1

On the margins of political society: Micro-political struggles,

spatiality and agency among migrant populations1

Proshant Chakraborty,2

Graduate Student,

Katholieke University Leuven, Belgium

Abstract:

Over the last decade, the concept of political society coined by Partha Chatterjee has been

subject to wide debates and critiques. However, the existence of political society-style

negotiations itself presents a challenge in rethinking its relevance in the issues of migrants in

urban Indian cities. With that objective in mind, this paper uses empirical evidence from the

author’s field research among migrant workers—both permanent and circular—in the

informal construction industry in the Mumbai region, and argues the need to rethink two

aspects of political society that have remained undertheorised: namely, that of spatiality, and

the “margins of political society”. Firstly, the idea of spatiality refers to a politics of scale

and contingency, wherein the immediate spaces which migrants inhabit (workplaces, labour

camps, etc.) are also sites of political negotiations. The crucial difference here is the focus on

the ‘micro political economy’ of labour and gains, which consists of their everyday

negotiations with actors like the company, contractors, local unions, and NGOs. Secondly, by

acknowledging that these processes/negotiations are fraught with challenges, this paper

addresses the idea of the “margins of political society”. These refer to challenges posed by

exclusionary politics, local unions, heterogeneity of the migrant workforce, and the problems

of organising collective action. However, despite these factors limiting the their ability for

collective, unionised action, most migrants can, and do, exercise a constrained and

contingent agency in these micro-political spaces, which results in the attainment of goals at

the workplace (usually in terms of wages, amenities, benefits, etc.).

Keywords: Construction workers; margins; micro-politics; migration; migrants; space;

political society

Disclaimer 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the UGC-DRS sponsored National Seminar on Migration,

Poverty and Social Justice: Perspectives, Policies and Experiences, TATA Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

(March, 2014). During the time of conducting fieldwork for this paper (October, 2013 to March, 2014), I was

working as a research assistant to Dr Uday Chandra, Max Planck Institute for Study of Religious and Ethnic

Diversity, Göttingen, in his post-doctoral research project in Mumbai titled, ‘Negotiating Modernity, Remaking

Selves: East India migrants and the city in contemporary Mumbai’. The data from the fieldwork has been used

with Dr Chandra’s permission. Any errors present in the paper are solely that of mine. Usual disclaimers apply. 2 During the time of conducting research for this paper, I was working as an independent researcher in

Mumbai.

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1. Introduction

Migration is traditionally looked at as the “movement of people from one place to another”,

and within itself, it has two main dimensions: internal migration and external migration.

Traditional economic and sociological literature looks at migration as being mediated by

“push” and “pull” factors (Deshingkar, 2008: 168-167; also, McDowell & de Haan, 1997).

The former includes natural, social, cultural and political factors at the source of migration—

like floods, droughts, famines, declining opportunities in agriculture, caste-based oppression,

and so on (Deshingkar, 2008: 170). The latter, broadly, refers to factors that “pull” migrants to

a destination—almost always urban centres, that are more developed than the source and offer

the possibility of a better life and economic and social prosperity, security, and freedom

(religious, social, cultural, and so on) (Ibid; see also, Shah, 2006).

However, on the ground, migration is a far more dynamic process, and rarely is

reduced to the crucible of push-and-pull factors, or of exploitation-and-liberation (McDowell

& de Haan, 1997; de Haan, 1999; 2000).3 More than the conventional push and pull factors,

the kind of migration people engage in informs us about the existing political-economic

conditions prevalent in the country, and, more specifically, in the urban regions that are often

the destinations of migrants.4 This would entail an explanation of migration that, on the one

hand, goes beyond the assumptions “that isolate individuals as rational decision makers”, and

on the other, “theories that focus only on macro-economic or political developments as

explanatory factors” (McDowell & de Haan, 1997: 3).5 Thus, migration patterns and

processes like semi-permanent migration, seasonal migration, and circular migration are

indicative of the prevalent processes and structures that mediate migration, and build support

3 Another important theme underscored in most activist and policy-oriented discussions on migration is the

need to address push factors of migration in the place of origin. This tends to overlook the “contribution of

migration to livelihoods”, and that development strategies should instead “consider building on this…rather than

to stop migration” (de Haan, 1999: 117). 4 Of course, a typology of migration would include rural-urban migration, urban-urban migration, rural-rural

migration, and urban-rural migration. However, certain urbanising trends, such as the expansion of the Mumbai

