BENGALURU: Caught in the deeply woven web of inefficient administration, poor legislation and meagre pay, the migrant population continues to struggle with no way out, being the most neglected by both the government and those who employ them. From being forced to live in shanties with no access to even basic needs, to not getting paid well to lead a decent life, the struggles of migrants are never-ending.
The growth story of leading Indian cities, including Bengaluru, is incomplete without migrants. They have been the backbone of the city; their hardship and sweat are what make India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru, look all rosy on the outside, but the migrants who work and toil are forced to lead an unjust life.
Migration not an aspiration
Millions of people are compelled to leave their native towns and cities -- some leave in search of better opportunities, while in the case of migrants, they leave home simply to survive.
Babu Mathew, who is known for his trade union movements and for being part of social movements, including displacement and destruction of livelihood of the marginalized, said: “India’s development paradox is no longer hidden. We celebrate mobility as progress, yet refuse to confront what it reveals: that millions are compelled to leave home simply to survive.
Buses carrying workers to distant construction sites, every remittance sustaining a ‘money order economy’, is a quiet indictment of uneven development. Migration, in such conditions, is not aspiration, it is resilience in the face of State withdrawal.”
“The agrarian crisis in Karnataka has followed this familiar script. Shrinking landholdings, rising input costs, debt and stagnant rural employment have pushed large sections of the Ahinda block, the poor, marginalised and dispossessed out of the countryside and into the informal margins of Bengaluru. These are not people who arrived by choice. They were expelled by economic distress and policy failure,” Mathew said.
Power through procedure
Indian constitutional law is clear. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Right to Housing is an integral part of the fundamental Right to Life under Article 21. Assistant Professor of Law, National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bengaluru, Aditi Thakur said, “At the heart of constitutionalism lies a simple but non-negotiable idea: power must be exercised through procedure, not impulse.
Two principles of natural justice are universally accepted across legal systems. First, no person shall be condemned unheard. Second, no one shall be a judge in their own cause. In the recent unilateral demolitions on the outskirts of Bengaluru, both principles have been violated, ironically by parastatal bodies entrusted with upholding legality.”
“The decision-maker, the judge, and the purported remedy-provider have all been rolled into the same administrative authority. It violates the constitutional commitment to the separation of powers and replaces the rule of law with administrative will. Offering vague assurances of future rehabilitation does not cure the original illegality. An unlawful act cannot be sanitised by a discretionary promise,” she said.
Stressing that the government is not the owner of the land but just a custodian, BK Nandini, a member of Dhudiyuva Janara Vedike, said, “The government describes the land in Kogilu Layout as ‘government land’, but in law and public policy, such land is actually common land held in trust by the State for the people.”
Nandini recalled, “We have seen this earlier in places like Ejipura, where land meant for economically weaker sections was diverted to private developers. This shows that demolitions are often linked not to public interest, but to the rising commercial value of land. That makes the Kogilu demolition deeply unjust.”
Citing the AT Ramaswamy Committee Report, she said that over 13,000 acres of public land in Bengaluru are encroached, and questioned why the government isn’t acting uniformly against all illegal occupations, including those by powerful builders, elite and commercial interests. She said the poor are targeted, and urged that encroached lands be released and used for housing for the poor.
Govt agencies’ failure
Owais Hussain S, advocate from the law firm The Legal Attorney and Barristers, said while the residents at Kogilu may be migrants and put up shanties, in the case of Thanisandra, where 40 homes were razed, many have been residing for the past 25 years and were paying property tax to the civic body.
“The government is to be blamed for the mess. Parastatal agencies like the departments of Revenue and Stamps and Registration, officials of Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) and Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) should have verified the status of the land. Had the poor residents been alerted about Bengaluru Development Authority land acquisition, they would not have settled in the place,” said Hussain and added that all these settlers had paid lakhs of rupees. In November, a family got their property registered by paying Rs 3.9 lakh.
“There is a nasty network between government officials, greedy landlords and brokers, and they pass on such contentious land to the gullible public,” he stressed.
Unfair to label migrants as Bangladeshis
Among the major accusations against Kogilu dwellers is that they were called Bangladeshis, and the BJP, including others, questioned the lightning speed with which the Congress government announced that the dwellers would be given alternative housing freely, while pointing out that there were hundreds of eligible applicants who have been waiting for years for land allotment.
