Imagine There Is No Migrant

Anti-migrant biases arent limited to Gujarat. Such poor folk are targeted as outsiders everywhere.

- Giridhar Jha

IT was a swim against the perennial high tide. When Shrenuj & Co Ltd set up a diamond cutting and polishing unit in Patna, bringing back 150 skilled workers from Gujarat to their home state in 2013, it raised a glimmer of hope among the teeming Bihari migrants settled elsewhere in the country. Launching a first-of-its- kind plant, the global diam ond firm had promised to invest Rs 600 crore and hire 1,500 workers to meet its target of processing 3 lakh diamond pieces a month. Hailing the commissioning of the unit as a historic occasion heralding a brave new age of investment, chief minister Nitish Kumar exulted that Biharis could finally return home for work from places like Surat.

Five years on, dreams of creating employment opportunities good eno­ ugh for migrants to stay back have come unstuck. Faced with mounting losses, the diamond firm has shut shop; its workers are left to fend for themselves.

A reverse migration of sorts, however, did begin earlier this month from Gujarat, but for grossly unsavoury reasons. Tho u­ sands of terrified, often battered, migrant workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, UP and other north and central Indian states headed back home pell-mell to escape the violence triggered by the rape of a 14­month­old toddler, allegedly by a migrant from Bihar, in Sabarkantha district on September 28. As a hate cam­paign against them was ratcheted up on social media and beyond, migrants had to bear the brunt of mob violence in several districts. The virulence of the attacks caught the Vijay Rupani government off guard. Even as a political blame game flared up, it indicated a disturbing pat­ tern—migrants, as rank outsiders, were easy targets at their chosen workplace.