Running django auth migrations doesn't create tables in db

I have been using django for many years but have not seen such issue before.

I am working on an old/legacy project. And I am originally facing this issue. So as the solution suggest, I run auth migrations first,

$python manage.py migrate auth
Operations to perform:
Apply all migrations: auth
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK

But when I check my mysql database, only django_migrations table gets created. I don't see auth_user, auth_group, auth_permissions, etc.

$python manage.py showmigrations auth
auth
 [X] 0001_initial
 [X] 0002_alter_permission_name_max_length
 [X] 0003_alter_user_email_max_length
 [X] 0004_alter_user_username_opts
 [X] 0005_alter_user_last_login_null
 [X] 0006_require_contenttypes_0002
 [X] 0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages
 [X] 0008_alter_user_username_max_length

mysql> show tables;
django_migrations

I am using Python3.6 and Django==1.11.5. My INSTALLED_APPS looks like this,

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'django.contrib.humanize',
    'debug_toolbar',
    'djcelery',
    'widget_tweaks',
    'djangosaml2',

    # ... more apps from my project
]

What could be wrong? Has anyone come across such issue.