'Why People Move Away from Their Places': An Empirical Study of Immigrants Working as Street Food Venders in Noida

Abstract

“I shall not return; I have seen the worst. Although I do not own anything at my place yet I will find a way to feed my family. But I swear in the name of my child, I am not returning to this city at any cost.” Those were the words of Nandan, a worried Pani-Puri seller, earning Rs. 10000-12000 per month, who had been living in Sector 134 NOIDA for last 4 years, while he was on his way back to his village in Bihar due to the infamous lockdown imposed in view of COVID-19 pandemic. It has just been three months and it seems he has chosen to forget the hardships that he underwent at that time and now he is back, disremembering the vow that he made to himself barely three-four months ago. The objective of this paper, based on the information provided by 20 such migrants, who went back to their places during the COVID-19 Lockdown crisis and vowed never to return but have now returned to NOIDA, is to understand, analyse and explain the reasons through different angles and perspectives for such ‘migrations, reverse migrations and re-migrations’ among those hawkers, street venders and stall owners and to find answers to the following questions: One, who are these people and what is their socio-economic status?Two, why did they go back to their native places? and Three, why have they come back to the place where they had to face extreme hardships? This paper is divided into the following four chapters: Chapter I introduce those Migrant hawkers; street venders and stall owners who have now returned to NOIDA; chapter II describes the reasons as to why did they go back to their native places during the infamous COVID-19 lockdown; chapter III presents the main findings of my analysis as to why have they now come back; and in Chapter IV, I have presented the concluding observations of this study.