Education in India: Children of Seasonal and Migrant Laborers

There are many challenges to education in India. Some of them seem to
have clear solutions, like enforcing rules against caste
discrimination, or providing university scholarships to young women.
Other problems, however, are less clear. An excellent article I read
recently, “Seasonal Migration of Rural Labor in India,” (Haberfeld,
Menaria, Sahoo, and Vyas, 1999), explained the reasons behind seasonal
agricultural migration, as well as the many challenges faced by these
economic migrants. I recently had the opportunity to see this
phenomenon first hand.

At the end of October, the sugarcane fields in our area were ready to
be harvested. Migrant laborers from poorer parts of Gujarat and
bordering states like Maharashtra began to pour into Kadod and the
local villages. Most of the laborers travel in family groups, which
includes their children. Much like migrant laborers in the United
States, the bulk of these children are pulled out of school to follow
their families on the harvest cycles. Older children may help their
parents in the fields, while others care for younger siblings and
maintain the households. Those parents who truly want their kids to
have an education are faced with an almost impossible dilemma; do you
leave your child behind, in the company of strangers, so that he or
she may go to school, or do you pull them out halfway through the year
so that they can stay with their family? Others may simply come from
areas where distance or caste discrimination do not make education an
option. Perhaps most sadly, sometimes the family’s economic need is so
great that they simply cannot afford to spare a working body.

With our visiting photographer, the talented Sarah Lou Toscano, I set
out early one morning to visit a migrant camp and document the
experience. After walking for over an hour, we arrived at a small
clearing by a branch of the Tapi River. All travelers to India have
seen the shanties, tents, and huts will curl around the edges of
buildings in any major city. Economic migration is not a new concept,
and the way in which shanty-dwellers must struggle for their basic
needs is one of the most sobering aspects of life in India. However,
the migrant laborer’s camp was different.

Small, four-sided dwellings were neatly covered in woven reeds, with
only the occasional slip of normally ubiquitous blue tarp peeking out
from the roof. Houses were spaced evenly, and there was clearly a
demarkation for laundering clothes and going to the bathroom down on
the river bank. A small handpump, perhaps provided by the farm’s
owners, gave them access to drinking water, and there was even a tiny
store in the center of the camp.

As we walked into the camp, we paused, somewhat nervously. I do not
think that anyone in India has been quite so surprised to see me.
Sarah Lou and I, armed with our cameras, had made a serious
impression. People gawked at us without a shred of embarassment.

As we proceeded throughout the camp, people quietly stood and nodded their approval for photographs. Slowly, crowds started to build, and before we knew it, everyone in the camp was out of their homes, going about their daily business and keeping one eye trained on the two American girls with giant cameras.

What immediately became clear was that over 2/3 of the population of the camp were school-aged children, yet no one was getting ready for school: none of the characteristic hair braiding, book-gathering, or uniform-straightening was taking place. As I examined the laundry on the lines, I noticed not a single school uniform. Inside the homes, there were no backpacks.

Since most of the people residing in this settlement speak Gamit, Chaudhri, Marati or some mix of the three, I had a hard time communicating. One young mother, however, was willing to patiently listen to my bad Gujarati and watch my pantomimes and I tried to ask if the kids did indeed go to school. The woman, previously animated and particularly interested in my camera, turned quiet and a forlorn looked washed over her face as she explained that none of the children were enrolled in school. Not here, and not in their ancestral villages in Maharashtra.

In the end, my visit to the camp left me with more questions than
answers. What can be done to provide education to these children? The
reasons behind migration are so large and complex, it seems like an
impossible goal. Also, incredible as it may seem, Gujarat actually
has a fairly small migrant laborer population in comparison to poorer
states like Bihar or Orissa. Happily, there are some great NGOs doing
work in these areas. When working to try and improve the public school
system seems like an insurmountable challenge, it is inspiring to
remember that other NGOs struggle with even more extreme conditions.

For more information about NGOs which target the children of migrant
laborers, check out Vidhayak Sansad at http://www.vidhayaksansad.org,
Dr. Reddy’s Foundation at http://www.drreddysfoundation.org, or the
India Literacy Project at http://www.ilpnet.org.

The mother from my story.