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Dal Khalsa launches campaign
against migrants with a walk
WSN Bureau
 HOSHIARPUR: At a
time when the anti-migrant debate has peaked in
India
because of the troubles in Maharashtra where the Shiv Sena faction
of a breakway member of Thackeray family has been stoking fires, Dal
Khalsa has launched a campaign against migrants coming into Punjab
and called it a “population bomb.”
The party, seen
as a radical force in
India, launched
the campaign against migrants with a walk from here to Jalandhar
city, 35km away, and hundreds of activists carried banners and
placards that read “Punjab for Punjabis” and “Return migrants, Save
Punjab.”
Dal Khalsa is
now asking the state government to have a policy on the issue.
Earlier, Simranjit Singh Mann had once led a virtual campaign
against the migrants. Some prominent writers including Jaswant Singh
Kanwal have also been speaking against the migrants.
Dal Khalsa chief
H S Dhami said the party wanted to mark the Punjab Day by bringing
focus on the issue because "migration from
Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh in large numbers is unwelcome and unacceptable."
Of the nearly 30
million population, 10 percent are migrants but most figures could
be highly imprise, given the nature of data collection in the
region.
India's
2001 census put the Punjab’s total population at nearly 25 million.
A study
conducted by the
Punjab
Agriculture University in Ludhiana last year said around 55% of the
migrant agricultural labourers had settled in Punjab permanently.
Dal Khalsa and some others see in the pattern of migration a sort of
political design in the influx of migrant labourand blame "unseen
central forces".
Some see it as
part of a plan to disturb the demographic profile of the state. And
they also cite the influx of Hindi newspapers and their growing
readership as part of the plan. Hindi newspapers like Amar Ujala,
Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran are now having a readership in
Punjab's
villages.
The Tribune said
"the move is nothing but regional politics" and also added that it
may "vitiate atmosphere in
Punjab and
precipitate crisis in agrarian, construction and industrial
sectors."
Without naming
anyone, it bluntly quoted "others" to damn Punjabis. Here is a quote
from Tribune: "Others say, “Addicted to drugs and intoxicants, the
Punjabi youth does not want to work for menial and blue-collared
jobs, making farmers and industrialists depend on the migrants”.
5 November
2008
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