The onset of neoliberal policies in late twentieth-century India led to a steep rise in urban migration. Small-scale farmers were displaced by large-scale commercial farming, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) struggled to compete with big corporate companies. The sudden and intense automation-driven sectors rendered millions jobless and prompted large sections of rural and semi-urban populations to migrate to metropolitan cities in search of daily wage work.
This paper draws on two novels—The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit and Homebound by Puja Changoiwala—both of which offer insights into the lives of migrant urban wage workers. Both authors, who are journalists, have worked closely with the populations they depict. In Dixit’s text, Syeda’s family of traditional handloom weavers lose their livelihood to power looms and migrate to New Delhi. In Changoiwala’s novel, Meher’s family is forced to relocate to the financial capital of Mumbai after their crop yields failed to meet the market overtaken by commercial farming, .
This paper analyses these narratives to explore the human suffering associated with migration. I raise the following questions: How do these characters perceive themselves after losing their traditional skills to the forces of intense technology-driven big capital? How is the migrant’s struggle for livelihood portrayed in the texts? How does social location—specifically, Meher’s identity as a Dalit and Syeda’s as a Muslim—impact their experience of loss of livelihood and migration?