Unlocking the Urban: Reimagining Migrant Lives in Cities Post-COVID 19

Unlocking the Urban: Reimagining Migrant Lives in Cities Post-COVID 19 is a report released by Aajeevika Bureau (an organisation working with migrant workers in Gujarat and Rajasthan) in April 2020. The report explores the experiences of exclusion faced by ‘circular migrants’ employed in the informal labour markets of Ahmedabad and Surat. It states that the “…catastrophic results of the lockdown only exposed and aggravated glaring gaps in India’s public provisioning and employment systems, which has, for decades, systematically excluded and extracted migrant workers to facilitate economic growth.”The report considers ‘circular migrants’ as those that move between ‘urban work destinations’ and their villages in rural areas, without settling in the cities where they are employed. Such migration includes movements that are short or long term; over short or long distances; by men, women or children and “…single or family-based.” The report presents the result of a study conducted through surveys , focus group discussions and interviews in Ahmedabad and Surat.The report opens with an introduction (Chapter I) and in the rest of the chapters covers: ‘Locating Circular Migrants in India’s Urban Growth and Governance Processes’ (Chapter II); the method of conducting the study (Chapter III); data collected during the study (Chapter IV); ‘Circularity, Temporary Claim Making and Mobile Citizenship’ (Chapter V); an examination of the State’s policies (Chapter VI) and ‘Potential Pathways for Migrant-Inclusive Urban Governance’ (Chapter VII).