‘Go West, young man’
The story is not new, but it is one that has fascinated me for a very long time — the story of the Punjabi diaspora in the West: UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and to a smaller extent, Greece, Italy, etc. I am limiting myself to the Punjabis because I know more about them than the Keralites, the Tamils who have also done wonders wherever they have gone.
Throughout human history, man has always moved in search of mainly better economic prospects and quality of life. We have today a large number of students going abroad for higher studies and employment thereafter. However, I wish to dwell on the pioneers who left Punjab for foreign shores in the early Fifties of the last century. The first trickle began from the Doaba region of Punjab and consisted mainly of illiterate or semi-literate youth, some of whom belonged to families uprooted from west Punjab and who had not been properly rehabilitated. They went to the UK in search of work and with the objective of helping their families through remittances. The only work which paid well was in the open steel furnaces and in the mines — very tough work and the salary though meagre by British standards suited the migrant’s objective. I wonder at them — not knowing the language, the people, the culture, living in their cocoons. I have heard of them leaving chalk marks on their residences (many of them stayed together) and counted the stations on the underground because they could not read — hence 10th, 15th station, etc.
Occasionally, they would get lost but they had been advised to go to the nearest Bobby and inform him. In the first few years, the Bobby would have them dropped at their homes. Soon, the police understood that they were literally being taken for a ride and put a stop to this practice. Meanwhile, they kept on saving money and sending it home. This created an almost parallel economy because people started sending money through unofficial channels. I remember at one stage, the official value of the pound was Rs18, whereas it was Rs30 in the black market. Travel agents, government officials were involved in this and a whole crop of carriers came up who went to the villages to deliver the money in rupees. In the absence of phones, inland letters were used, and a coded message would be sent regarding the amount. Some of these travel agents and others became millionaires and some went on to become ministers.
The whole of the Punjab economy was shaken up positively and farmers in new clothes and on two-wheelers, carrying transistors, were visible more and more. The prices of land shot up as the NRI money was used to buy land. This led to an increased flow of youth to these countries, and with the next generation came a change both in the lifestyles in the UK and in Punjab. The second generation, unlike the first one, was undecided about coming back but by the time of the third generation, which was brought up and educated abroad, a shift took place and they refused to come back. They adapted to the local systems and also branched out into businesses, industries and professional jobs. The flow of money to Punjab also decreased, as also the craze for land. Punjab’s troubles in the ’80s and ’90s finally put paid to any desire to come back — even the pioneers decided to stay on. The Punjab skyline, which had increasingly been dotted with huge mansions and marriage palaces, began to stall and the reverse trend of selling off assets had started.
In the meantime, a strong nexus had developed between the travel agents, NRIs, government officials and politicians of all hues. The NRI became a very valuable source of election funds. If the politicians had gone beyond themselves and thought of the state, Punjab would have been a different and better place today. Governments of all kinds held NRI conferences, created special cells to harness the NRI money and expertise to industrialise Punjab, but these turned out to be just “melas” with no results. To the best of my knowledge, not a single major industry has been set up with the help of these people. Initially they showed keen interest to invest and kept on waiting for government response, but they all went back empty-handed. I think all those sammelans and cells came to nought and have been wound up or are defunct. With a little initiative and less red tape, Punjab could’ve been industrialised and our youth could have got employment here. Not only industry, the NRIs could have helped in the field of higher education by setting up institutes of global standards and brought in their expertise. Another field which could have benefited immensely is healthcare. State-of-the-art hospitals could have been set up. NRI doctors of international repute would have come and helped. Medical education and research could have made a quantum leap. Our bureaucracy, our political parties, our governments are not facilitators but rather are roadblocks in the path of progress. If political power cannot be used for the betterment of people, but rather only for the purposes of self-aggrandisement, then what is the purpose of such power?
I have only talked of the human resource which we could have used for transforming Punjab. We could have produced a better, compassionate, healthy and educated human being. We could have become a destination for others and not a springboard for immigration. Punjab’s unique resource was its human material. It is now no longer so. Unemployment and poor education and healthcare have led to this.
To strengthen my argument for the Punjabis, just look at their business acumen and the tremendous success they have achieved overseas. Not only this, they have also entered the political and social spheres where they have excelled. Today, we have MPs in the UK and Scotland, members in Congress in the USA and lawmakers in Canada and Australia. We have a large contingent of ministers in Canada, some in the UK and we have public servants in the USA who are Senate approved. We have captains of industry in the best of multinationals, and we have scholars and researchers of repute in many fields.
On the social front, I will give only one example which has caught the imagination of people in the West — the Sikh concept of ‘langar’: free food given to all visitors to the gurdwaras; more than that in time of emergency, be it the airplane crash in Belgium, rail mishaps elsewhere, famines, earthquakes, floods and now Covid. These Sikh organisations, like Khalsa Aid, etc. are like first responders. After joining the search and rescue mission, they set up ‘langars’ for one and all — healthy, simple, ample food. This is the kind of social service, ‘sewa’, which our young men render in foreign lands — their adopted lands to whom they owe their allegiance. Now if we had facilitated them to enter different sectors in Punjab, imagine the contribution they could have made. If only Punjab had some visionaries with the burning desire to serve Punjab, they had only to reach out to the diaspora.
Even today, the governments abroad and private industries look upon Punjabis as an excellent human resource which can adapt and become a major contributor to society. Hence, it is still “Go West, young man” and of course do not come back. Our children are leaving the country after Plus Two for higher education and most will get employment over there or become entrepreneurs as excellence is rewarded in their meritocracy. Today, our villages are being emptied out of youth, our cities and towns are full of old couples whose next two generations have gone out. They look with dimmed eyes to those foreign shores where their loved ones are making lives for themselves. Of course, the gentlemen who have run this country for decades — their children don’t have to go out to seek employment, they have set up huge ‘benami’ sources of income. They don’t have to bear the pangs of separation and loneliness which others have to. They are the rulers, and we are the subjects, and our meeting point comes once in five years when we anoint them again.
To conclude, a final salute to those doughty young men who left for foreign lands without knowing what lay in store for them — the furnaces and the mines, pigeonholes for dwelling, cut off from local society. Their initiative and sacrifice led to the well-being of their children and grandkids. Hundreds of thousands of them spread all over the globe with Punjab still in their hearts. It is sad and haunting to still hear the mantra — “Go West, young man”, where your ancestors have dug new roots.
— The writer is ex-chairman of UPSC, former Manipur Governor and served as J&K DGP
