Even as the EC launched the sinister SIR drive in Bihar to verify the citizenship of Bihar electors, Bengali-speaking migrant workers from West Bengal and Assam, primarily those who also happen to be Muslim, started experiencing a wave of attacks in state after BJP-ruled 'double engine' state. Initial reports came from Odisha and Chhattisgarh, then reports started coming in from Jai Hind Camp, a registered 'jhuggi' in south Delhi. For the last couple of weeks, the most systematic and vicious targeting is being witnessed in Delhi and its 'smart city' neighbour Gurugram, which is part of the National Capital Region located in Haryana. After the first wave of detention of several hundred labourers that lasted even a week for some, now we see an exodus of terrorised migrant workers and their families to their places of origin.

The Delhi-NCR unit of our party has been closely involved with the anti-demolition campaign in Delhi. On the basis of the regular visits and close interaction of our comrades with the affected people of Jai Hind Camp and most recently the migrant workers of Gurgaon, we can clearly see an unmistakable fear that now grips the migrant population. In the wake of the BJP's victory in Delhi Assembly elections earlier this year and following the launch of SIR in Bihar which is the first step towards a nationwide NRC, there is now a renewed targeting of people in the name of suspected foreign infiltrators.

The BJP tried to make the alleged influx of ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ its biggest poll agenda in Jharkhand during the Assembly elections in late 2024. Even in the course of the ongoing SIR in Bihar, news was planted in the media about Booth Level Officers coming across people from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal in the villages of Bihar, even though there has been no official mention of this point in any of the EC press releases or in the voluminous affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court. What matters for the Sangh brigade is promoting the perception that there is a major influx of illegal immigrants and keeping the people in a permanent state of fear, insecurity and division.

Our investigation into the Gurugram detention complaints and extensive conversations with the affected people have revealed a very disturbing and insidious pattern at work. The administrative authorities and police personnel who agreed to speak to us made two somewhat contradictory claims. One presented it as a routine exercise of verification undertaken at regular intervals while another mentioned some specific MHA order mandating a targeted time-bound exercise. The mysterious MHA order has been widely referred to but is not in the public domain and we still do not know what kind of verification the MHA is actually trying to carry out. Whether the exercise is routine or a special one, the built-in bias was however quite glaring.

The Sector 10 police station said they had a standing order to keep a close watch on migrant workers from West Bengal and Assam. In their policing culture they would treat every migrant worker from West Bengal and Assam as a potential criminal! As well as intensifying the long established biases against Muslims and Dalits, policing in Modi era is exhibiting an open and growing prejudice against the farmers and workers of India. Just the other day we heard an ADG of Bihar talk about increased incidence of crime in the months of May and June because farmers do not have much work in that period! Apart from this inbuilt anti-poor anti-migrant bias of policing, Bengali-speaking Muslim migrant workers face added vulnerability and insecurity because of their linguistic and religious identity. This has been the common experience of every harassed migrant worker family in Gurugram.

Almost in every case migrant workers reported having been picked up by unidentified people in unnumbered vehicles before being handed over to the police and herded into community centres turned into makeshift detention camps rechristened as holding centres. Some reported being beaten up and tortured, some were lucky to have been released the same day, but many were detained for days. Production of extensive identity documents by the detained workers was not considered sufficient, what saved them eventually was communication from police stations in their places of origin. Now migrant workers are being asked to submit verification papers with two local references and signatures of landlords and employers. For precarious migrant workers, often technically self-employed, living in slums, this is a near impossible challenge. Equally difficult is to obtain police verification certificate from their places of origin in BJP-ruled states.

Many detained migrant workers and their families had to pay considerable sums of money to secure their release. Add to this the loss of income for the period of detention and the humiliation and trauma suffered by their families in Gurugram as well as their places of origin, and we can understand why Bengali-speaking Muslim migrant workers in Gurugram are so fear-stricken and desperate to return to their places of origin. Forced to migrate in search of a slightly better income, they built today's Gurugram city and have been serving the affluent families living in the city's high rise apartments with their sweat and tears and are now being pushed out by a cruel administration and a hostile hate-filled environment.

In the 75th anniversary of the foundation of our Republic, the constitutional character of the Republic and the rights of individual citizens who constitute the Republic are in grave danger. The plight of the terrorised Bengali-speaking migrant workers is no different from the threat of disenfranchisement facing the Hindi-speaking migrant workers of Bihar. The Constitution of India had built bridges of unity to weld India's diverse languages, religions and cultures into a vibrant framework of liberty, equality and fraternity. Today the bridges are being replaced by walls of hate and division. The fascist project of creating internal enemies and disempowered groups of second grade citizens is a recipe for disaster and must be foiled.