Metropolitan Region (MMR) into the once-rural hinterlands, like Karjat, Panvel, Asangaon etc., forces us to

change many perceptions about the seamlessness of the rural and urban geographies. 5 These developments tend to reject two popular and binary notions of migration: the first is that migration is

almost always a result of “the consequences of ruptures, of environmental disaster, economic exploitation, or

political and civil tensions and violence…and perceived to be a cause of problems” (de Haan, 2000: 1; emphasis

in original). And, secondly, that migration itself engenders an inevitable operation of agency, either in the form of

migrants being ‘urban experts’ (Blom Hansen & Verkaaik, 2009), or as that of ‘amorous relationships’ and sexual

agency outside the rigid social structure of the originating village (Shah, 2006).

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networks (see also, Deshingkar, 2008; Deshingkar & Farrington, 2009; Skeldon, 2012, for a

review of debates on circular migration, and the challenges of policy-based intervention).6

Most internal migrants tend to work in the non-agricultural informal economy, and the

civil construction industry is among the chief industries that absorb the migrant workforce.

Among informal economy workers, these struggles and negotiations have, to an extent, place

in the form of ‘dignified discontent’, where informal workers have been able to use ‘collective

action strategies’, like unionisation and petitioning the state governments for welfare (which

build from social movements in the 1970-80s), and have made collective demands to the state

and to ‘formal politics’. This is evident by “informal workers’ ability to organize and attain

welfare benefits from the Indian state” (Agarwala, 2013: 4). This has resulted in the State

enacting welfare like the Building and Other Construction Workers’ Act (1996; ratified by

Maharashtra in 2007), the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Bill (2008), the Central

Workers’ Welfare Board (under the BOCW Act), and the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna

(2008), to name a few.

However, with respect to the issues of migrants specifically, understanding collective

action in this broad perspective of state action is limited since a large number of migrant

workers in the informal economy (and specifically in construction) are outside the ambit of

‘dignified discontent’—also, since such strategies tend to vary from state to state (Agarwala,

2013). Instead, a more nuanced reading would be to look at the ways in which ‘constrained’

agency is operationalised by (migrant) labour (Coe & Jordhus-Lier, 2011), and how circular

migration leads to a spaces of ‘rural cosmopolitanism’ and ‘cultural assertion’, which, through

‘body politics’ and ‘consumption’, presents a new way of understanding ‘regional

modernities’ (Gidwani & Sivaramakrishnan, 2003a; 2003b). Insofar as we discuss migrants’

agency vis-à-vis their interaction with the state, it is much more fruitful to understand how the

development state’s ‘deepening presence’ is as much—if not a lesser—functioning of

‘governmentality’, rather than that of ‘dignified discontent, and formal politics’.7 Therefore,

what I propose is to understand the ‘everyday’ aspects of migrants’ agency and coping in the

6 Skeldon (2012: 44), for instance, warns us that: “If circular migration cannot be clearly defined,

policymakers are neither going to be able to manage it nor design policies specifically for it. I advocate a cautious

approach to this new ‘rage’ in policy circles by arguing that circular migration does exist, but that it is a constantly

shifting phenomenon that is an integral part of the process of change so often included under the rubric

‘development’”. 7 At the same time, since a majority of workers in the informal economy, especially in the construction

industry, happen to be migrants, many of the problems of the informal economy are de facto problems of

migrants. This tenuous relationship between the two, however, needs to be highlighted.

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domain of what Partha Chatterjee calls ‘political society’ (Chatterjee, 2004; 2008a; 2008b;

2011).

2. Scope of the paper, methodology and limitations

In this paper, I examine the prevalence (and problems) of ‘political society-style’ negotiations

in the micro-political struggles of two kinds of migrant groups in the informal economy: first,

circular migrants who work in the private sector civil construction industry across the

Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR); and second, a group of permanent migrants who

reside in a shantytown in the outskirts of the periurban town of Badlapur (in Thane District).

Most of the empirical data was gathered during the months of October 2013 to March 2014,

wherein I worked closely with migrant construction workers in central and eastern suburbs of

Mumbai.8 Majority of these interviews were conducted at labour camps of a large

construction sites in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai city and in the Navi Mumbai region.

Additionally, field notes from the author’s interaction with migrant communities at

construction sites and naka workers in a shantytown in the outskirts of periurban Badlapur

(Thane district) have also been utilized.9 A portion of the fieldwork has been mediated by the

presence of (rather, by my presence with) notably two NGOs working on providing healthcare

and grievance redressal services to migrant workers the Mumbai region.

