Whither our Right to Work freely anywhere we choose?

Gov-Shastra

Earlier this week, the Government of Karnataka displayed an example of a politically divisive, socially dangerous, economically shortsighted and, quite frankly, deeply cynical approach to the deep structural challenge of jobs, when it announced cabinet approval to a bill mandating 50% reservations for local candidates in management and 75% in non-management job categories in the state. In considering this bill, Karnataka has joined ranks with several other states -- from Haryana to Jharkhand and Punjab -- that have, in recent years, flirted with similarly dangerous laws.

In Karnataka, the announcement was followed by outrage from the industry that led to a comedy of errors -- deleted tweets, confused remarks by government and party spokespersons – and, eventually, withholding the bill until “further consultations”. One can hope that good sense will prevail.

However, the entire episode -- the proposal itself and the bipartisan support for these “nativist” reservation laws across Indian states -- lays bare the deep fault-lines that have emerged in our economy and polity. These are likely to have a profound impact on our politics going forward and thus need deeper engagement.

First, the structural weaknesses in the Indian economy and the challenge of jobs. Make no mistake, beyond the bluster of GDP growth and fastest growing major economy in the world, soon-to-be ‘third-largest economy’, ‘eight crore jobs’, there is a dark reality to the Indian economy that our politicians are well-aware off.

The bare facts tell a grim tale. At an all-India level, growth in the number of enterprises in manufacturing has slowed down, and employment dropped considerably between 2015-16 and 2022-23.

Simultaneously, in a reversal of the linear progress -- when people move out of agriculture into the non-farm economy -- expected in a growing economy, employment in low-productivity agriculture has grown (from 42.5% in 2018-19 to 45.8% 2022-23) while real wages have stagnated, even contracted in some periods.

This is compounded by the problem of poor-quality jobs for our (shoddily) educated youth, best exemplified by the fact that unemployment amongst young graduates under the age of 25 is as high as 42%. States like Karnataka, where labour force participation rates are relatively higher than the national average, face this problem. Karnataka, home to India’s IT success story, is now leading the charge establishing global capability centres (GCC). While this has created fabulous opportunities for highly-skilled workers (and some obvious consumption-led trickle-down), the challenge of quality jobs for the masses remains.

It is the structural failure of our economic model, where the link between GDP growth and quality jobs is broken, that has created the context in which ‘reservations for locals’ has found political salience. But it is a sign of the deep failure of our economic imagination that rather than investing in solving the structural challenge, our politics is displaying a deep cynicism and shortsightedness in its search for solutions. Karnataka’s proposed reservation bill is only the latest in a long line of cynical responses to the economic challenge.

Second, and linked, spatial inequality. Historically, across the globe, unemployment and economic stagnation typically afford fertile political ground for a politics of prejudice and “othering”. In the contemporary moment in India, these vulnerabilities are exacerbated by the growing spatial divergence between the more prosperous states (largely western and southern India) and poorer states. Consequently, India is on the move (migrant workers, according, to one estimate, account for between 17% and 29% of the labour force) as workers from poorer states make their way to prosperous ones, in search of work.

This mobility is fundamentally transforming India -- you are more likely to be served a dosa if you ask for it in Hindi over Tamil in Chennai because of the large presence of Bihari migrant workers doing jobs the more prosperous Tamilians want to avoid. When increased mobility confronts economic discontentment, in the relatively more prosperous destination states, conditions for stoking nativist, sons-of-the-soil sentiments are ripe.

This is not new for India. After all, the Shiv Sena emerged as a political force in the 1960s on the back of nativist politics. Moreover, the links between nativist sentiments and job reservations, documented by scholar Chinmay Tumbe, have a long history dating back to the late 19th century, when Nizam-ruled Hyderabad instituted the Mulki rules to favour local employment after protests against large-scale recruitment of migrant elites for government jobs.

But, as Tumbe notes, what used to be confined to a few states and to fringe groups now risks becoming a feature of our politics. As political parties succumb to reservation laws that are fundamentally anti-migrant, they also stoke anti-migrant, “outsider” sentiment. This is a serious political challenge.

Third, federalism. Our national politics is passing through a phase of “One nation-ism” (increased centralisation), notwithstanding the re-emergence of coalition politics after the recent election. This kind of politics is simply unable to respond to what a moving India needs. At one level, there is a coordination challenge (to ensure portability of safety nets like ration and cash transfers across state borders, for example) that needs institutional mechanisms that only the Centre can build. At another, there is a political challenge which can be responded to by giving workers political rights by ensuring they have voter rights.

Migration requires a politics of federal accommodation. A centralising political force, however, does the opposite. It is designed to stoke sub-nationalism through its politics of “othering” as it seeks to impose a majoritarian, unitary identity on people. The consequences are dangerous.

Far away from the fracas in Karnataka, the Uttar Pradesh government stoked its own version of nativist politics, succumbing to its most pernicious impulse, demanding that eateries display the “names” of their business owners, an unsubtle way of signalling that Hindu kanwarias will not eat in Muslim-run hotels. Our divisive, petty politics is challenging our constitutional right to work. We, as a citizenry, must protest.