Guest Workers in Kerala: Is Welfarism Enough?

The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures in the country revealed the scale of internal migration in the country. While the Long March of 2020 brought to light the arduous and painstaking journey back home, it also revealed the precarious livelihood scenario of the migrants and their families. Kerala has witnessed a steep increase in the migrant worker population over the past decade. The increasing shortage of manual labourers in the state has created a situation wherein migrant workers have become an inevitable component of the state’s economy. While it is acknowledged that Kerala provides better working and living conditions to the large migrant workforce in the state, a preliminary review of legislations and policies reveals that all is not well. The ambiguity surrounding the terms and conditions under which migrant workers are hired by contractors enhances the possibility of them being hired against advances, leaving much room for exploitation. While the Kerala government was one of the first to formulate welfare programmes for the migrant workers, the overall approach towards the migrant population in the state has been couched in the language of welfare. However, the articulation of rights and accountability mechanisms to define and enforce the responsibilities of the employers/contractors appears to be weak, which leads to a compromise of labour rights vis-a-vis the accumulation of capital in a state that relies heavily on the availability of migrant labour. The examination of issues related to migrant workers will be contextualised within the existing paradox of combining welfarism with a neoliberal development paradigm in the state.