Commercialization of agriculture led to the growth of migrant agricultural labour. As traditional bonds between labourers or tenants and landlords broke down, and as seasonal demand for agricultural labourer increased in prosperous areas, a pattern of seasonal migration emerged with thousands of workers circulating between their houses and more prosperous areas where there is demand for labour and higher wages. Labourers migrate also because of increased inequalities in rural areas from mid 1990s, which have forced many households to combine multiple occupations to sustain themselves. As a livelihood strategy, men migrate out periodically and women and children are left behind in the village with their elderly grandparents. Migrant workers come mainly from drought-prone and less productive regions, and they go to work on farms in the Punjab and Haryana, or on brick kilns in U.P., or construction sites in cities such as New Delhi or Bengaluru. These migrant workers have been called ‘footloose labour’ by Jan Breman. His study shows that landless workers do not have many rights; they are not paid the minimum wages. Also, wealthy farmers prefer to employ migrant workers for harvesting and other such intensive operations, rather than local working class, because migrants are more easily exploited and can be paid lower wages. This preference has produced a peculiar pattern in some areas where local landless labourers move out of the home villages in search of work during the peak agricultural seasons, while migrant workers are brought in from other areas to work on the farms. This pattern is found especially in sugarcane growing areas. Migration and lack of job security have created a very poor working and living conditions for these workers.
