What is it that is driving Indians out of their country? What is it that they are finding more attractive in deserting their homes and the country where they were born in such large numbers? The case of Paramjeet Kaur who was arrested along with Babubhai Katara, BJP MP from Gujarat is not an isolated one. It is symbolic of a larger picture of Indians wishing to leave the country for fresher fields and pastures new.
According to the Tribune News Service, duped by travel agents, thousands of Punjabi youths are lodged in jails in various countries on grounds that they have come there illegally. According to TNS nearly 400 are said to be in various jails in Sri Lanka. Besides, it is claimed, there are Punjabi youths lodged in jails in?believe it or not?countries like Algeria, Ukraine, Mali, Sudan, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, Italy, Russia and other countries. Are we seriously to believe that these countries offer better living standards than what India can offer? According to the president of the Lok Bhalai Party, Balwant Singh Ramuwalia, quoted in The Tribune (April 20, 2007), who has been fighting a battle against unscrupulous travel agents, there are an estimated 30,000 Punjabi youths in various jails. What is worse, according to him, ?several hundred Punjabi youths? have been killed while crossing the border from one country to another. Note the numbers. Not a few tens or dozens but ?several hundred? have been killed, no doubt shot while crossing international borders surreptitiously.
Ramuwalia claims that he has got released 14 youths from Turkey, 31 from Pakistan, 70 from Italy and a hundred from Thailand. ?As many as 80 or 90 youths were got released from Algeria and Morocco by my party'soffice bearers in the United Kingdom?, Ramuwalia is quoted as saying. Likewise, from Doha some 80 youths were got freed. The numbers are astounding.
What makes these young men, mostly from the Punjab to attempt to seek livelihood in other countries? It is claimed that hundreds of Mexicans have been regularly fleeing to the United States next door in order to make a better living. Mexico is not exactly a poor country but one can understand if Mexican young want to cross the border to find better jobs just across the border. After all, here in South Asia, thousands of East Bengalis have crossed over to West Bengal to earn a better livelihood and the demographic balance in the districts in West Bengal next to Bangladesh has drastically changed. In practically every district, the Muslims have become a majority and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee'sLeftist government has turned a blind eye to the dangerous phenomenon. And New Delhi is not questioning. The Congress-led UPA government wants intentionally to remain blind and wants to answer no questions. But in a sense one can presume that this is a natural phenomenon, considering that Greater Bengal was unnaturally partitioned, except that while Muslim immigrants have come illegally, Hindu Bangladeshis have been driven out by Islamic terrorists?another factor to which our governments in Kolkata and Delhi do not want attention to be drawn.
In a globalised world, some day the free movement of people will become inevitable. This is already happening in the European Union. But what is different to understand is the willingness of Punjabi youth to desert their country even at the risk of being jailed or killed. Punjab is by no means a poor state. Financially, it is doing quite well. It is unlike Bihar, which is underdeveloped and uncared for, forcing the poor among the Biharis to migrate to other states. Then what is it that serves as an attraction to Punjabis to leave their homes? It will be argued that traditionally they have been determined migrants. The story of Komagatamaru is ever alive. Punjabis left India for the United States and Canada and especially Canada where they have prospered as farmers. But those were other times when Canada could do with new labour? Are conditions the same now as they were a hundred years ago? Indian labour is not wanted anywhere in the world today. The custom of indentured labour when thousands of Indians were transported to distant lands like West Indies, South Africa or Malaysia to work as slaves has slipped into the distant past.
Time was when a country like Britain?no more Great?wanted Indian doctors badly and were freely recruited, Now, having served their usefulness, they are being asked with typical British double talk to go away. It comes as shock to learn that nearly five thousand Indian doctors have returned to India since April 2006?that is, in just one year?after failing to find suitable employment in the country'sNational Health Service (NHS). They had gone to England expecting a warm welcome but with no money in their pockets and their dream of living in the White Man'sland shattered, they had been forced to live, according to one, report, with ?rats, cockroaches? and scrounge for free meals in temples and gurudwaras.
The report noted that the figure of 5,000 is approximate and that ?the actual figure could be more?. The returned doctors had passed the requisite tests for employment in the NHS, but had failed to find jobs mainly due to a larger pool of available doctors from within Britain and the European Union. Obviously a White doctor is preferable to a Brown man. The British are an ungrateful lot. In the past they used indentured Indian labour to make their profits. Currently highly qualified doctors who were once badly needed are no being treated with similar disregard. It is a lesson for all Indians to learn. But having noted that, the Government of India has a responsibility to see that the returned doctors are taken care of. There are more than three lakh villages in India that cry for medical help and a concerned government can easily provide employment to the 5,000 odd medical practitioners assigning, say, ten villages to each doctor to adequately look after. That would fulfill a great need and the people themselves would be grateful for what may be described as an act of mercy.
Doctors, of course, would obviously want to practice in urban centres than in rural areas but if they are suitably paid and given the necessary infrastructural support there is no reason why they shouldn'tbe content to work for their poor countrymen. They should treat this as a golden opportunity to serve their motherland and raise the health standards to the levels prevailing in the developed world.
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