Urban-ward Migration and Policy Narratives: A Time to Retrospect

Abstract

This article takes the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant migrant exodus from cities as an inflexion point and engages with the new policies initiated to address the needs of migrants to cities. As against the significant and persistent invisibility and neglect of the issue of circular internal migration in the country, recent years have witnessed some shifts in the narrative and a few new policies triggered by the pandemic. The article reviews these initiatives to find that the hegemonic hold of the previous narratives and policies informed by the same is largely intact. The new policies do not account for migrant realities and needs. The article therefore calls for more migrant-aware policies based on its study of migrants in Mumbai and proposes principles by which these policies can be reimagined.