Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, has seen rapid urbanisation in the decades that followed the incorporation of the state into the Indian Union in 1975. Being the main administrative and commercial center, as well as a major tourist destination, there has been high influx of migrant workers into Gangtok, both in the formal and informal sectors. In 2023, as per the figures released by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, the total number of registered, unorganized sector worker in Sikkim was 24,863 persons. A high proportion of these workers are concentrated in Gangtok. With a huge influx of people, the “insider-outsider” concerns are high in the political landscape of an ecologically fragile state like Sikkim. This is accentuated by the fact that Article 371F of the Indian Constitution, which protects the old laws pertaining to property, education, and employment rights of the domiciled Sikkimese, is increasingly being perceived to be under the threat of dilution. Within these larger discourses, the low-income, migrant families are likely to be the most vulnerable owing to their lack of economic resources and of access to various benefits and protective measures available to the domiciled Sikkimese. This paper seeks to address this marginalization by taking the educational lives of low-income, migrant workers and their children as a point of entry. Through in-depth interviews of students and their parents, the questions that this paper seeks to answer are: What are the educational experiences and schooling choices of students and parents from low-income, migrant families in Gangtok? What are their aspirations and strategies with respect to education? Where do we situate these stories within the larger society of Sikkim given its distinctive history and politico-economic context? How do all of these interweave with the larger questions of educational opportunity, social inclusion, and social justice?
