Sikhs Being Forced To Leave Punjab

[vahegurujikifateh]

IT takes a 18 kilometre drive through forests and it means crossing a meandering river 26 times. This is the only way to reach Nauarangia Don in west Champaran in north Bihar. A small police station which uses a tractor as its official vehicle is the only sign of government presence. In the last decade the government teacher has not made an appearance in this village even once and there is no doctor to attend to any medical emergency.

But even though the benefits of modern times may be missing, there are occasional signs of urban modernism in this largely Tharu tribe dominated village. The villagers watch the latest Bollywood movies with generator powered CD systems, elders occasionally replace their traditional country liquor with Baccardi and the young wear jeans—this village is connected to urban India through its increasing number of migrant labour and a WLL telephone.

Bihar is seeing an exodus. Lured by bright city lights and anxious to escape economic stagnancy and domestic feudal relations, the state is being abandoned by its people.

In the census decade that ended in 2001, 12 lakh people are estimated to have left Bihar, next only to the 24 lakh that left Uttar Pradesh. Bihar’s population at present stands at 9 crore. ‘‘At least 80 per cent of all people my age have migrated. More than desperation, it is a search for better economic opportunities,’’ says Rithesh Kumar, a 22 year old who runs a WLL public booth in Naurangia.

There are 24 villages in the Don—habitations inside the 900 sq km Valmiki Nagar Tiger Project forests—where Ritesh says the situation is alike. ‘‘Only a half used to be away just five years ago,’’ he says.

Bihar is ill-equipped to meet the rising aspirations of its mobile youth. There are no new jobs in Bihar and the existing ones are vanishing—a recent survey by the Bihar Industries Association found that 54 per cent of the existing industrial units are closed, 26 per cent are sick and only 20 per cent are working. Even for the illiterate agricultural labour, going to Punjab and Haryana is an attractive option for it gives more money and the farm owners there are well behaved. ‘‘The migrants to Punjab appreciate the fact that the work culture outside is more democratic,’’ says Indu B. Sinha, a former researcher at the Bath University in England. Homegrown social engineer of Bihar Laloo Prasad Yadav agrees. ‘‘What is the problem if people migrate? It happens all over the world. All migrants from Bihar are economically better off than before and they do not want to be suppressed by landlords,’’ he says. Add to this the yearly floods that displace many people who are never rehabilitated.

The population density—which increased from 685 in 1991 to 880 in 2001, per sq km—is the second highest in the country—and the pressure on land is very high. ‘‘The push factors to leave Bihar are very strong,’’ says Hetukar Jha, a sociologist at Patna University.

"Delhi is among the first destinations of the migrating Bihari. An estimate in 2001 by the Planning Board showed that nearly 11 per cent of Delhi’s population was from Bihar"When the agricultural season peaks in Punjab, there are days in west Champaran’s Bethia Railway station when 1000 tickets are sold for Amritsar in the daily Jan Nayak Express. Ticket clerks say it used to be in the range of hundreds three years ago when the train became a daily. The packed Muzaffarpur-Amritsar train tells the migration story best.

Money orders are another way of gauging the increase in the numbers leaving Bihar. In 2001-2002 money order remittance from Bihari migrants to their homes was Rs 518 crores. In 2002-2003 it is Rs 682 crores, up by 32 per cent. Delhi is among the original destinations of the migrating Bihari—in 2001, the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) estimated that nearly 11 per cent of Delhi’s population was from Bihar.

Migration to Punjab peaked before militancy and has now picked up again. Mumbai, Surat, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Nagpur also attract migrants from Bihar. In Assam, the number of Biharis are estimated to be more than 10 lakh. It is in Mumbai and Assam that they are at the receiving end of some radical groups’ wrath. They were attacked in Mumbai two months ago at a Railway recruitment exam and then in Guwahati this month.

A study conducted by the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi, in six villages of Gopalganj, Madhubani and Purnea districts shows migration nearly doubled in the last two decades—in 2000, 49 per cent families had a migrant, compared to 28 per cent in 1983. The same study finds that only 6.56 percent of the migrants had a government job at their destinations. But that has not stopped the Biharis from abandoning Bihar.

[HeatSikhingMissile]

This is nothing more than the give-and-take of Sikhs moving to greener pastures in USA/Canada/UK, much like Sikhs who looked to establish community in these countries for better prosperity, these Biharis see Punjab in that way, we can't have our cake and eat it too, if we expect to be welcomed in new countries, then we have to show that same tolerance in our own backyard.

[jaswinder singh]

THE crux of the matter is , no one wants to leave his motherland, unless forced by circumstances, be it bihari

or punjabi. the forces prompting migrations like lack of opportunities, availability of better opportunity

else where, persecutions by ruling class all work every where be it Bihar, Punjab or any otherparts of

the earth . What are Punjabis ? a diaspora of races - aryans, caucasians, mongols (mugals) , scythians

- what todat are called Jatts, Huns, Shaks , Khokhars and may be many more we have no idea about

the cycle has been going omn since time immortal.

Lets not mix religion with the migration problem . in real terms this gives us opportunity to spread our ideology

thanks for reading, sorry if someone feel soffended