No work, but Rajasthan labour chowkis say Modi better for nation

Salvi, a migrant to Udaipur from nearby Rajsamand district, wants the Centre to legislate a job guarantee scheme in towns and cities like MNREGA in villages. Asked if that would decide his vote, he has a different answer though: “Woh hamare liye raat din border par tainaat hain. Pulwama ke baad pehli baar humne eent ka jawaab pathar se diya hai… Modi damdaar hai (They are stationed day and night at the border for our sake. After Pulwama, for the first time we have given an apt response. Modi is strong).”

That’s the story across these parts. In the two-cornered contest in Rajasthan, voters, irrespective of whether their allegiance rests with the BJP or Congress, are critical of the decline in jobs. But the BJP’s nationalist pitch finds resonance across its stronghold of Mewar in south-central Rajasthan as also adjoining constituencies, which vote on April 29.

Women at work at a mineral crushing factory at Beawar, Ajmer. (Express photo by Shalini Nair)

Rajasthan Labour Department officials confirmed that the post-demonetisation slump has hit the informal labour markets in cities the hardest. The MNREGA work reducing to a trickle under the Vasundhara Raje government made this worse, they say, by sending more labourers to the cities.

In a state where the BJP holds all the 25 Lok Sabha seats currently, the Congress barely managed to come to power in December 2018. Even then, the rallying cry on the streets was, “Modi tujhse bair nahin, Vasundhara teri khair nahin (No anger against you Modi, but no sparing you Vasundhara)”. Post-Pulwama, the scales seem further tilted in favour of the BJP.

Some 300 km away from Udaipur city, in Rani Sagar industrial area of Ajmer constituency, about 40 hamaali labourers (heavers) are gathered for tea at a roadside stall, waiting for the next goods-laden truck. Their leader Balvir Kathat (45), belonging to a community of Muslims that is known to follow Hindu rituals as well, says while his vote would be against the dwindling rate of employment, and for the Congress, many in his clan and team would vote for the BJP. Except for a couple of Gujjar and Dalit labourers with him, almost all the men nod in agreement.

Adds Devraj Rao, 25, “They got back Captain Abhinandan safely. In Congress time, soldiers would be beheaded.” Rao says he gets all his information from WhatsApp, Facebook, apart from TV.

Asked about demonetisation, Hemsing Rawat, who is in his 40s, says they were hit for months. “But those who had hidden much more money were affected more.”

In the adjoining Rajsamand constituency’s Assembly seat of Beawar, one in every few households employed with a mineral grinding plant has a member in the Army. Sunita Shankar (35), who hails from the marginalised Meghwal community, says her family has traditionally voted for the Congress, but that in 2014, she chose the lotus for promising development. In the 2018 Assembly polls, she went back to the Congress, but now, her vote would be “for the soldiers on the border”.

That is not altered by the fact that, by the mother-of-five’s own admission, her work has slowed down for the first time in 16 years. “Par Modiji desh ke liye sahi hain, aatankwad khatam kiya. Sabke liye sochna padta hai. Desh ka vikas hoga toh apna vikas hoga (But Modi is right for the country, put an end to terrorism. One has to consider everything. Only if the country prospers will we prosper),” Shankar adds.

Her colleague Sabah Devi adds that she would much rather do MNREGA work in her village than lift feldspar rocks for 10-hour-long daily shifts. “But the last few years MNREGA work has been hard to come by, and anyway, pays less than half of the Rs 250 a day we make here.”

In Udaipur, in addition to the slump in informal labour chowkis, marble manufacturing has been hit. At Arihant Marbles, among the largest marble production factories in the state, nine of 10 marble cutting plants have shut. Kushwendra Kumawat says the situation is the same at hundreds of marble units along the city’s outskirts since GST.

Similarly, private car services report a dip in revenues due to declining tourism, and a funding cut to NGOs that previously frequented the state. Still, Ratan Patel, a driver, says he wants to give the BJP another chance. “Rioting has reduced. Unme darr sa baith gaya hai (The minorities are scared now).”

Not very long ago, in December 2017, Udaipur had seen widespread rioting after Hindu groups had come out on the streets in solidarity with Shambhulal Regar, who had put up a video allegedly setting ablaze a migrant labourer, Mohammad Afrazul.

Back at the Udaipur labour chowki, Mohammad Shah (45), a marble contractor, says more than the fall in his daily earnings from Rs 3,000-4,000 to less than Rs 500, he worries about this eroding social fabric. “Now they incite and polarise us and ask us to go to Pakistan. Har aadmi toot chuka hai (Every person is broken).”