On 10th January 2013, I visited village
Kanvriyawad in Nagaur distt of
Rajasthan. It is 18 km from Merta city and around 100 km from Pushkar. I
was accompanied by the local activist Umed Singh, a Dhram guru and my colleague
Heva.
For past 3 months, some Pakistani Rabbaris have
been regularly calling Neetaben and Laljibhai for help. Finally we could meet
them yesterday. They are a group of 6 families, comprising 21 children, 5 women
(one woman and her two children did not get visa, they are expected to arrive
soon) and 9 men. They arrived in India by train on 22 October 2012 on a 30 day visa,
which was extended to three month visa expiring in March 2013.
They belong to Tharparkar district of Sindh in
Pakistan. Incidentally a quick google search shows that the largest
concentration of Hindus lies in Sindh in Pakistan and every month an estimated
60-100 Hindu families enter India with the intention of never going back to
Pakistan. This group claims that they are the first from the Rabbari community
to migrate to India and there are approximately 3000 Rabbari families who
would all like to migrate to India.
It took them 8-10 months to get visa for India at
the cost of Pakistani ruppess 15000 (INR 7000) per person. Average family size
of 6 in this case means 90000 Pakistani Rupees for visa only.
They sold their land, house and other assets in
Pakistan before coming here. They also informed that they have to sell at very
low prices and some of them could not find a buyer for their land. They must be
having strong reasons to leave everything and come to another country which is
equally unknown to them. I spoke to men and women separately to find out what
forced them to leave their homes. ‘hamari
behenein aur bachche surakshit nahi hai wahan. Hum to kaise bhi reh lenge par
aage bachchon ke saath kuch bhi ho sakta hai’ (Our women and children are
not safe. We [men] can somehow live there but don’t know what may happen to our
children in future). Security fear, violence and religious persecution weighed
heavily on their minds. Women and girls said they could not go out of their
homes, they were bound to their homes. Girls were not even sent to school in
Pakistan. ‘wahan ke aadmi kee najar achchi nahi hai’(men do not see hindu women
with good eyes).
They reported cases of forced/bonded labour, kidnappings
for ransom, forced conversions, rape, robberies, religion restrictions, etc on
the Hindus.
This group is given shelter in a gaushala run by
Nirmal maharaj in the village Kanvriyawad. He was also their local guarantor
required to get visa. In Pakistan these
families lived in a village close to a city and were engaged in trading
activities. Though, traditionally they belong to a family of camel rearers. Currently
5-6 men of this group are engaged in daily labour, selling fruits and
vegetables in the village and other petty jobs. They are supported by the
community contribution in form of food and cash. However this may not help them
to survive in long run. There are not enough livelihood opportunities in the
villages, agriculture is rainfed and no industries nearby. Infact most of the
villagers themselves seasonally migrate in search of labour.
This group cannot even move to any other bigger
city in Rajasthan or outside because their visa is restricted to village
Kanvriyawad.
Out of the 21 children 10 are school going.
Currently they are enrolled in a private school 4 kms away. What children might
be feeling and thinking is difficult to say. They did seem to be excited with
our visit and looked bright. One of the young boys, Prabhuram, 11-12 years old
helped me communicate with women because they could not speak hindi. He could
also talk few lines in English. Prabhuram was studying in 4th class
in Pakistan but here all children have to start from class one because the
curriculum is in Hindi, which was not their language in Pakistan. Prabhuram did
not show his disappointment for starting school from class 1 in front of us, I
could only encourage him by saying he can get double promotions if studies
hard. If this group and more families come in future, the education of children
will be a big challenge.
Two of the
women are pregnant. All the women were confined to their homes in Pakistan, now
they feel freedom to go around in the village and they are happy about it. The
women showed the traditional handmade rajai and pillow covers they make. 15-10 rajais are given in the daughter’s
marriage. They have never sold them.
What are their
plans now? They need help to move out of the village, primarily because the
village does not have any opportunities to earn. ‘We want to come to Gujarat.’
They have seen many other groups going to Gujarat and have heard that there are
more opportunities in Gujarat. They said we are willing to work, we need work
and a house to live for our family.
There are many
issues and problems that they might be facing, but the single most worry is
daily income. The visa restricts them to the village Kanvriyawad. They say that
if they can find a local guarantor else where they can get visa for that place.
The process is such that the SP of new place has to write to the SP of current
location, upon verification and approval the visa can be obtained for another
location.
The immediate
concerns that arise are:
- · Meeting daily expenses in the short term
- · Legal knowledge/counseling on visa extension, migration to another location, and citizenship
- · Ensure they are not exploited by middlemen, agents, local police
- · Psycho-social support for children, women and men, and
- · Long term integration plan for this group and other families who want to migrate to India
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