Gujarat: Migrant workers’ exodus spell trouble

In 2002, hundreds of Muslims, both poor and affluent, had fled Gujarat in panic to escape from state-sponsored pogrom executed by the BJP-VHP-RSS marauders. There were massacre, rapes, arson and loot, sufficient enough to instil fear in hapless Muslims. Scores of businessmen, like the Chelias of North Gujarat, who owned thriving businesses, left Gujarat for good to start life afresh in cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The next major exodus of people from Gujarat is happening today. This time, it is the turn of Hindi-speaking migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to flee from Gujarat. Ironically, the tormenting of migrant workers settled in Gujarat by the locals began since October 2, when the country kickstarted the celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who had fought for the rights of indentured Indian labourers in South Africa.

Over the past week, close to 1,00,000 migrant workers have left for their native places in UP and Bihar by train and bus. Panic has spread far and wide in and around industrial townships of eight districts of north and central Gujarat, forcing the migrant labourers and their families to abandon their abode in small pockets in nearby villages where the industrial units are located.

Contrary to popular belief that only wanton violence of the scale of a 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom would have caused such a panic, there was no bloodshed. The scare was created by groups of motorcycle-riding youth armed with sticks, who damaged carts and shanties belonging to the migrants followed by threats from strongmen and village panchayat leaders.

The immediate provocation for causing anger among the Gujaratis was the rape of a 14-month-old toddler in Sabarkantha district, allegedly by a migrant worker hailing from Bihar. The first to organise a protest demonstration against the gruesome act was Alpesh Thakor, the Congress MLA from Radhanpur. The rape victim belonged to the Thakor community.

The police arrested the accused rapist. This should have pacified the agitated members of the Thakor community. Instead, the situation went out of control as reports poured in from various small industrial townships of north Gujarat of hit-and-run attack on the Hindi-speaking migrant workers by bands of bike-riding and lathi-wielding youth belonging to the Thakor community.

Employment is the key?

Meanwhile, Alpesh Thakor issued a statement denouncing the attacks even while he said the main cause for the ire of the youth was denial of jobs in industries which preferred migrant contract labourers over the locals.

Not to miss the chance of encashing political advantage, the state BJP ministers I K Jadeja and Pradeepsinh Jadeja accused Alpesh Thakor and his Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena of orchestrating the attacks on Hindi-speaking migrants. By this time the elections to the state Assembly of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had been announced. Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too chipped in and joined the charade.

Obviously, the BJP, by accusing Alpesh Thakor and his Thakor Sena, went the whole hog to put the Congress on the mat. But the BJP’s move backfired with a strong message going through to the people of Hindi-speaking states that a BJP-ruled Gujarat was hell bent on throwing out non-Gujaratis, just as the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists had thrashed candidates from Bihar who had reached Mumbai to appear for a railway recruitment test.

Just a week before the UP-Bihari versus the Gujarati workers issue came to the boil, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had announced that his government would make it mandatory for private industries to reserve 80 per cent of the job for Gujaratis, of which at least 25 per cent should be given to the locals of villages where the industry was located. Understandably, the Chief Minister’s announcement was aimed at pre-empting Alpesh Thakor from escalating the issue of increasing unemployment among the educated Gujarati youth. Alpesh’s rise in politics owes largely to his concerted campaign in the last four years was focused on unemployment.

Meanwhile, even as sporadic incidents of attacks and intimidation of Hindi-speaking migrant continues for the seventh day, and is now spreading to industrial pockets around Bharuch and Surat, the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industries urged the state government to prevent the exodus and persuade the migrant workers to return.

The exodus has hit the industries hard because this is the time they have to work extra to meet the production deadline of Dussehra and Diwali festivals. All business activities in Gujarat come to a standstill five days after Diwali. This is the time when businessmen enjoy their vacation and workers visit their families back home in their native states.

With the Navratri having begun and ending on Dussehra and no sign of the migrant workers, who constitute over 70 per cent of the industrial workforce, returning for work, the coming Diwali promises to be a worrisome one for Gujarat and the Gujaratis.