Since this paper draws from a relatively small sample size, it only makes certain

suggestions and show micro-trends, and is unsuitable to make larger, substantial

generalisations on the micro-political struggles of migrant workers. Further, as of now, this

paper can only make a note of the existence of such ‘margins of political society’. In a way,

this questioning emerges from the gaps in political society, and addresses the points raised by

the critiques of political society (John & Deshpande, 2008; Menon, 2010; Gudavarthy, 2012).

Finally, the question of gender as a ‘margin’ of political society has not been explored.

However, I am certain that an independent project can potentially raise that question, and

present a reworking of the some elements of political society, and lead to a more productive

engagement with the same.

8 See above disclaimer.

9 Some of this data was presented in the form of a previous paper, ‘Periurban Geographies: Politics of

exclusion, and contestations in the shadow of urbanisation’. Paper presented at Ibteda: National Students’ Seminar

on Social Exclusion, held at TISS, Mumbai (February 2013).

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In this paper, seek to engage with mainly three ideas: first, examining the everyday

micro-political struggles and gains made by these migrant workers in the informal economy

(Harriss-White & Prosperi, 2014; Harriss-White, 2009); secondly, I ground these ‘struggles’

and ‘negotiations’ in the domain of what Partha Chatterjee describes as ‘political society’.

Here, I argue that, insofar as we talk about migrants in the kinds of sites I worked in, both

‘political society-style negotiations’, and political society as an ‘empirical’ group, as ‘objects

of governmentality’ does indeed exist. However, given certain challenges posed by studying

migrants and migration vis-à-vis political society, such a ‘politics of the governed’ is

mediated by two factors undertheorised in political society: namely that of spatiality, and the

margins of political society. In addressing these two dimensions, I build from certain critiques

of ‘political society’ (John & Deshpande, 2008; Baviskar & Sundar, 2008; Menon, 2010,

Gudhavarthy, 2012), and use empirical evidence from interacting with migrant workers to

substantiate these arguments.

3. ‘Spatiality’ and ‘margins’ in political society

Before I proceed, it is important to briefly review the premise of the concept of ‘political

society’. Chatterjee begins his foray into political society by presenting a critique of ‘civil

society’, which he suggests, “will appear as the closed association of modern elite groups,

sequestered from the wider popular life of the communities, walled up within enclaves of

civic freedom and rational law” (2004: 4). In terms of formal structure of the state, he

clarifies, all of society is civil society; everyone is a citizen with equal rights (ibid, 38;

emphasis in original). However, most inhabitants in India are not considered to be proper

members of civil society. But they are not outside the reach of the state or even excluded from

the domain of politics (Ibid). Chatterjee, therefore, proposes a category of political society

which includes activities carried out by populations which brings them into a certain political

relationship with the state (Ibid; emphasis in original). These negotiations carried out by

subaltern groups are often ones “that transgress the strict lines of legality in struggling to live

and work”. Chatterjee, then, outlines characteristics of ‘political society’, of which a few a

relevant here: first, is the category of the ‘population’, which unlike that of the citizen, is

“wholly descriptive and empirical” and “...makes available to government functionaries a set

of rationally manipulable instruments for reaching large sections of the inhabitants of a

country as the targets of their ‘policies’” (Ibid: 34). These activities of govermentality, he

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argues, “required multiple, cross-cutting and shifting classification of the populations as

targets of multiple policies, producing a necessarily heterogeneous construct of the social”

(Ibid: 36).

It is in this regard, the idea of spatiality presents a critique of one of the fundamental

ideas of political society, i.e., political society as ‘objects of governmentality’ which can be

described empirically. I am not arguing that these ‘populations’ do not exist. Far from it, the

existence of these ‘populations’ and their ‘politics’ (and, the relative successes or failures of

the same) is mediated by the nature of the everyday spaces they happen to inhabit, and that

these spaces themselves are political (Lefebvre, 1990; Elden, 2007; Chatterjee, 2008a; 2008b;

see also Gidwani & Sivaramakrishnan, 2003a; 2003b, for an analysis of spatiality in circular

migration). Unlike the informal economy workers who have access to, and exercise ‘dignified

discontent’ (Agarwala, 2013), most migrant workers come into relation with the state only as

