Caught between identity, survival: Tale of a Ggm exodus

For Rashida Bibi, Fridays are virtually luxurious. That day, one of the families she works for gives her a weekly break, another makes work trips to Delhi so they leave early, and a third hosts an event so they hire specialised staff. That means instead of 5.30am, she wakes up at a leisurely 8am.

- Leena Dhankhar and Dhrubo Jyoti

Her sore muscles are allowed some rest, her chai simmers longer, and her trip to the market is more of a canter and not the usual dash. The only people who grudge her Fridays are her two children, aged eight and five, who spend a tense morning under the watchful eyes of a mother anxious about their progress in school.

Last Friday, though, was anything but languid. Crouched on the floor of her shanty made of corrugated tin sheets held aloft by sticks of bamboo, Bibi sorted her family's meagre belongings into essential and disposable. Stained sheets, sarees, and her husband's lungis and shirts in one steel box, the children's books and documents into the almost new suitcase her employers gave her last year, and pots and pans she had painstakingly collected over the years into a makeshift tarp bundle. Some plastic buckets, a stack of dented plates, and a crumpled towel didn't make the cut. “Maybe if we come back..” her voice trailed off.

The migrant worker from Bengal's Murshidabad district wasn't alone. Over the past week, nearly 1,000 families of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have packed up and left Gurugram in hired trucks and buses, spooked by the city police's drive targeting undocumented immigrants. The administration has said that they are targeting undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants - part of a wider national drive across multiple states-but migrant workers allege that the opaque process has triggered anxiety and fear among poor Bengali-speaking people, forcing them to abandon their posts as sanitation workers, domestic helps, cooks, guards, and auto and rickshaw drivers. Moreover, the demand for papers beyond the usual Aadhaar or voter identity cards has caused consternation. “This is what the government asks us to have every time. How will I get more papers? Where is the time?” Bibi asked.

Rush to flee crackdown