Gujarat's deadly cocktail: Rising unemployment, crime & dirty politics

The influx of migrants from the Hindi heartland desperate for jobs has given rise to a dangerous excuse for targeted violence

The violence in Gujarat's Banaskantha district that was triggered by the rape of a 14-month-old girl, allegedly by a migrant from Bihar, spread rapidly to other parts of the state. Fanned by hate speeches from certain caste leaders such as Congress’ MLA Alpesh Thakore, the rampage brought about an exodus of Hindi-speaking people from some parts of the state. 

In his undated speech, Thakore spewed venom in his diatribe about the 'criminal nature' of migrants and incited his audience to “take the responsibility to cut the weeds when they dry out”.  While Thakore’s speech is despicable, a look at the socio-economic situation in Gujarat presents the stark reality of a state in flux, making it a tinderbox that's waiting to explode.

The large-scale violence that followed the rape of a minor is symptomatic of a crime wave that is sweeping Gujarat. This is happening in tandem with the state’s growing economy that is attracting migrants from other parts of the country in search of a better life.  (See Graphic)

As per the 2001 census, there were an estimated 19 million migrants across Gujarat. Of these, 2.5 million were first-generation migrants -– those born outside the state. By 2011, the number of migrants in Gujarat (both internal and from outside) swelled by 40 per cent to 27 million. This was much higher than the population growth of Gujarat, which stood at 20 per cent during this period. In 2001, internal and external migrants formed 38 per cent of the state’s population. By 2011, that figure had swelled to 45 per cent.  

The 2011 census hasn’t yet made public how many of these migrants were from outside the state. But a useful glimpse into the role of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in driving migration to Gujarat was given by former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and his team involved in drafting the Economic Survey 2016-17.  
 

Subramanian and his team asked the Indian railways for data on unreserved passenger movement on trains in India from 2011 to 2016. Gujarat was one of the states where up to 4.7 million people had travelled in unreserved compartments (used mostly by people from rural areas looking for work) on trains during this period. The top sources of this unreserved railway passenger traffic for Gujarat were all Hindi-belt states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. And among these, Uttar Pradesh seems to have been the top contributor of migrants to Gujarat, as was borne out by the highest density railway routes. Many of these migrants from Uttar Pradesh were coming to Vadodara from Gorakhpur via Mumbai.

This spurt in migration over the past two decades from the Hindi heartland also coincides with a spurt in crime, which in no way can be attributed to migrants alone. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, between 2001 and 2016, violent crime in Gujarat grew 71 per cent, while rapes tripled. The rise in the number of rapes in the state since 2001 is much higher than the national average. While there has been a negligible drop in murders in Gujarat during this period, murder rates in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, whose people are being blamed for Gujarat’s miseries, have witnessed a sharp drop. Cases of rapes have grown much faster in Gujarat than they have in crime-infested states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. All forms of violent crimes, such as attempt to murder, kidnappings, robberies, attempt to rape, kidnapping and abductions have grown much faster in Gujarat than they have in Uttar Pradesh. But the rise in violent crimes during this period in Gujarat was still lower than the national average.

While violent crimes in Gujarat were increasing consistently over the years since 2001, the virulent outburst against job seeking migrants coincides with a period of lackadaisical employment growth in the state, which till not long ago, was heralded as a beacon of economic development in India. From 2000-01 to 2015-16, everything in Gujarat, from the number of factories, invested capital, the number of workers engaged in productive labour in these factories and employment in small and medium industries, grew much faster than in the rest of India. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), for every Rs 100 invested in India, Rs 20 was invested in Gujarat in 2015-16.  One-tenth of all factories in a country of billion-plus people were in Gujarat -– a state with just about 60 million people. But over the past couple of years, the employment situation in Gujarat seems to be going downhill.

According to quarterly unemployment reports published by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Gujarat has seen a rise in unemployment rates, decline in labour participation rates, near stagnation in the number of employed people and a significant spurt in the number of unemployed people willing to work, but not finding any jobs. Gujarat’s unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2016 was around four per cent, which was much lower than the national average. In the first quarter of 2018, Gujarat’s unemployment rate shot up to more than five per cent while the national unemployment rate declined. The number of people willing to work but without jobs rose by almost 40 per cent during this period to about 1.3 million. This was in contrast to what was happening in the rest of India. With a dose of hate-mongering politics added to this heady concoction of rising crime and uncertain employment prospects, Gujarat seems to set become an ideal playground for those bent on setting the volatile state on fire in the run-up to the 2019 Parliamentary elections.