A young couple with a malnourished infant detrains on New Delhi Railway Station on 19 February, 2008. They take a bus and reach Nizamuddin. All of a sudden tragedy befalls the ill-fated family. The man is crushed under the wheels of a killer buleline bus while crossing the road. The wife of the dead is benumbed. Misery upon misery, she can speak only Bengali. Some people from among the crowd along with the police take the crushed body to a hospital where he is declared brought dead. The woman does not know if her husband is alive or dead, as she has not been told about it. But it appears as she had sensed that her husband was no more. She is alone and there is no one around to console her. She hangs herself to death leaving behind the one and a half year old child to live on in the indifferent world. This is the story of a poor Muslim migrant family from Bengal, the bastion or the paradise of India’s left. The left has too many chirping birds, charming and good-looking, who routinely appear on television channels opining on this or that national or international issues. We would not dispute the importance of issues they opine on nor world belittle the causes they cherish to champion. But we must ask what they have been doing in Bengal for the last three decades. It is not just the left but also the country’s national leadership cutting across party lines should do some soul-searching and ask the question why people from eastern U.P. through north Bihar to Bengal are so poor that they feel compelled to migrate to Delhi, Mumbai or to relatively smaller cities like Ludhiana and Kanpur for greener pastures. And what are the greener pastures for which they come to Delhi or Mumbai? If the migrant is skilled, he can get low-paid jobs in varieties of factories scattered across or around Delhi and Mumbai. And if he not is skilled, he can manually pull rickshaw, his wife would do cleaning works in houses for a pittance and children, if they are of walking age, can go for rag-picking. As regards a house, they can only dream of a slum, at best.
We all know India is a country of glaring inequalities. We are a nuclear power, our economy is among the top ten economies of the world, we are progressing by leaps and bound and we have the potential to compete with America in one or two decades. And, at the same time, we are home to the biggest population of illiterates, we house the largest number of people living below the poverty line and we have the abominable practice of child and bonded labour. The million dollar question is how to eliminate the dehumanizing effect of these inequalities on the poor and marginalized sections of the society.
In developing societies politics and bureaucracy matter a lot, for they take all the important decisions. Unfortunately bureaucracy in U.P. and Bihar is more corrupt than in other states and the political class has either been inept or crimilized, castiest and communal. It is, therefore, not surprising that the two states are backward, so much so that their population migrates to Delhi and Mumbai for earning pittance.
But what excuse Bengal has to offer? If bureaucracy is corrupt there, why the so called clean left leadership has been presiding over it. For about three decades the left has been in power in West Bengal. And they are in power mainly because the poor have been voting for them. The great majority of the poor and the marginalized in West Bengal is Muslim. The Muslim population constitutes about one-fourth of the state’s population. They were poor and marginalized even before the left front came to power. The complaint is that they have not developed during the left rule as well. In services, industries, banking and finance, in every sector of economic activity they just do not lag behind, in fact, their presence is feebly visible. Yes, everywhere their number hovers between two and three percent, though numerically they are about one quarter of the state’s total population. Such a state of affairs can obtain only in two situations: either the huge Muslim population in Bengal has become intellectually stagnant or they are routinely and systematically discriminated against. The left parties as well as the West Bengal government owe an explanation.
The kind and condition of greener postures that the migrants come to find in Mumbai and Delhi has already been explained. It is clear that they do not leave behind their homes and dear ones for better prospects. On the contrary, they come for small jobs which are available mainly in unorganized sectors where they are routinely exploited. But surely unlike their hometowns here in Mumbai and Delhi they get some work and thus earn their livelihood.
Yes, they come to Delhi to make a living and not to create law and order problems. Likewise they come to Mumbai to earn their livelihood and not to hurt the Marathi pride, belittle their culture or undermine their language. It is indeed adding insult to injury when some Thawkeray alleges that the migrants from U.P. and Bihar indulge in Dadageeri. There might be such migrants but are they within the reach of the long hand of Shiv Sena. Surely not, their prey is the poor migrant who has a family back home to feed. Such people never indulge in Dadageeri nor have they time and luxury to create law and order problem.
Tragedies like the one mentioned in the beginning of the article may occur anywhere and anytime. We can not take and treat them as a type also, for surely there are migrants who have made good fortunes in Mumbai and Delhi. But the vast majority remains poor, marginalized and preoccupied with earning their daily bread and butter. They are neither Dada nor law-breaker. The most visible and obvious truth about them in that they have been betrayed by the bureaucracy and political class of their home states and are routinely harassed, exploited or poorly paid in places like Mumbai where they have gone to earn their livelihood.
We all know India is a country of glaring inequalities. We are a nuclear power, our economy is among the top ten economies of the world, we are progressing by leaps and bound and we have the potential to compete with America in one or two decades. And, at the same time, we are home to the biggest population of illiterates, we house the largest number of people living below the poverty line and we have the abominable practice of child and bonded labour. The million dollar question is how to eliminate the dehumanizing effect of these inequalities on the poor and marginalized sections of the society.
In developing societies politics and bureaucracy matter a lot, for they take all the important decisions. Unfortunately bureaucracy in U.P. and Bihar is more corrupt than in other states and the political class has either been inept or crimilized, castiest and communal. It is, therefore, not surprising that the two states are backward, so much so that their population migrates to Delhi and Mumbai for earning pittance.
But what excuse Bengal has to offer? If bureaucracy is corrupt there, why the so called clean left leadership has been presiding over it. For about three decades the left has been in power in West Bengal. And they are in power mainly because the poor have been voting for them. The great majority of the poor and the marginalized in West Bengal is Muslim. The Muslim population constitutes about one-fourth of the state’s population. They were poor and marginalized even before the left front came to power. The complaint is that they have not developed during the left rule as well. In services, industries, banking and finance, in every sector of economic activity they just do not lag behind, in fact, their presence is feebly visible. Yes, everywhere their number hovers between two and three percent, though numerically they are about one quarter of the state’s total population. Such a state of affairs can obtain only in two situations: either the huge Muslim population in Bengal has become intellectually stagnant or they are routinely and systematically discriminated against. The left parties as well as the West Bengal government owe an explanation.
The kind and condition of greener postures that the migrants come to find in Mumbai and Delhi has already been explained. It is clear that they do not leave behind their homes and dear ones for better prospects. On the contrary, they come for small jobs which are available mainly in unorganized sectors where they are routinely exploited. But surely unlike their hometowns here in Mumbai and Delhi they get some work and thus earn their livelihood.
Yes, they come to Delhi to make a living and not to create law and order problems. Likewise they come to Mumbai to earn their livelihood and not to hurt the Marathi pride, belittle their culture or undermine their language. It is indeed adding insult to injury when some Thawkeray alleges that the migrants from U.P. and Bihar indulge in Dadageeri. There might be such migrants but are they within the reach of the long hand of Shiv Sena. Surely not, their prey is the poor migrant who has a family back home to feed. Such people never indulge in Dadageeri nor have they time and luxury to create law and order problem.
Tragedies like the one mentioned in the beginning of the article may occur anywhere and anytime. We can not take and treat them as a type also, for surely there are migrants who have made good fortunes in Mumbai and Delhi. But the vast majority remains poor, marginalized and preoccupied with earning their daily bread and butter. They are neither Dada nor law-breaker. The most visible and obvious truth about them in that they have been betrayed by the bureaucracy and political class of their home states and are routinely harassed, exploited or poorly paid in places like Mumbai where they have gone to earn their livelihood.
[February, 2008]
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