SOME RECENT INSTANCES OF EXODUS FROM INDIAN STATES

2012: People from the north east fled Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune, following rumours that fighting had broken out in Assam between Bodos and Muslims in Assam that had migrants from the north east anxious about the safety of their families back home. Nearly 15,000 migrants from the north east, especially in Bengaluru, left the state on one day after rumours spread on social media. Later it was found that pictures of violence were actually incidents involving Rohingya Muslims and locals in Myanmar.

2015: 250 families in a village in Tamil Nadu gathered up all their belongings and left the village with cattle, poultry and dogs after seven mysterious deaths occurred over eight months. None of the dead had suffered any major ailment. The local fortune teller advised families in the village to move out after sacrificing a goat to the village deity. The ceremony had been carried out twice before, several decades ago. The families returned to their

homes a day later.

2018: Families of nomadic tribes like Gujjar and Bakarwal of Jammu and Kashmir are steadily migrating to neighbouring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh because of communal tension, shortage of fodder and space for their livestock, restrictions on the use of government land, insurgency, curbs imposed by Army on their movement in upper reaches including those falling close to the Line of Control (LoC).The gang rape and murder of the minor Bakarwal girl at Rasana in Jammu has speeded up the exodus.

2018: The rape of a toddler allegedly by a migrant worker, in Sabarkantha district on September 28, cause a massive exodus of north Indian migrant workers from Gujarat, following revenge attacks. But the real reason appears to be an objective lack of jobs for locals in the state who are unwilling to work for low wages.