Migrant workers head to the Valley to beat the heat

Bedmakers, construction workers and street vendors landed in Kashmir in larger numbers this year as relentless heatwaves swept across their home states in northern India, disrupting outdoor work

Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth

A newly stitched mattress being readied for sale in Dethu village, Jammu & Kashmir.  Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth/The Migration Story

ANANTNAG, Jammu & Kashmir: Young bedmaker Mohammad Najim spread out his wares — mattresses, quilts, and pillows — under a walnut tree in Dethu village in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district on a cheery June morning and waited for customers. With the temperature just around 27 degree Celsius, he could not help but wonder the far cry Kashmir weather was from Madhepura, his hometown in Bihar, which was then sizzling at 43 degree Celsius.

Najim moved to Kashmir this summer, and to Dethu, about 80 kilometres from Srinagar, in May. Bedmaking entailed being outdoors, which in the growing summer heat of the North Indian plains was getting too much for the body to bear. “My father fell severely ill in May and doctors attributed it to heat exposure. I am young and healthy, but the heat was too much even for me to bear. Imagine the plight of my 55-years-old father,” Najim, 21, told The Migration Story.

The move to Kashmir was prompted by two factors: Conducive weather for outdoor work and steady demand for quilts.

Najim was not alone in making a cross-country shift as extreme heat pushed workers out of homes and work spaces in the summer of 2024.

Several migrant workers, including bedmakers, made a beeline for Kashmir this year as India endured what the Indian Meteorological Department termed as one of the longest and deadliest summers. The country, said the IMD,  experienced 536 heatwave days in 2024, the highest in 14 years. The union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare pegged deaths due to heatstroke across the country this summer at 143, and cases of heat stroke at 42,000. 

Migration in India 2020-21, a report based on the Periodic Labour Force Survey from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, placed the migration rate in the country at 28.9% and from rural areas at 26.5%. Only 10.8% moved for employment. A majority migrated as extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods, cyclones and rising sea levels pushed them out of homes. The 2011 census places the total number of migrants in Kashmir at 11,46,368 against a population of 68,88,475. 

The Migration Story spoke to several workers who migrated to Kashmir as heat left them hapless and rendered work difficult in their hometowns. “If summers were not as scorching as it was this year, I would not have travelled so far to earn the same wage — around Rs 350-500 a day — I was getting back home,” said Najim.

Forty-five-year-old bedmaker Mohammad Maheruddin concurs. “Many people from my village reached out to me wanting to move to Kashmir as it was getting impossible to work in the heat back home,” said Maheruddin who is from Supaul, Bihar.

The desperation of migrant workers to escape the heat has been obvious to those in the field. 

Anil Kumar, a labour contractor from Assam who provides unskilled labour to different parts of the country said over the phone, “Labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar now prefer Kashmir where the temperature is below 30 degrees Celsius. This year we have sent many labourers to Kashmir.”

Destination Kashmir

A pile of old clothes and a recycling machine at a makeshift quilt making unit in Dethu village, Jammu & Kashmir.  Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth/The Migration Story

It is not just the bedmakers who are moving; construction workers, vendors and labourers who work outdoors are seeking cooler climes, primarily in the Himalayan region. But bedmakers constitute a significant part of new migrations to Kashmir as they are spurred not just by the weather, but demand for their products. 

Skilled workers like Najim and his father turn old clothes into bedding on a simple machine which has a motor, a water tank, and a hopper — a conical container. They cut old clothes into strips and feed into the hopper. This entire set up is typically 5-7 metres long, is fuelled by diesel, and is erected outdoors to help workers handle the smoke it belches. The soft cotton-like material collected at the bottom of the hopper is put into fabric covers, flattened with heavy sticks and made into mattresses and quilts. All this happens outdoors; the reason why Najim and Maheruddin rather work out of Kashmir in summer. 

The migrant bedmakers manage to sell about 10 pairs of bedding a month. Their pocket-friendly products are sought after by Kashmiri villagers. “I bought 15 pairs of bedding, each with a quilt and a mattress, for less than Rs 14,000 from the migrant workers,” said Irfan Sofi from Shangus village, about 75 km from Srinagar. Their products, he noted, are cheaper, lighter and offer better comfort. “It would cost me anywhere between Rs 20,000-22,000 to buy the same quantity from a store,” he added.

Despite making superior products, migrant bedmakers are grappling with a changing  market. “I came to Kashmir for the first time in 2013 when the demand for bedding was huge and the region peaceful. We earned between Rs 80,000-90,000 per month. But earnings have steadily declined since, dropping to Rs 40,000-45,000 in the next few years owing to varied reasons,” said Maheruddin.

In 2019, the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was removed by the Centre which heightened tensions in the Valley. Maheruddin and his team decided to leave Kashmir. “We worked out of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh where we earned Rs 30,000-40,000 a month. But the April heat was unbearable this year; three of my men fell seriously ill. We returned to Kashmir where it is cooler,” he added. Among his dozen co-workers, seven were in Kashmir for the first time, each more desperate than the other to make a living.