‘objects of governmentality’.10

This, I argue, is as much a question of the immediate spatiality the migrants inhabit, as

it is about them being a ‘population’.11

With the second idea—the ‘margins’ of political

society—I address the implicit preclusion of migrant communities in the ‘dark, nebulous

zones’ and ‘thickly contested terrain’ of political society. This is seen specifically in the care

in the case of permanent, and semi-permanent, migrant communities and networks that do not

necessarily work in construction sites in the same way that circular migrants do (i.e., live on-

site, avail benefits from the companies). Thus, this space largely conforms to Chatterjee’s

original examples which he uses to illustrate political society (Chatterjee, 2004; 2011). In the

case of semi-permanent or permanent migrants, however, the question of political society-

style negotiations is compounded by two important factors: land ownership and property

rights, and participation in the electoral process. Since their proximity to grassroots political

actors, like civil and municipal contractors, is closer, their access to the moral ‘community’ of

10 This could possibly be a form of double-bind relation, since Chatterjee also argues that the ‘deepening’ of

the welfare state has reached out to peasant society as well (Chatterjee, 2008a; 2008b). Thus, a migrant worker

who, in his village, is a ‘peasant’ and in the city is a ‘migrant’ is, in both cases a ‘population’. However, the

question of spatiality is important here since being a ‘population’—and thereby, their politics as ‘the governed’—

is contingent on the nature of the spaces in which these negotiations take place. For instance, the claim to

governmentality for an individual who is migrant worker in an urban area is very different from when the same

individual is an agricultural peasant—for one, they would be appealing to different techniques to

governmentality. 11

This idea is based on the observations that many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society

Organisations (CSOs) are important mediation networks which the migrants interact with as opposed the direct

relationship with the state.

7

political society is more tenuous. Here, political society can no longer be seen as one seamless

moral community: since the very formation, continuation and operation of political society—

by this I refer to the space of the everyday—is based on illegality, it is inevitable that it

excludes certain people (Chatterjee, 2008a; Menon, 2010: 12). This presents considerable

challenges in looking at the migrant workforce as a unified ‘population’. Not only are they

divided along regional, religious, linguistic, caste, occupational and gendered lines,12

their

ability to mediate the networks of the informal economy, exercise agency and gain benefits is

limited by these marginalizing processes. I shall explain both cases in detail in the next

segments of the paper.

However, in order to think of migrants as constituting political society, one has to base

this on certain assumptions: ‘populations’, ‘objects of governmentality’, ‘moral community’,

and ‘electoral process’. In examining these in the context of circular migrant workers, I

present the idea that such ‘populations’ do exist, but their formation is largely outside the

space of ‘electoral politics’—that it is actually engendered in their everyday negotiations with

the companies themselves. This conforms to the idea (and this is the idea the workers

themselves hold), that both the state and company (two forms of governmentality) must look

after their rights; and that, while the state may appear to be less visible (although, given the

legalities, laws and so on), there is a constant process of governmentalisation which

configures these migrants as ‘populations’. In the following segments I shall provide some

illustrations of such micro-political negotiations that have been carried out on both sites—

and, argue that the relative success and failures of the same can be explained by addressing

that two lacking points in political society as it exists today: that of spatiality, and the margins

of political society.

4. Discussion: Micro-political negotiations in two spaces

Many of the construction sites where I conducted fieldwork are managed by large

multinational corporations, which have a separate Environment, Health and Safety (EHS)

departments, and also provide accommodation for labourers in the form of ‘labour camps’, as

12

On the question of gender, for instance, Nivedita Menon (2010: 14) cites the prevalence of community-

based customs like killing women for adultery, and thus, urges us to resist the “romanticizing this style of political

engagement…and [does] not think of it as uniformly ‘subaltern’”.

8

well as facilities, like electricity, running water and on-site medical aid.13

These sites stringent

monitoring processes—by way of mandatory identity cards, personal protective equipment

(PPE), health and safety orientations, the presence of safety officers, and so on.14

Not only is

this seen form the top-down perspective of labour management, but many officials in these

companies themselves see this as a ‘educational’ process, and one which would enhance the

labourers’ productivity, and that of the company.15

Smaller sites, on the other hand, usually

tend to give accommodation in the rooms of the buildings itself and the social costs or

overheads are managed by the migrant networks themselves.

