Third wave of migration

Gurbachan Jagat

In the last couple of months, amidst the 75th year of Independence celebrations, there has been a constant flow of articles of tragic reminiscences and anguish. The writers have been mostly second or third generations of Partition survivors. While India was speaking of its tryst with destiny, Punjab was already making its first contact with Independence. A pogrom of the worst kind visited the people of Punjab, orchestrated by a dying empire and encouraged by selfish politicians bent on petty gains and divisions. Books have been written, analysis has been done but there has been no closure. A closure of sorts happened for those who were able to go across and visit their villages and homes and bring back a fistful of earth… sacred earth from the homes where generations had lived. One brick from the house to be kept as a reminder of what had been. Of course, there were tales of the warmth of their reception, the love and gifts showered on them. Is that enough or is it that ‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten’ the pogrom on both sides?

This was not only about the rivers of blood, but also the flood of migration that took place in its aftermath. Millions of householders on both sides became refugees overnight; no belongings, no money, no land, no trade, no jobs. They left the dead behind but they themselves became the walking dead. It was probably one of the biggest migrations in history. However, the Punjabi reacted to the tragedy in a stoic manner and with the help of a proactive government and administration, soon began to pull himself up by the bootstraps. The farmers and traders were allotted land, houses and shops as recompense for the original holdings (although meagre when compared to what had been) and undertook the difficult task of re-establishing themselves. The migrants moved to many places in present-day Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Kanpur, Calcutta, Bombay, etc, before finally settling down in the best option available. However, given the enterprise of the people, in a short while, the word ‘refugee’ went out of the Punjabi lexicon.

Just when it looked in the 1960s and ’70s that things were settling down and an era of peace and prosperity was upon us, a new source of bloodletting was let loose on our Punjab. Call it what you may, but it shook the soul of Punjab once again. This article is not meant to go into the causes of how it happened. It was a web of deceit, conspiracy, violence weaved by many dexterous craftsmen of the trade and difficult to disentangle. The violence began in the urban areas in the form of targeted killings but soon spread to the rural areas. The numbers increased, the weaponry improved and so did the tactics. The traders began to move out of the smaller towns and into bigger cities, the industrialists from Amritsar, Jalandhar, Batala, Mandi Gobindgarh and Ludhiana began seeking places outside Punjab for fresh investments and also for shifting of existing ones. Farmers began to shift families to urban areas and some began selling their farms because they could not cultivate the lands due to the dual pressure of the police and the militants. Migration which began as a trickle became a flood after Operation Bluestar and Mrs Gandhi’s assassination. Because of the violence against Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India, there was also a reverse migration to Punjab. This time the generation of freedom fighter politicians was gone and no succour was provided by the government, which was inefficient and non-responsive. President’s rule was in place for a long time but its sole mission was to neutralise militancy and make Punjab secure, which was more or less achieved by the mid-1990s.

In the meantime, the Punjabi went elsewhere in search of fresh avenues of jobs, trade, business and industry. Punjab became bereft of a strong industrial base. The normal functioning of government departments had virtually stopped and no avenues of employment were open to the youth. In this dismal scenario, the youth began to turn their gaze towards distant horizons… UK, Canada, Australia, USA, Italy, the Netherlands. This constituted another wave of migration. Modern means of travel and communication helped facilitate this migration. The never-say-die attitude of the people found a route out of the mayhem, the tribes moved and they carried with them a little bit of the homeland. A migration which was initially considered temporary became permanent as the NRIs found out the hard way that investing in Punjab was a self-defeating exercise. Their next generations were under no such delusion and integrated themselves far better into the ‘New World’.

Today, this migration has become a flood with lakhs of youth competing for the elusive visa. To the eternal shame of governments in Punjab from 2000 onwards to the present day, not one has sought a short-term or long-term solution for the rehabilitation of our youth. Without exception, everybody has been busy with everything but governance; governments come and go but the downslide continues. This has led to the third wave of migration, which is perhaps the biggest of them all. The situation of Punjab is that it is in the process of becoming a land devoid of its youth — the cornerstone of the edifice that is the State. Old men sit together in villages and talk of old times, many of them have also gone abroad so that they can draw old age pensions and help their children. As Prince Hamlet said, ‘There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.’ Where do we go from here — that is the big question? Will the phoenix rise out of the ashes once again? A cursory reading shows that it may not but, on the other hand, if one looks at our heritage, the heritage of ‘Panj-ab’ — land of the five rivers, a land blessed with the Indus and its five tributaries, then there is hope. Much history has flowed down these rivers and unfortunately, much of the history of men is the history of war. This region, in particular, has had more than its fill of the same. In earlier times, Alexander’s battle with Porus, the three battles of Panipat, the Anglo-Sikh wars and more recently, the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan all were centred here. Men tend to draw boundaries on maps and as such we have a Punjab in Pakistan and one in India. The one here is further divided into three states but the land of five rivers will remain where it is till the rivers remain in today’s world of climate change, (maybe that too shall come to pass).

They say ‘blows don’t break a man’s back, they only make it stronger’ — the Punjabi spirit has been forged in a similar kiln. Punjab has seen, suffered and survived, it has counter-attacked and built an empire under Ranjit Singh right up to Kabul, Kandahar, Kashmir, Ladakh. it has rehabilitated itself after 1947 and applied salve to its horrendous wounds. It has innovated and initiated the Green Revolution and became the granary of India. It has suffered in the last few decades for lack of governance, commitment and leadership. Such periods come in the history of people and it will flow down the five rivers as in ages past. Will the phoenix rise once again from the ashes of the last few decades? Yes, it will, both in Punjab and the Punjabi communities abroad. The teachings of Nanak and the apostles of the Bhakti movement will once again be our shield and our wheel of eternal progress towards the material and the spiritual. Yes, the Punjabi has found a home in different parts of the planet and as technology helps break geographic boundaries and limitations, that to some extent is the way forward.

— The writer is ex-chairman of UPSC, former Manipur Governor and served as J&K DGP

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