Bihari Migrants in Mumbai

The study had a three fold objective namely, studying the local people¿s ¿representations¿ of the Bihari migrants, addressing to some ¿collective identity¿ issues of the migrants and exploring the ¿reasons¿ behind the deterioration in the relationship between the Bihari migrants and the local people of Mumbai. The main sample comprised of 307 people (152 Bihari migrants and 155 local people of Mumbai), another 50 respondents distributed into 8 focus groups, (4 to be run in each regional group), plus 8 Bihari and 9 Marathi people who were interviewed. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data collection. Coming to the reasons, taken in totality reduced employment option for the local people appeared one of the main reasons for the deterioration in the relationship between the two regional groups. Other common reasons for the relationship problem were negative behavioural characteristics of the Bihari people, pressure created by the migrants on the basics amenities of the city, politics and political leaders plus culture pollution and linguistic conflicts, etc.