At one of the large construction sites in Mulund, there were two instances that are

relevant in our analysis of micro-political negotiations: first, was the “unionized” action over

lack of drinking water; and second, the negotiation of the death of a labourer. In the first case,

during the course of interviews, I was informed by some of the workers that a couple of

months ago, there were issues over unclean drinking and bathing water at the site. One

foreman said clearly that they held a “strike”:

“We held a strike…this strike is called a union-giri…In the evening, I told a few of

my men, that no one should go for work tomorrow. I told two boys to stand guard

at the gate; if the watchmen or guard say anything, hit them [thok dalne ka]. No one

should go to work. No one could cook food; there was no water for bathing at

night; no water for drinking…

[…] The next day it got resolved. The labourers had staged a hartal. I was in my

room only; all the labourers said that I have instructed them. The company people

phoned me, and called me. I gave them all kinds of suggestions; even took them to

the tank, and said to them, ‘You go home at 6 everyday; you drink water from a

fridge; have hot water for a bath. You sleep in the AC. I work so hard, should I use

this bacteria-infested [kitanu] water? If tomorrow I get malaria, you will say, send

this man home; he has malaria…They made a whole list, and took it to the office.’

No sooner than that happened, a tanker arrived, and people cleaned the tank, put

medicines in it.”16

13

In the principle site where I conducted the bulk of fieldwork, some of the facilities that were provided are:

free-of-cost mosquito nets, basic healthcare like tetanus shots and dressing of small wounds, among many others.

This site also happened to be one where NGOs conduct regular health camps and HIV-testing. 14

Most of these norms are based on the clauses in the Maharashtra Building and Other Construction Workers

Act (2007). 15

This point was made by one of the on-site doctors at a site in Mulund. 16

In-depth interview conducted on December 24th, 2013, Mulund.

9

In the second case—where a labourer died—the workers collectively organised, stopped work

for two days, and demanded a fair compensation for the family of the deceased worker. As

another worker elaborated:

“[Although] was taken to the hospital. But there was no point to that; he breathed

his last here only. The ambulance came within 5 minutes…it came inside and then

he was taken to the hospital…After that he was also sent for post-mortem…No, the

company paid for this……We were going to take a photo [of the accident, as

evidence], but they [company] did not allow us to.

[…] We did not work for two days…we were affected by it. Everyone was. The

company wanted to pay only 20,000 rupees for flying the body…but we said that

more had to be paid. In the end, they decided to pay 2 lakhs [200,000 INR] as

compensation. And then, we went back to work.”17

Shantinagar, on the other hand, is a modern-day squatter settlement located

approximately three kilometres from the Badlapur station area. It has seen a growth in size

over the last 10 years as many more people have come to Badlapur looking for work in the

burgeoning construction industry, and have settled there. The spurt in the construction activity

in the adjoining areas has also attracted a workforce of migrant workers. It has a population of

roughly 150-200 households. The structures vary between shacks made of corrugated metal,

asbestos, and some, with brick and cement. Of late, there have been amenities that have been

provided to Shantinagar, like paver blocked pavements, street lamps and community toilets or

shauchalayas. These were provided by the local Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Corporation

(KBMC) corporator. Most people are daily wage earners. Some have their own businesses.

Shantinagar is divided along lines of linguistic and caste-based groups. Thus, the Banjara

community I spoke to belong to one area of the shantytown; the more dominant Marathi-

speaking lower castes and OBCs are concentrated towards the outer edges. These groups also

tend to be more politically powerful, well-connected and thus, are the recipients of a network

of political patronage. The group of migrants I spoke in Shantinagar listed out their

difficulties as negotiating their illegal status and the exclusionary politics of the community.

As my chief respondent at that time noted:

“Whenever anyone is elected to the municipal body, their main aim is to amass

wealth…Nobody cares about the past; if they are rich now, they want to remain that

way. And even if he does any good, it would only benefit the members of his

17

In-depth interview conducted on December 24th, 2013, Mulund.

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community…There is no unity in the people…Everyone is looking for their [own]

betterment.”18

Getting any kind of benefits, then, is mediated through a tenuous network of political

patronage and illegality. As others in the group discussion added:

“If we begin to question the local leaders, our future is in peril. They will come and

raze our houses and huts—we will be left homeless.” 19

“For example, if these people require a power or water connection, [we] approach

the municipal body and apply for one. However, they can always pay more and get

it done quickly and illegally—which is what most of [us] end up doing. And when

the municipality takes action against these ‘illegal’ connections, it claims that it is

doing its job.”20

The negotiations (or, a lack of the same) carried out by migrant workers in the

constructions sites, and by the Banjara group in Shantinagar, it would seem, thus conforms to

the more general idea of political society as imagined by Chatterjee (2008a, 57):

“Those in political society make their claims on government, and in turn are

governed, not within the framework of stable constitutionally defined rights and

laws, but rather through temporary, contextual and unstable arrangements arrived at

through direct political negotiations.”

