Labour pangs in Punjab amid migrant backlash after Hoshiarpur boy’s murder

The backlash against migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar following the gruesome murder of a five-year-old boy in Hoshiarpur has left traders and farmers in Punjab anxious in the middle of the paddy procurement season.

Pappu Kumar Yadav from Purnia in Bihar has been visiting Punjab without a break for the past 15 years, arriving with a group of nearly 200 workers eager to earn Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 at grain markets during the month-long paddy season. This time, however, they are fearing for their safety, with some even considering an early return.

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“Each year, we earn around Rs 40,000 in a month by working in Punjab — four times what we make back home. But after the Hoshiarpur murder, a wave of hostility has spread against ‘pravasi mazdoors (migrant workers)’. We now live in constant fear as the hatred can easily spread beyond the city where the crime took place,” says Pappu, who works at Asia’s largest grain market in Khanna.

Aware that the issue could get out of hand, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann condemned the murder, but sought to downplay the anti-migrant labour narrative, stressing “anyone can work anywhere in the country”.

Badish Jindal, the president of World MSME Forum, an industry body, has written to Chief Minister Mann, demanding an end to the protests. “There are more than 18 lakh migrant workers in Punjab, employed across industries, farms, shops and homes. The state’s economy is progressing because of them. Such hostility will drive them away,” says Jindal.

On September 9, a migrant worker from UP was arrested for allegedly kidnapping, sodomising and murdering the Hoshiarpur boy. After the crime, 20 panchayats in Hoshiarpur and several others in adjoining districts passed resolutions against undocumented migrants. A few panchayats in Malerkotla, Ropar, Nawanshahr and Mohali are also learnt to be working on similar resolutions. Several self-styled vigilantes have threatened migrants with dire consequences.

Harbans Singh Rosha, a commission agent, insists that the atmosphere in Khanna is conducive for the nearly 50,000 labourers employed there. “Though some miscreants have been trying to create a divide, we have assured the workers of protection. Ehna to bina Punjab di gaddi nahin chaldi (Punjab cannot do without them),” he says.

Kamal Dalmia, chief patron of the Focal Point Industrial Welfare Association in Amritsar, echoes Rosha’s view. “Migrants are the backbone of Punjab’s economy, with both agriculture and industrial sectors relying heavily on them. Over 90 per cent of the labour in any industry comes either from UP or Bihar,” Dalmia points out. Gurbakshish Singh, a farmer from Nabha, says it’s difficult to imagine agricultural operations, particularly paddy transplantation, without migrant labour.

A senior IAS officer, posted as a deputy commissioner but requesting not to be identified, says self-styled vigilantes are more to be blamed as they are approaching the district administrations with memorandums demanding the migrants be sent back. “The demand found resonance with some aggrieved parties, following which panchayats passed resolutions calling for the ouster of migrant workers,” says the officer.

Gurmeet Singh Kular, a prominent Ludhiana industrialist, says they have assured the workers of safety. “Some of the migrant workers have been in Punjab for four generations. They are as much Punjabi as we are. In Ludhiana, we provide them free housing, good salaries and best working conditions,” says Kular.

TR Mishra, who migrated to Punjab 60 years ago and is now a boiler manufacturer in Ludhiana, says certain anti-social elements appear to be trying to instil fear among migrants, probably to vitiate harmony. “But I am a proof of integration into society here and the acceptance shown by Punjabis,” emphasises Mishra, urging the migrants to stay put.