THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the country boils over because of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, Kerala presents itself as a haven for internal migrants as over 30 lakh of them from different parts of the country have made the state their second home.
A study carried out by the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) reveals that migrants from 194 districts in the country have been found in Kerala with the majority constituting Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Further, persecuted Christians from Kandhamal district of Odisha have also sought refuge in Kerala for whom an Odiya service is being offered at a church in Perumbavoor.
All 194 districts from where the people migrated to Kerala are socially and economically backward and, in some districts, people had even been subjected to persecution.
Migrants from the 33 largest Scheduled Tribe (ST)-dominated districts and five districts in the country with the largest Scheduled Caste (SC) population have found their way to Kerala and four of the SC districts have later evolved as district-level corridors of labour migration to Kerala, said Vishnu Narendran, programme director CMID.
The survey conducted among the migrants in the state in 2017 found that Bengali-speaking Muslims constitute a significant proportion of labourers in Kerala. And these persons report Assam and West Bengal as their native states.
According to the study, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam, four of the five states with the largest Muslim population in India, are some of the major source states that address the shortage of labour in Kerala.
Further, seven of the nine districts in Assam, where Muslims comprise more than 50 per cent of the population, according to Census 2011, are important sources of migrant workers in Kerala.
Corridors have evolved between Nagaon district that has the largest concentration of Muslims in Assam and the districts of Ernakulam and Kollam in Kerala.
Though the Christian migrants are found in Kerala, their number is not significant compared to Muslims. The Christian migrants found in Kerala are mainly from Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jharkhand and the north-eastern Indian states.