The Precarious Lives of Migrant Students in Delhi

I remember the year I went to study at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women in the University of Delhi in July 2009. A pillar near my college collapsed on the under-construction Delhi Metro bridge. It killed six people, including a site engineer and construction workers. On September 6, 2026, a PG building in Delhi’s Satya Niketan area collapsed, and as I am writing this article, the death toll has already risen to seven. These are not isolated incidents. In 2022, two students were injured after a portion of a room ceiling collapsed in the Vijay Nagar double-storey area near Model Town. One of the victims, Sukanya Dutta, a student of mine, stated that it was a persistent issue due to water leakage, which was brought to the owner’s attention, but was not fixed. In June 2023, a stampede broke out inside a congested commercial building in Mukherjee Nagar as panic-stricken students rushed to escape. All these examples are from areas that house a sizable number of students who come to India’s capital city, Delhi, to pursue their dreams.

Paucity of Housing Opportunities

Recent sociological studies by scholars such as Duncan McDuie-Ra reveal how migrants, especially from regions such as Northeast India, are coming more and more to Delhi in the post-liberalisation era, particularly in search of educational opportunities. While the Indian Constitution allows mobility for its citizens across the country, when it comes to availing housing opportunities, the situation is different. Migrants face different kinds of vulnerabilities, including economic, social and cultural.

The University of Delhi, one of the premier educational spaces in the country and a top choice for migrant students, has limited hostel opportunities. The University of Delhi has 20 university hostels listed in its official hostel directory. This provision has to be viewed against a conventional-mode undergraduate and postgraduate enrolment of 260,132 students in 2022-23, according to the University’s 100th annual report. It is a matter of great difficulty to get into these hostels. Many colleges don’t have their own hostels. Some ask students to avail themselves of hostel facilities of the university, which is the undergraduate hostel located in Indra Vihar. Hostel access is also determined by gender, level of study, discipline, campus and the region of origin. For many girls, especially those coming from marginalised social backgrounds, this is a significant barrier. Parents are often hesitant to house their daughters to private hostels, thinking about safety concerns. Even when they do, they look for options which are closer to their colleges. For students coming from economically marginalised sections, paying the hostel fee itself is a task. But to avail accommodation outside the university or college hostel is even more difficult.

The lack of sufficient hostels has given rise to unregulated paying guests (PGs) and rented apartments in and around these colleges. Most of these PGs and apartments are shared accommodation, often requiring students to share tiny, dingy spaces and, interestingly, do not fall under the Delhi Rent Control Act. This means that vulnerable groups of the population, such as migrant students, are completely at the mercy of these landlords. From my own experience, as well as the lived experiences of students cutting across generations, PGs have very strict rules about visitors, facilities that you can access, and so on. These are also sites where discrimination based on caste, religion, ethnicity, and gender is rampant. News reports from across metropolitan cities, including Delhi, show how migrants from Northeast India as well as women, queers, transgenders, Dalits and Muslims face difficulty in procuring rented houses. Their food habits and lifestyles are scrutinised, often asking them to give up their food choices, etc.

I remember how the PG I stayed during my first year of college served food that was of terrible quality. But we had no option. Even when we complained, our concerns were ignored, and we continued to be served the same stale food that had been prepared for dinner the previous night and was served again for breakfast the following morning. Most of these PGs also have landlords who misbehave with students and sexually harass young girls. We would often double-check whether our room doors were latched, as we were wary of both the landlord and his son, who had a habit of walking into our rooms without knocking. Similarly, in the roof collapse incident involving Sukanya in Vijay Nagar in 2022, she mentioned how the owner was reluctant to compensate for the expenses initially, but then was in favour of negotiation, asked the students not to file a police complaint. Rent can be increased at any time and you can be asked to vacate at any time as well. There is no sense of security in these housing facilities.

Exploiting the Vulnerable

Most of the PG owners know the vulnerable situation that these young people are in. They are aware of the fact that they have nowhere else to go and are dependent on these housing facilities. Even complaints, when raised, are mostly ignored. Any of us who have studied in Delhi have experienced the ruthlessness of most of these PG owners. The fact that students are forced to bear such external obstacles to pursue education that they desire is itself telling of how the university fails to provide adequate housing. Pursuing higher education itself is a daunting task. Doing that alone, away from home, in these unsafe, precarious conditions makes it even harder. Getting a hostel seat in my second year of college was a privilege that I had worked hard for. The sole motivation for working hard was to get out of the PG. As I look back on those days, I wonder if this is something that students should have to go through, especially migrants who are alone in a different city, having to manage their education, aspirations, fears, and desires.

(The author is a sociologist who teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati)

(Views expressed are personal)