Coming back to the question of ‘spatiality’, it is important to underscore that the

relative successes and failures of political society-style negotiations is contingent on the

immediate spaces the ‘populations’ inhabit, on the political nature of these spaces, and their

relationship to these spaces. In case of the labour camps at the construction sites, the question

of property or land ownership does not arise at all. However, it must be remembered that the

space of the labour camp is a shared space—in terms of access to clean water, work safety,

and how space configures the migrants’ political relationship with the company officials.

Does this spatial arrangement, as opposed to that of Shantinagar, give more—or, to put it

more contextually—a more successful exercise of agency to the respective migrants? It would

certainly appear so.

Although the idea of ‘margins of political society’ was not discussed in his earlier

works, later on Chatterjee himself notes that “the underside of political society as the utter

marginalisation of those groups that do not even have the strategic leverage of electoral

18

Group discussion, conducted on February 9th

, 2012, Badlapur. 19

Ibid. 20

Ibid.

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mobilisation” (2008a: 61). In both groups, the migrant workers’ at the construction sites, and

those in Shantinagar, there appears to be a glaring lack of such strategic leverage of “electoral

mobilisation”. While this idea of the “underside of political society” has been criticised (see,

for instance, Shah, 2008), it is relevant consider John and Deshpande’s (2008: 86) suggestion

to think of these “proto-political zones, where the struggles that secured the informal

negotiations operative in political society are yet to begin, or have not yet succeeded”. One of

the questions they raise—that of understanding “the NGO-isation of a wide variety of forms

of collective action”—is indeed seen as operational among certain groups of migrants, who

have accessed these services.

5. Discussion: Being ‘populations’, being ‘citizens’ and negotiation legitimacy

Given the complexities of these micro-political negotiations, it is, therefore, relevant to look

at the role played by governmental identities, such as the use of identity cards like Permanent

Account Number (PAN) cards,21

Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC, or ‘voter ID card’),

and the Unique Identification Card (UID, or Aadhar Card), in the everyday lives of migrants,

and how these are important tool to establish claims to citizenship and the right to migrate for

livelihood. These identities come in use for migrants especially so since: one, they are a very

mobile group; and, two, they are also seen as undesirable bodies in urban spaces—more

specifically, I refer to the ‘North Indian’ bhaiyya migrant (Kumar, 2009), or the spectre of the

Bangladeshi illegal immigrant, which is often used to target Bengali-speaking migrants. Since

most migrant construction workers in cities like Mumbai hail from these regions, their

presence and access to public spaces is thus fraught with tension, making the display of

formal identity markers imperative. During my fieldwork across construction sites, most

migrants shared similar stories of surveillance by the local police authorities and also during

travelling. One respondent summed up the advantages of having the UID card as this:

21

The PAN Card is a curious thing, since most migrant do not actually have bank accounts to their own names.

The widespread usage of the PAN card as photo identity, thus, underscores an element of the ‘population’ that

Chatterjee talks about, and is essential in understanding how such ‘technologies’ of enumeration also function. In

the words of James Scott (1998, 83): “If you wish to have any standing in law, you must have a document that

officials accept as evidence of citizenship, be that document a birth certificate, passport, or identity card. The

categories used by state agents are not merely means to make their environment legible; they are an authoritative

tune to which most of the population must dance.”

12

“[...] the first benefit is that, when I get a ticket to go on the train, if the TT [ticket

collector] or policeman harasses me…ask for bribes…that’s why [to avoid this] I

want to get it [Aadhar card] made; for no other reason…When I go back home, I

have no need for it, right? What happens in a train is that, even if I have a proper

ticket, they say that I don’t [galat kar deta hain]…they make me seem like a

criminal [mujrim kara deta hain]. That’s why.”22

Another respondent, a Bengali migrant from Murshidabad district in West Bengal,

explained that having a voter ID card is beneficial in Mumbai due to the following reason:

“It [Voter ID card] is also useful. In Mumbai, many people can call us

‘Bangaldeshi’, and check us. In that case, the identity card can help us stay in

Mumbai.”23

He also spoke a police “survey” at the construction site some months back. He

explained that the police had come to the labour camp at 1 AM, and that neither the police,

nor the construction company informed the workers why the “survey” was being undertaken.

