Caste labour and migration of Balangiri district a historical study 1990 2010

Abstract

The concept Caste, Labour and Migration have become an issue of newlinenational importance to debate on for all community of India. Balangir district is an newlineimportant region of western Odisha, so far as the migration of labourers from lower newlinecastes is concerned. Both Scheduled castes (Dalit) and Scheduled tribes score at very newlinebottom for most special indicators in the area such as literacy, longevity, health, newlineeconomic and political participation. newlineThe service provider castes and tribal s of Balangir district are today in newlineDeshantar. Debt always binds the workers to a contractor. For the ages dalit and newlinetribal s labourers were faced challenges , because they are considered impure, newlineuntouchable and illiterate, they were often degraded and humiliated by upper caste newlinepeople in society. The seasonal and survival migration of labourers is not a present newlinephenomenon in Balangir: nevertheless more than 150 years ago Britishers have newlinemobilized labourer for commercialization of Agriculture and other governmental newlinepurposes. newlineDue to caste inequality and class hierarchy and scanty rain fall, most of the newlinepeople from lower castes migrate to the place of work and some from these newlinecommunities were provided labourer services for the upper caste people of the region. newlineThe process of modernization especially urbanization encourage the higher class newlinepeople to depend on the technology for cultivation, therefore, the village labourers newlinemigrate to other district because of non availability of work at village level and newlineneighboring villages. newlineDifferent types of migration are noticed in Balangir district these are seasonal newlinemigration, distress migration, forced migration etc. Repeated disasters, displacement, newlinenon availability of work are the important causes of migration. Now days, due to newlineglobal warming people are not able to earn their livelihood from cultivation collection newlineand consumptions.