolled the two boys in private tuition. Similarly, an EIP graduate, Basanti Devi, says, “Brick kilns were too unsafe for my children. They were left on their own while I worked. I had to keep an eye on the children constantly. It was extremely stressful for me as a mother.” She feels that her children are safe in the village.
Rajo Didi, another EIP graduate, revels in the newfound freedom and independence she experiences while engaging in agricultural activities and raising livestock. This autonomy starkly contrasts her previous job at the brick kilns, where she was subject to the arbitrary demands and control of her employer. Now, she can make decisions based on her own judgement and preferences, leading to a sense of empowerment and satisfaction in her work.
The way forward
Quantitative and qualitative data from EIP’s first cohort gives us hope that Graduation Approach could be a significant part of a multi-pronged toolkit to reduce distress migration in rural vulnerability hotspots of India. This multi-pronged strategy could include focused implementation of schemes like MGNREGA, PM Van Dhan Yojana, and the Graduation Approach to rejuvenate the rural livelihood ecosystem. However, strong evidence must be built through longitudinal studies to validate if the positive results are sustainable over a more extended period.
References
- Breman, J. (2010). Neo-bondage: A fieldwork-based account. International Labor and Working-Class History, 78(1), 48-62.
- The Persian term ‘Dadan’, meaning to “give”. It is developed as a technical term in Bengal to denote an arrangement of providing loans or working capital advances. The system of Dadan persists as a commonly found credit arrangement in agrarian South Asia.
- Das, R. (2013). Socio-economic conditions of female workers in brick kilns: An exploitation to healthy social structure: A case study on Khejuri CD blocks in Purba Medinipur, West Bengal. International Journal of Science and Research, 4(1), 95-102.
- Roy, S. N., & Kunduri, E. (2018). Migration to brick kilns in India: an appraisal. New Delhi, Centre for Policy Research.
