National

The Sixth River Is A Sea

In Punjab, migrant labour has always been a reality. But as numbers swell, a slow fuse burns.

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The Sixth River Is A Sea
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"Ek Bihari, sau bimari; do Bihari, ladai ki tayari; teen Bihari,train hamari; chaar Bihari, sarkar hamari; paanch Bihari, Punjabi hi hamari; chuk defatiya bhaiyya bhajao, Punjab bachao."
—a popular SMS joke in Punjab

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Dr Kharag Singh of the Chandigarh-based Institute of Sikh Studies held a seminar on the changing demographic in Punjab recently. "We concluded that even as Punjab needs migrant labour, some regulation by way of legislation is needed to prevent migrants from taking roots here," he says. Radical Sikh groups like the Dal Khalsa too have protested against migrants and in the last six months have held two ‘Punjab Jagao’ marches from Amritsar to Hoshiarpur and in the Malwa belt "to create awareness among the people about the need to preserve Punjabi identity and culture from migrant influence". Among the issues the Dal Khalsa and other radical Sikhs are pressing for are restriction on buying of land by migrants and a bar on voting rights till people have been residents for at least a decade.

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What is galling to the locals is that of late migrants in places like Ludhiana have begun contesting elections. Incidentally, the Ludhiana municipality now has three migrant councillors. Ludhiana is even a big market for Bhojpuri movies—six of the 14 cinemas screen films for Purvanchalis regularly. Small wonder then that Manoj Tiwari, a Bhojpuri star, comes for his movie premieres to Ludhiana. All that could change. Last October, seven migrant labourers died in a bomb blast at Sringaar cinema hall in the city where a Bhojpuri film was showing.

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