Replying to allegations and labelling dwellers at Kogilu as Bangladeshis, Issac Arul Selva, a human rights activist with a focus on marginalised communities in urban areas, said, “The same allegation was placed on dwellers in Munnekolala near Marathahalli. Later, it was found that they were migrants not even from other parts of India, but from North Karnataka. The government paid a meagre compensation of Rs 40,000 to around 40 families.”
He said the onus of preventing infiltration of immigrants from foreign nations to India is with the Union government, and they need to act on it.
As states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala have seen multi-faceted development, the number of migrants from these states to Karnataka has reduced drastically, and some have even chosen to return, he said, adding that the current migrants in Bengaluru are primarily from North Indian and Northeastern states.
Both Nandini and Arul Selva said encroachments do not happen in isolation and happen mostly because cities attract workers, including migrants, governments and private employers fail to create low-income housing, land records are unclear, and local authorities allow informal settlements to grow for years.
“People do not wake up one day and decide to ‘encroach’. They come to cities to survive. When the government fails to plan for housing, settlements grow. Punishing the poor for this failure while ignoring illegalities by powerful actors is not governance, it is selective injustice,” Nandini explained, as she described the helplessness of neglected migrants.
She said migrants come to cities to work as cleaners, construction workers, waste pickers, security guards and domestic workers, the people who make cities function. “But rents are too high, wages are too low, and public housing is inadequate. So people live in informal settlements, often paying small rents even there. Slums are not created by migrants; they are created by failure of urban planning and housing policy,” Nandini added.
In situ development versus movement with dignity
“India today stands at a critical dialectic: in situ development versus movement with dignity. These are not rival ideas. They are reflections of one another. When staying is dignified, movement becomes voluntary. When movement is dignified, staying becomes meaningful,” Prof Aditi Thakur said, adding that, “Migration in India is a fundamental right, flowing from the freedom of movement and occupation.
It is not a pathology to be cured. Yet when a right becomes a necessity, when people are forced to move because staying is impossible, its dignity is lost. The State first fails to create the conditions for dignified staying through agrarian neglect, and then criminalises survival in the city through demolition. This is a constitutional failure twice over.”
“Urban economies depend on migrant labour even as they deny migrants belonging. Workers build our cities, cook our food, power our factories, yet remain politically invisible. This invisibility enables exploitation and makes acts of demolition appear administratively neutral rather than morally catastrophic. What is demolished is not merely shelter, but recognition itself,” the professor said.
“What makes this moment especially tragic is its hypocrisy. How can governments campaign to ‘save the Constitution’ while dismantling its foundations in everyday governance?” Aditi questioned.
Failure to organise migration
Migration happens due to multiple reasons. While the government cannot address everything, it can take measures to reduce climate change migration caused by floods, drought and others triggered by climate change, said Arul Selva. He said that despite owning acres of land in their native villages or towns, there are many migrants from rural Karnataka doing menial jobs in Bengaluru.
On what can be done by state governments immediately to prevent the mushrooming of settlements, Arul Selva said each government must compile a list of labourers and their skill sets, who are ready to work, and those state governments and private employers can contact the respective states and get the labourers.
“For example, if Assam posts that there are over 10,000 labourers available, if Karnataka or Tamil Nadu needs them, we can get them. The government and private employers must provide housing to the migrants,” he recommended and said this will ensure that migrants have a house with basic facilities, doing away with the need of erecting sheds.
Experts highlighted that the rate of housing for the needy is not in line with the increasing population, and the Karnataka Slum Development Board isn’t pumped with adequate funds to carry out its role effectively.
Dhudiyuva Janara Vedike batted for a zero-eviction policy and regularisation of slums.
Housing Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan had announced that Kogilu dwellers would be handed homes at Rajiv Gandhi Housing Corporation’s building at Byappanahalli near Chagalahatti on January 1 by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. However, after widespread criticism of favouring a section, the decision was deferred under the pretext of ‘comprehensive document verification’, and dwellers continue to suffer.
Experts and activists said that city planning must include land for migrant workers and cautioned that without that, demolitions will keep repeating. Providing housing is the constitutional responsibility of the government. At the same time, delays in housing for other poor families are also wrong. Political parties must not pit one poor community against another. The solution is to expand housing for all, not deny it to those who are forcibly evicted, they asserted.