Threat of deportation outside vs joblessness at home: Dilemma of migrants as they return

Ajmal’s predicament echoes across West Bengal, where thousands of migrant workers are trudging back to the state from cities such as Delhi and Gurugram against the backdrop of a growing backlash against “illegal Bangladeshis”.

According to state government sources, over 1,000 migrants from across India have returned so far, although they also admit that the actual numbers could be higher.

Mosaraf Hussen, the TMC MLA from Itahar in Uttar Dinajpur and the party’s minority cell chairman, claimed several migrants in his constituency had returned from Gurugram. Hussen has set up a help desk to assist the returning migrants.

“We will have to make plans for them if they start returning in large numbers,” he said.

In the face of the arrivals, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked Labour Minister Moloy Ghatak and West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board chairman Samirul Islam to hold a meeting with the state chief secretary and explore avenues of employment for the migrants.

“As our CM has said, those migrant labourers who have returned or are returning to Bengal will be provided alternate avenues of income. There are enough employment opportunities in the state,” Islam, a Rajya Sabha MP from the Trinamool Congress, said.

Of this, however, even the returning migrant workers remain sceptical. Although he allegedly spent several days in detention, Ajmal is still considering returning to Gurugram. “We would make between Rs 25,000 to Rs 28,000/month at Gurugram. I have elderly parents, three brothers and a sister to take care of. What will we eat if we don’t go to work outside?” he asked.

In Malda’s Chanchal, Mukul Hossain is afraid of returning to Gurugram although he knows he may have little choice. A mason, Hussain was allegedly picked up by the police on July 11, kept in detention for five days, and assaulted while in custody.

Now back home, he wonders if he should return. “First, I will try to start a business in Bengal. If we succeed, we will stay, but if we don’t, we will have to return,” he said. “The state government is saying that they will arrange work for us but the question is whether I can earn as much in Bengal as we did there [in the National capital Region]”.

But those Bengali-speaking migrants who remain in NCR are finding it harder to find work. Noor Alam, a delivery executive working in Gurugram, was detained for two days last month and is now trying to return home to Chanchal. “The problem is that, now, we aren’t getting proper work here in Gurugram. Of the 25 Bengali families in our mohalla in Gurugram, 20 have returned. We’re trying to go back but are having trouble finding train reservations,” he said.

With just months to go for the state assembly polls, the migrants’ return is snowballing into a political row, with the Opposition accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress of inaction.

“The TMC is doing cosmetic surgery but they are not trying to make industry here generate employment. They are shouting and trying to get political mileage. But they are not trying to solve the problem. Have you heard the West Bengal government talked with Delhi [or Haryana] governments? They only want the problem to linger,” senior Congress leader and former Baharampur MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.

Labourers were coming “in small groups” and not in “large numbers”, Asif Faruq, state secretary of the Parijayee Shramik Aikya Mancha – or the Migrant Labourers Unified Forum, said. But he also admitted there was “lack of data” when it came to migrant workers and their movement. “They are coming in small groups wherever they are detained or harassed by police in pockets in different states including Haryana. For instance, migrants from some pockets in Delhi are returning but others are still working there. However, it is also true that the nature of jobs they do outside and the money they earn is not possible here. We are waiting to see what the government has in store for them,” he said.

Meanwhile, as the state continues to struggle for a response to the looming problem, some migrants remain in the national capital region, determined to stay on if they can. Among them is Alam Ali, another resident of Chanchal who works as a housekeeper in Gurugram.

“My father-in-law and I work in a housing society and earn Rs 12,000. We also wash cars, which makes us an additional Rs 5000-6000/month. Where will we get such a salary in Bengal? We may go to Bengal for some days but after normalcy returns, we will return,” he said.