India’s internal migration is far larger than official statistics suggest. As demographic shifts and urbanisation accelerate, migrant workers are becoming central to India’s economic future while remaining largely invisible in its systems of rights and protection.
Inside the invisible highways of labour that connect the heartland to the metros a data-backed anatomy of who moves, where they go, what they earn, and how the state is finally learning to see them On the morning of 24 March 2020, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown with four hours’ notice,…
Ask most people what Surat is known for, and they will say diamonds, or silk, or perhaps the fact that it is one of India’s cleanest cities. Almost nobody will say the real answer: Surat is, more than anything else, a city built entirely by people who came from somewhere else. At various points over…