He recollected that he had “fill out a form in Marathi”...which had “the municipality logo”,

and was asked to show his worker’s ID card, his “home proof” (voter ID card) and had to

submit passport size photographs. Although the general reason for the “survey” was said to be

to check illegal activity like “drinking, gambling and ganja (narcotics)”, other respondents

noted that it may have been prompted due to the presence of a large number of Bengali

migrants from districts like Malda, Murshidabad, and Midnapore in West Bengal—which are

supposed to have porous borders with Bangladesh. However, he and other Bengali

respondents at the site added that they are not at risk of being implicated since they are

“clean”, and that they are “100 percent Bengali, from West Bengal”, and “not a Bangladeshi”.

He had his Voter ID Card to prove this, as did his peers, and that’s why they aren’t worried

about the police checks.24

Thus, as the above experiences discussed by Bengali and Bihari migrants notes,

migrants often experience a double-bind relationship with the state—one where the state,

instead of ‘retreating’ is becoming manifest more and more through processes of biopolitics

and surveillance (e.g., biometric identification); and two, arbitrary and ad hoc process of

surveillance that are informed by both biopolitics and political ideologies of exclusion (for

instance, nativism of parties like the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena). Following

22

Field interview, January 31st, 2014, Titwala

23 Field interview, December 8

th, 2014, Mulund

24 Field interview and field notes, March 21

st, 2014, Mulund.

13

Foucault (as read by Chatterjee), then, this double-bind can also a productive process since

these very identities are being used to resist the localised hegemonic and exclusionary polices

of the state, which is the case with anti-migrant sentiments that local officials—like the police

at the construction site—hold. Thus, for many migrant workers, being recognised as a

‘population’ in the sense Chatterjee argues, is an imperative, as not only does that form of

citizenship give them a moral right to migrate and earn a livelihood, but also underscores the

legitimacy of the same, when it comes to a pedagogic politics, which is most prominently

seen in the space of NGOs—but at the same time, contra Chatterjee, this is taking place

outside the domain of electoral politics.25

One such domain is that of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which are not

only mediating between the state—in terms of laws, schemes for workers, and

documentation—but also giving migrant workers access to legal aid and grievance redressal.

One such case was where a group of migrants (first included workers from West Bengal and

Orissa; the second, a group of workers from Uttar Pradesh) approached an NGO based in

Navi Mumbai for grievance redressal over non-payment of dues—which also happens to be a

major concern amongst migrant workers, apart from those of health and safety. These two

groups have been associated with the NGO for quite some time now, and have often used

their services to ‘release’ money from errant contractors. In quite a few instances, a few cases

have also been referred to the local State Labour Court in New Panvel. However, that itself is

seen as problematic by the workers, since state bureaucracy tends to be sluggish, and keeps

deferring their case date—as it happened on the day I joined these workers at the court.

Further, they added, coming to court on a case date usually translates as the loss of a perfectly

good working day.26

In the same NGO, I had the chance to observe a meeting between the

staff and workers, where was an educational session wherein the workers were informed

about the various schemes for their benefits.27

As discussed above, these included the Unique

Identification Card (Aadhar), Electoral Photo Identity Card (‘voting ID card’), Permanent

Account Number (PAN) Card, and so on—in addition to providing legal assistance in the case

of delayed wages and so on (see earlier examples). This, I believe, represents the possibility

25

This process is markedly different from the domain of electoral politics, since circular migrants are not

stakeholders in local elections—but long term migrant can, and are, thus leading to politics of patronage wherein

their ‘Bihari’ identity is celebrated through Chhath Pujas sponsored by local politicians in Mumbai. However, this

discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. 26

Field notes, March 14th, 2014, Navi Mumbai.

27 Ibid.

14

of appraising certain elements of political society (in this context, that of the ‘deepening

welfare state’ and ‘populations’), as well as looking at new, innovative forms of negotiations

outside the ambit of electoral politics.

