Sadhguru writes: Some time ago, I was in Mumbai. On one side were big fancy buildings; on the other side was a slum. It was post-monsoon time. During the monsoon, the sewage usually overflows. The entire slum, which runs into probably a hundred-and-fifty acres or more, had about a foot of filth and everyone was walking in it and living there as if it was normal. This is the condition migrants are living in.
As it is, about 110-120 million people, which is about twenty-six percent of the urban population in India, are staying in slums. It is expected that by 2035, 220 million people will migrate from rural to urban India. You can imagine the plight of the cities if this happens. If ten million extra people come into each of our cities, no one can live well in these places.
But what is it that is making people leave the land their families have lived on for hundreds of years? People want to run away because there is no livelihood. If they could make a decent life in their village, most would not migrate in such a hurry. They would send one member of the family to the city to see what is happening, how to earn, build a house, and then go. But right now, everyone is migrating without a plan because they are forced to do it.
If we want to stem migration, we must urbanise rural India. The simplest thing we can do is to upgrade government schools. Buildings and infrastructure are there, but the teaching infrastructure and the culture of education are not there in most places. There must be at least eight to ten million 15-16-year-olds in the country right now who think they are educated but they cannot add two plus two. If we hand over these schools to private entities with no strings attached, there are many industries and businesses which can run a hundred schools well by supplementing government funds with their own.
Another loss with this kind of education is that children do not even learn skills such as farming or carpentry from their parents. They have no education or skills, nor are they going for higher studies. This is a ticking bomb because youth who have no possibility of employment are the prime candidates for criminal, militant and other kinds of negative activities in the country. So, it is very important that they are skilled. There must be skill centers at least in every taluk, if not in every village. Private agencies must take it up because waiting for the government for everything will take time.
The next thing is to start a cinema theatre in every village because people are coming to towns just to watch a damn cinema. And once they come, they don't go back home. Some sports facilities must also be set up. If not huge stadiums, at least some gymnasiums must be built for the youth because the prolific growth of alcohol and drug consumption in the country will become a serious problem in another 10-15 years' time. When I worked with some slum dwellers a long time ago, almost eighty percent of them were drinking in the evenings. The moment I started a gymnasium and got all the youth into it, over seventy percent of them gave up drinking because they were all concerned about their fitness.
Rural populations should have access to entertainment, sports, education, and skill development. If we do this, we can definitely stem the migration from the villages. We cannot stem it by force. We can only do this by creating the necessary infrastructure and making towns and villages more attractive to live in.
Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and author.
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