Modern societies are shaped by migration and it may be futile to engage in costly exercises to identify “outsiders”

Migration is a way to move from one place to another in order to live and work. Movement
of people from their home to another city, state or country for a job, shelter or some other reasons
is called migration. They are critical to shaping of our modern societies today.

Recently the exclusion of 19 lakh people from the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) has
sparked a debate over the future of these families and individuals. To understand the chaos with
respect to NRC lets first understand the following -
What is Migration?
 Migration is a natural process that often happens depending on the socio-economic,
demographic, cultural, political and environmental factors related to the migrant people.
 It is most fundamental to the understanding of continuously changing space content and space
relationships of areas.
 The main reason for migration is employment or business related migration. The male migration
constitutes the highest level of migration in India due to employment purpose.
 The female usually migrates as accompanists of males, but with the recent survey single females
are also slowly increasingly moving out in search of jobs.
Impact of migration on modern societies –
Migration is a response to the uneven distribution of opportunities over space. People tend to move
from place of low opportunity and low safety to the place of higher opportunity and better safety.
This, in turn, creates both benefits and problems for the areas; people migrate from and migrate to.
Following are the effects of migration -
Social Effect:
The new ideas related to new technologies, family planning, girl’s education, etc. get diffused from
urban to rural areas through them.
Migration leads to intermixing of people from diverse cultures.
It has positive contribution such as evolution of composite culture and breaking through the narrow
considerations and widens up the mental horizon of the people at large.
It creates social vacuum and sense of dejection among individuals. Continued feeling of dejection
may motivate people to fall in the trap of anti-social activities like crime and drug abuse.
Environmental Effect:
Overcrowding of people due to rural-urban migration has put pressure on the existing social and
physical infrastructure in the urban areas.
This ultimately leads to unplanned growth of urban settlement and formation of slums shanty
colonies.
Due to over-exploitation of natural resources, cities are facing the acute problem of depletion of
ground water, air pollution, disposal of sewage and management of solid wastes.
Other Effect:
Brain drain occurs when scientists, engineers, doctors, IT- professionals and other intellectuals
migrate to another country for higher studies, to undertake research activities, to get better job and
work experiences which they are not getting from their country of origin. India is a very prominent source for supply of professionals. The educated crowd instead of serving their own country prefers
to work for the developed nations for the sake of better pay and standard of living or any other
reason.
Reasons of futility of the process and the idea of NRC of Assam -
 Citizenship and identity have been fraught issues in Assam for decades. The NRC was introduced
in 1951 in response to a political demand that arose from the fear of migration, in the backdrop
of Partition, causing demographic and cultural upheaval. The sub nationalist politics that
privileged Assamese identity over other categories, including class, caste and religion, has since
shaped the social imaginary in the region, with devastating consequences.
 India, as a country follows the ideology of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, thus it should not be
hasty in taking decisions that can disenfranchise her citizens – contradicting its centuries-
followed values.
 The need of the hour is that the Government should clearly chart out the course of action
regarding the fate of excluded people from final NRC data and political parties should refrain
from coloring the entire NRC process through electoral prospects that may snowball in to
communal violence.
 There is a need for a robust mechanism of legal support for the four million who have to prove
their citizenship to India with their limited means.
Conclusion –
The idea of citizenship can’t be imprisoned within the framework of blood and soil or religion; it
needs a broader, more inclusive definition rooted in the liberal spirit of the Constitution. For now,
however, at the end of an elaborate NRC process monitored by the Supreme Court, which has
shown unusual alacrity in doing so, the onus is on the court to ensure that human rights are not
undermined by short-term political interests.