Going back to the cases I discussed, it should be noted that the operation of law and

legality is seen in an ad hoc manner, with the aim to extract entitlements, rather than to

articulate citizenship (Chatterjee, 2004: 68). However, what is interesting to note here is that

the two terms were used by migrants across my interaction with them—and this perhaps

elucidates on this dilemma of ‘governmentality’ and ‘citizenship’ in political society—

suvidha (benefits) and haqq, or adhikaar (rights) were articulated almost emphatically. The

former can be seen as ‘entitlements’ in Chatterjee’s sense, and the latter, as ‘rights’. This

relationship between the two words (and, the ideas they represent) can be the much needed

rigour to look at the relevance of political society in the case of agency and coping among

migrant workers. This was summed up beautifully by one of the members of the NGO when

she said, “The administration is giving you entitlements (suvidha). It is your right to avail to

these (aapka adhikaar hain…haqq hain).”28

6. Conclusion

In this paper, I have attempted to use empirical evidence from my own fieldwork among

informal migrant workers to address their ‘everyday’ micro-political struggles, and the

relative successes and failures of the same. In doing so, I have argued that the idea of political

society as developed by Partha Chatterjee offers insight in understanding this dimension of

the lives of migrants, and can conceptualise the strategies—or ‘politics’—of coping and

agency that this engenders. At the same time, I have tried to address certain shortcomings in

the existing idea of political society—that of spatiality and marginality—to argue the need the

refashion political society, and retain certain elements, so that it can be used to productively

conceptualise agency among migrants and other members of political society (along the lines

of caste, gender, and so on). Thus, one needs to be aware of the spatial context in which

political society negotiations take place, and that this plays a significant role in the failure or

success of such negotiations. In the case of the migrant workers at the large construction site,

this was possible due to the ability of workers to take collective action through a sense of

28

Ibid.

15

shared experiences. In the case of a space like Shantinagar, however, the heterogeneity of the

space and people and the relative power differentials between them restricts the more

marginal groups, like the Banjara community, to exercise ‘political society’-style

negotiations. In the former case, i.e., of circular migrants, there is no or little question of

electoral politics—which is fundamental in Chatterjee’s formulation; but in the latter case,

there is a marginalisation even from electoral politics. These examples highlight the cleavages

and interstices in the seamlessness of the moral community of political society—and indicate

the complexities, problems, messiness and nuances of the same.

In fact, Chatterjee himself is aware of this problematic when he writes that even when

the “entitlements (of those in political society) are recognized, [they] never quite become

rights” (Chatterjee, 2008a: 58). One such problematic is the relation between

‘population/objects of governmentality’ and ‘citizenship’—which we can seek to bridge with

the language of ‘entitlements’ (suvidha) and ‘rights’ (adhikaar)—more so in the particular

combination: ‘rights to entitlements’. In that sense, it would be incorrect to assume that there

is a binary between citizenship and political society—since this notion offers little space (or

agency) to these ‘populations’ to articulate their rights. This, I suspect, is as much an appeal to

a moral sense of entitlement as it is to formal citizenship. For many migrants, this thinking

takes place in the discourse and context of them contributing to “building cities”—to which,

upon completion, they no longer have access to. This vocabulary of rights and entitlements—

of seeing themselves, their politics, and their relations to structures—is an important part of

their imagination and the way they negotiate the complex realities of the spaces they migrate

to. Not only does this lead to “body politics” and the creation of “regional modernities

(Gidwani & Sivaramakrishnan, 2003b), but also compels us to critique romanticized version

of subaltern politics by confronting the marginalising and exclusionary process of the same,

but also to acknowledge an emerging practices of citizenship—or more accurately, of

accessing spaces and mobility—and relating to the state and its bio-political regime. In other

words, that they are ‘populations/objects of governmentality’ is not to say that there cannot be

a simultaneous demand for recognition of citizenship and cosmopolitanism. In Chatterjee’s

(2004: 25) own words:

“…it is morally illegitimate to uphold the universalist ideas of nationalism without

simultaneously demanding that the politics spawned by governmentality be

recognised as an equally legitimate part of the real space-time of the modern

political life of the national. Without it, governmental techniques will continue to

proliferate and serve, much as they did in the colonial era, as manipulable

16

instruments of class rule in global capitalist order. By seeking to find real ethical

spaces for their operation in heterogeneous time, the incipient resistances to that

order may succeed in inventing new terms of political justice.”

7. Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Dr Uday Chandra for giving me the opportunity and permission to pursue the

arguments for this paper for the TISS Conference where it was first presented, and for his

guidance and feedback during the research project. I am also thankful to my colleague Maansi

Parpiani, and the participants at the Migration, Poverty and Social Justice Seminar at TISS,

for their valuable comments on the paper, and to Fr Joseph M.T. and Johann Salazar for their

comments on earlier drafts of the paper. I would like to express my gratitude to the members

of the NGOs with whom I conducted fieldwork during research, and also the respondents who

participated in the interviews and group discussions.

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