Every Bihari counts in Punjab too

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi’s comment in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, earlier this week, excoriating the Congress party for making pejorative comments about Bihari migrants working in Punjab has brought the focus back on this 30 lakh-strong workforce that no family in Punjab can do without. But before you decide whether this Bihar-UP migrant population is a 21st-century version of the girmitiya, indentured labour sent by the British Raj to work in sugarcane fields across the globe, or not, let us lay down the context of this argument.

First, Modi’s comments are part of the BJP’s extraordinary outreach in Bihar, where its ally, Nitish Kumar, has been in power for the last 20 years. In this last lap, all the top BJP leaders have already descended upon this hyper-politically aware state — even from BJP-run tiny Haryana, as many as 54 leaders have gone to campaign, including Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini twice.

Second, as the BJP did in Haryana a year ago, it is leaving nothing to chance. Just like in Haryana, it will do everything to prevent the Opposition from coming to power. The BJP knows that a victory for the Mahagathbandhan will break the perception that the BJP is invincible. Besides, it will pump up Rahul Gandhi to fight elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in 2026 with renewed vigour, and keep his powder dry for Punjab in 2027.

That’s why in Muzaffarpur, Modi raked up the “UP ke bhaiye” comment, made by the erstwhile Punjab Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in 2022. Modi understands that the Congress party, however weakened and divided — there are at least five chief ministerial candidates in Punjab today — is still the only party in India that can provide the glue to cement a possible opposition to the BJP.

Once again, Channi was forced to defend himself — he was only targeting Delhi’s AAP leaders trying to gate-crash into Punjab in 2022, he said — but the fact remains that that word, “bhaiya,” is a pejorative that taps into a plunging Punjabi self-esteem. Once the land of milk and honey, Punjab is increasingly at sixes and sevens, as it simultaneously grapples with an agrarian crisis exacerbated by the worst floods in several decades, a near-absent industry and a resulting debt-to-GSDP ratio that is the second highest in the country. (Only Arunachal Pradesh is worse.)

And since nature abhors a vacuum spurred by fleeing Punjabi hordes to Canada — nearly 10 lakh people, according to the 2021 Canadian census, or 2.6 per cent of the population — and other western nations, darker-skinned “bhaiyas” from Seemanchal, Purvanchal, Magadh and Mithila have taken over the jobs they left behind.

It is said that 60 per cent of Punjab’s 30-lakh migrant population hails from Bihar and 21 per cent from UP. With a state population of 3 crore, this means that one in every 10 Punjabis is a migrant. Many have lived here for decades, their kids are born here and go to school here — The Tribune reporters note that several score better in Gurmukhi than native Punjabi school-going children, although it is unclear if that word, “native”, applies.

Who is “native”, after all, inside the same country, where all citizens are theoretically equal? And yet, the “sons of the soil” argument in Maharashtra does not apply to Punjab — in Maharashtra, the Marathi manoos was theoretically fighting for his right to the job against “outsiders,” in their case South Indians, but in Punjab, there are hardly any Punjabis left to do the work.

The field is pretty much left open for the “bhaiyas” of Bihar and UP who have taken over not just almost entirely the agricultural process, but have also largely infiltrated urban work conditions, including domestic work. If you threw them out, you wouldn’t be able to function.

There is much anecdotal evidence about how the Punjabi (read, Sikh) landowning class sent buses back to the villages of Bihar and UP after Covid, pleading with these “bhaiye” to return. This week, the celebration of the Bihari festival of Chhath has taken place with much joy and fervour on the banks of the Sutlej and Beas and other water bodies across Punjab. In Ludhiana, especially, where the migrant population has grown by leaps and bounds, big and small Punjabi industrialists have competed to keep Bihari labour from going home for Chhath and staying back for the Bihar polls that follow — they know their factories will shut down and their fields fall silent, if these families take off.

According to the Chandigarh-based Institute for Development & Communication, the MSP value of the wheat-paddy crop cycle in Punjab this year amounted to Rs 49,000 crore, while the migrant wage bill touched Rs 30,000 crore. Since the average difference in wages between a local Punjabi and a migrant labourer is about Rs 7,000, it’s obvious the wage bill will shoot up if local labour is employed.

And yet, that disparaging word, “bhaiya,” persists. Come to think of it, it’s mostly used by the Great Gatsby-like privileged class in Punjab — including those who sleep till noon, drive the flashiest cars, have individual godmen on speed dial and compete with the ex-Patiala royals to show off their Cartier add-ons. Certainly the Dalits of the Doaba — not all have emigrated to the UK — have no problem with those who perform an honest day’s work, no matter what part of the country they come from.

That’s why you must hear PM Modi carefully. When he plays up the “UP/Bihar ke bhaiye” remark, and follows it up with criticism of “a member of the Gandhi family” who, he says, clapped when the remark was made back in 2022, he is not just targeting the Congress. He is also exhorting the Bihari labourer who has made the sardine-packed train journey home for Chhath to vote for the BJP — look what the Congress actually thinks about you, Modi is saying. Not much, he adds.

Clearly, every vote counts in Bihar. Moreover, what happens in Bihar, is certainly not going to stay in Bihar — the result of that election is bound to be felt most directly in Punjab.