The simmering political situation in the Valley posed security threats. Yet for the migrant workers bogged down by heat, the place was their shot at a decent livelihood.

For the bedmakers though it eventually boiled down to the simple demand-supply logic, which, however, was not settling in their favour. With the market saturating,  bedmakers who made Rs 80,000-90,000 per month a decade ago had to be content with monthly earnings of Rs 8,000-10,000.

Apart from the saturated market, bedmakers attribute the declining demand to the durability of products; bedding tends to last a decade, and once a village is covered, that market does not open up until a few years later. Migrant bedmakers earlier operated across a vast landscape, moving from village to village across states. Extreme heat has shrunk their sphere of work.

Changing markets

Mattress maker Imran Ahmed at work in Dethu village, Jammu & Kashmir. Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth/The Migration Story

Twenty-two-year old Imran Ahmed from Supaul is in Kashmir for the first time. He had accompanied Maheruddin in the hope of earning enough to repay a loan his father had availed to build a two-room house in the village. “Those who had been in Kashmir earlier told me that I could make Rs 1,500-2,000 a day. I was idle at home as it was too hot to work. To my surprise, I found many migrant bedmakers were here already. Now we struggle to earn Rs 300 a day,” said Ahmed.

As their earnings drop, traditional bedmakers are forced to explore other livelihood options. For instance, Miraj Khan, a bedmaker and co-worker of Maheruddin, now primarily works as an agricultural labourer. He makes mattresses only when agricultural work is unavailable. “There is little bedmaking work left in Kashmir. We rarely earn Rs 300 a day, whereas as an agricultural labourer, I can make Rs 600 daily, and the landowners provide lunch,” said the first-timer to Kashmir.

Local people observe the surge of migrant workers into the region. “From agricultural fields to salons, we find migrant workers in every sphere of life in Kashmir. Their presence has significantly risen in recent years,” observed Nadeem Rafiq, 45, a local resident. 

Apart from tourists, Kashmir has proved to be a popular destination for migrant street vendors this summer with many setting up their carts in cities and remote villages alike. 

Shangus village welcomed its first non-local pakora seller when Mohammad Gufran from Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, put up his cart in the village. He was forced to move the business to Kashmir when frying pakoras in the intense Bijnor heat left him miserable. His earnings have not grown significantly, but he is grateful for the relief from heat. 

“I could not bear to stand by the gas stove. I came to Kashmir in May; the weather is cool, and the market is good,” said Gufran.

The many migrant fears

Migrant bedmaker Mohammad Najim sets up his shop under a walnut tree in Dethu village, Jammu & Kashmir.  Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth/The Migration Story

Better weather might be a plus, but the precarious peace in the Valley remains a cause of anxiety for migrant workers. Left with little choice, most prefer to take a chance. “We know it is not very safe. Either we work in the heat or risk starving, or work here. We chose Kashmir,” said the bedmaker Ahmed. 

Migrant workers have been particularly vulnerable in Kashmir lately. Non-local people — vendors, construction workers and drivers — have been soft targets of violence since 2019. The region has witnessed targeted attacks on civilians, primarily non-local people  — 29 compared to 12 on security forces in 2022 — highlighted official data. Many migrant workers fled the Valley after the attacks.

A non-local cab driver was shot at and injured by militants in Shopian this April, while two others were shot dead in Srinagar in February. 

“The targeted killings of non-local people are intended to spread fear and deter them from staying in the Valley. Migrant labourers are here for work and vital to our economy,” said a local political worker who did not want to be identified.

Security aside, the emerging, extreme-heat induced exodus to Kashmir is throwing up complex labour trends, warned experts. 

“Climate change-induced labour migration is a reality though it is a relatively new phenomenon in India. Significant influx of migrant workers to certain regions is concerning,” said Mohammad Imran Khan, labour economist and assistant professor at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. “The workers have the potential to replace local labour which can be problematic. It is not beneficial for migrants in the long run as they miss out on welfare policies back home in their villages,” he added.

Climate justice advocates moot the urgent need to address heatwaves as a national disaster. “Without such a declaration, mitigation, relief, and adaptation is not possible,” said Selomi Garnaik, climate justice campaigner at Greenpeace India.

Migrant workers on the ground, however, are left to make tough calls. Miraj Khan, bedmaker turned agriculture labourer, has decided not to return to Kashmir next year. “I am not making enough money. It is better to find a job that involves indoor work, maybe as a gatekeeper or house help,” he said. 

Najim, on the other hand, is not sure. His parents are concerned about his safety, he said. But returning is not an option. “It is my responsibility to support my parents. My siblings are in school and our father’s income has dropped. I have to step up,” Najim said as he continued the wait for buyers.  

Edited by P Anima

Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth is a Kashmir-based independent journalist who writes on economics, data and business