In slums near upscale Gurugram housing societies, no city for Bengali migrants doing odd jobs

Indian Express

2 days ago

On a rainy afternoon, 36-year-old Sanju Bibi's one-room shanty, located in a slum behind DPS International School in Gurugram, is filled with the aroma of the chicken curry she is making for her husband, who works as a tiler, and herself.
Till mid-July — around the time that hundreds of Bengali migrants from this slum started rushing back to their villages — Sanju, a resident of West Bengal's Malda, worked as a cook in several houses in the nearby upscale housing societies.
In May, the Union Home Ministry had issued a letter directing states to prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) to deport 'in sufficient numbers' Bangladeshis and Rohingya found staying in India illegally.
'… if any illegal foreign national is found living in any state/district, he will be detained and kept in a Special Holding Centre… the police is conducting special search operations for illegal foreign nationals to maintain law and order and peace in district Gurugram,' reads a July 22 District Magistrate order.
The fear among Gurugram's Bengali-speaking migrant community at present is reminiscent of the situation two years ago, in the aftermath of the violence in Nuh that had spilled over to Gurugram. In a bid to encourage slum residents 'to carry on with their daily activities without fear', Gurugram Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav had visited slums near Sectors 58 and 70 recently.
On their part, the Gurugram police had on July 26 issued a statement that they were only rounding up 'confirmed Bangladeshis' as part of their verification drive ever since four of their facilities to house suspected foreigners — community centres in Badshahpur, Sector 10A, Sector 40, and Sector 1 in Manesar — had shut down on July 25.
To a question on why these detention centres had shut down, a Gurugram police spokesperson said, 'We shut them down since we have completed the verification of suspected foreigners. Earlier too, only those who either did not have certain papers, had papers with discrepancies, had Bangladeshi numbers on their phone or had deleted WhatsApp from their phones were taken to the holding centres.'
Back at the slum behind the school, even though Sanju's two daughters are back home in Malda since the beginning of the academic year and her husband was 'fortunate enough' to not get picked up by the police — 'unlike many other Bengali Muslims from the slum' — she says they plan to go back to West Bengal as soon as they get their July wages.
Pointing to a slim black bag containing, among other documents, her family's Aadhaar cards and voter IDs, Sanju says, 'My parents lived with us too, but left for Malda after the detentions started. We both will get our police verification done in Malda and, hopefully, return to Gurugram within a month.'
Though she has not gone to work since July 19, Sanju counts her husband and herself 'lucky' because the Gurugram police considered their Aadhaar cards as proof of nationality.
And yet, her fear is palpable: 'Darr ka mahaul hain tabse, tabhi toh koi nahin ruka hain yahan (Everyone is scared since the detentions started, which is why many have left).'
With Sanju staying indoors since mid-July, the loss of income has hit the couple hard. 'We pay Rs 5,000 each for our two daughters, who are in a hostel in Malda. We are struggling to cobble together Rs 10,000 for their hostel fee this time. If four of my employers come through (and pay her a total of Rs 18,000), we might manage this month. But there are no jobs back in the village. The residents there live on free ration and sleep all day.'
Besides the worry over her daughters' future, she has been dreading surprise verification checks. 'My husband and I haven't had a decent night's sleep since mid-July. We keep expecting someone to come knocking, asking for proof of nationality.'
A few doors down in the same settlement, Mehbooba Yasmeen, 30, also from Malda district, has stayed back only because she is in the final stages of her pregnancy. A cook until recently, she cleaned houses and took care of toddlers before she got pregnant.
'The trains are too crowded for me to travel home safely right now. My husband, who works as a staffer in a nearby small cafe, is out working all day. I feel scared the entire time he is away.'
Calling the current situation 'worse than COVID', Mehbooba adds, 'My employers are scared to ask me to come to work. Even a trip to the (common) toilet here is full of fear. I am forever on the lookout for the CIA (Crime Investigation Agency of the Haryana Police).'
According to the locals, this special police unit has been picking them up on the suspicion that they are Bangladeshis or Rohingyas, not Indians. Sanju and Mehbooba said only a handful of their neighbours are migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Rajiv, a Class 5 student from Bihar, has a different take on this exodus. 'All my friends here (in the slum) were Bengalis. They got scared and left (after the detentions). I don't have anyone to play with now,' he says. 'I am confident they are Indians and not Bangladeshis.'
Around 10 km from DPS International School, at Chakkarpur's Yadav Chaupal area in Sector 28 of Gurugram, The Indian Express was either greeted by locked shanties or wary families preferring to stay indoors all day.
Sitting in her one-room jhuggi, Chavi Bibi, 30, a domestic worker, points to her daughter, 12, who is lying in bed with her smartphone. Her son, a student of Class 6, currently stays with his grandmother in a shanty in the lane over.
'She has not gone to school since July 20, after her father (a contract labourer) was picked up by the police from his jhuggi while he was taking a post-lunch nap,' she says, recalling the July 20 incident.
Detained on July 20, Chavi's husband Adam Ali, 37, returned home only late on July 22. She said working in a kothi when she received a call from Adam around 3 pm on July 20, informing her that he had been detained by the police.
'Humko laga mazaak kar rahein hain. Aadat hai unki (I thought he was joking. He's a prankster). But when I got home, he was not around. Tension toh hoga na, agar gharwaale ko leke jaayega (a husband's detention will cause tension).'
Originally from West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district, the family moved to Gurugram a decade ago in search of better jobs. Claiming that most of her neighbours, her father and brother left for West Bengal earlier in July, she adds, 'If the situation escalates, we will have no option but to go back. There are no jobs back at home. I don't know how we will earn enough to send our two children to school.'
Her eyes still glued to the smartphone, Chavi's daughter declares suddenly, 'Basti waalon ne bola, 'Papa aane ke baad meri muskaan badal gayi hai (Locals said my smile has changed ever since Papa came back)'.'
Once back home, she said Adam told her that he had been taken to multiple places during his detention. 'Instead of checking his Aadhaar card, he told me that they snatched it and put it in their pocket,' she claims.
According to Chavi, Adam was first taken to the Sector 29 police station, followed by the Sector 30 community centre and then the Sector 40 community centre, from where he was finally released late at night.
'We had no contact with him after his call at 3 pm on July 20. On July 22, he called me from someone's phone (from the Sector 40 community centre), asking him to pick him up. Then, a police officer took the phone and quietly instructed us not to call back on that number,' she claims.
After her husband's return home, Chavi says her in-laws submitted various documents as proof of Adam's Indian citizenship, including his voter ID, ration card, their own photographs, etc., at a local police station in Uttar Dinajpur district.
'After that, the local police station coordinated with the Gurugram police, who made Adam fill up a form. We have made multiple rounds of the police station since. Our family has been urging us to come back home but there are no jobs in the village,' says Chavi.
Glancing at her daughter anxiously, she whispers, 'Abhi toh sun rahe hain ki mahilaon aur bacchon ko bhi pakad ke le jaa rahe hai (we are hearing whispers of women and children being detained now).'
However, the police denied these allegations.
Pointing to a plastic bag with bitter gourds suspended from the bamboo rafters of her shanty, she says they finally bought vegetables nearly a week after he was detained.
'While Adam was detained, I lost my appetite. Our daughter would cry when asked to eat. How could we eat not knowing if he (Adam) was getting food or not?' says Chavi, staring at the bitter gourds.
What did not change for the family during Adam's detention was the fact that Chavi still had to go to work. 'I had already taken a four-day leave earlier. My employers said they would dock my pay if I took more leave.'