Migration bug: Haryana youth goes the Punjab way

Migration bug: Haryana youth goes the Punjab way

Chandigarh: Compulsion — this one word echoes across villages and conversations in Haryana. More specifically in the Ambala, Karnal, Yamunanagar, Kaithal and Fatehabad belts, which have seen the maximum number of rural youth leaving the comforts of their homes to go to foreign shores. Legally and illegally.

We are educating people to go to agents registered by the Ministry of External Affairs and not fall prey to others wanting to make quick money. There have been many cases of fake visas and fake tickets where the complainant is sent back from the airport. There have been a few cases of deaths.

While many hope to get a foothold through a study visa or other authorised routes, there are others who enter a country of their choosing stealthily in the dead of the night, after paying through the nose. It is an arduous journey and the fear of being caught weighs heavy on their minds, but the hope of a better life propels them to keep going notwithstanding the huge risks. Migration has become the buzzword among the youth of rural Haryana, even women. With more and more youth prodding their families to sell off land to fund their travel, the state is gradually going the Punjab way.

Skewed job opportunities, merit being overlooked in government jobs, rising crime graph, rampant corruption and deteriorating quality of life in Haryana are turning the youth to foreign shores.

Sewa Singh, 70, a farmer of Dherdu village in Kaithal district, vouches for it. “Majority of our boys has gone. Their families remain. Our village has 1,100 votes. Even if all the voters turn up for polling, the figure won’t touch 800. The rest have gone abroad and are doing well for themselves,” he says, with a glint of pride in his eyes.

The number of IELTS centres and travel agents is rising at an exponential rate in Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Karnal, Yamunanagar, Fatehabad and many other places in Haryana. Pride, yes, at the boys getting ‘settled’, but a walk in the deserted lanes paints a grim picture. The village is slowly losing the generation that has kept it alive. Left behind are elderly couples and locked rooms.

Sitting on a charpoy at the entrance of his huge courtyard, 65-year-old Jagdish Chander says, “We were 11 members in this house a few years back. My brother was the first to leave. His sons followed, then their families. My daughter went after them. Now, I sit at one end of the house, near the entrance, and my wife, Kamla Rani, at the other, in her room. All those abroad, in the US, Italy and Greece, make video calls. We are illiterate and have only learnt to pick up the phone. We don’t even know how to make that call. The house is empty but we know they are all happy and earning well.”

Many villages are seeing the exodus of youngsters, leaving behind their parents and locked rooms. Kamla Rani misses all of them but underlines that she and her husband will survive this separation. Like the rest of the village does in the knowledge that the children are happy.

A former sarpanch of Khanoda village, Darshan Singh, says caste is no bar in the yearning for settling abroad. While it has a lot to do with following in the footsteps of acquaintances, it is also about the disillusionment of being unskilled and unemployed. “The Jat and Ror communities have taken the lead, and the moneyed are sending their children abroad. Land is being sold to fund the foreign dreams. There are a few instances where a couple of Scheduled Caste families in the village have taken loans to send their children abroad. Nobody wants to miss out on the chance of a better life,” he says, adding that migration also results in good matches for the boys.

Prof Khazan Singh Sangwan, a retired professor of sociology at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, attributes the spurt in migration to “better job opportunities, attractive earnings, crime-free atmosphere and quality of life”. Moreover, one member of the family getting settled abroad opens the door for other members, he says. The way it happens in Punjab.

Nine of the 11 members of Jagdish Chander’s family have migrated abroad. The sexagenarian and his wife now live alone in a huge house at Dherdu village in Kaithal.

Prof Sangwan maintains that skewed job opportunities, merit being overlooked in government jobs, rising crime graph, rampant corruption and the deteriorating quality of life in Haryana are turning the youth to foreign shores.

Just like Dherdu, in Jagdishpura, too, a disconcerting silence greets the visitor. Old village homes have made way for palatial modern houses, but those left behind quietly go about their days. This village has a tradition of young men going to foreign shores in search of work but the last few years, after Covid, have seen a near exodus.

In her early thirties, Raji Kaur (name changed) has not seen her husband since 2011 and any chance of their reunion in the near future appears remote. A post-graduate, he could not find a suitable job to sustain his family. “He went to the UK when I was expecting my second daughter. She has only seen her father in video calls and the elder one, too, has no recollection. We see him and talk to him nearly every day and he sends us money. He can’t take us till his papers are in order. We are waiting patiently for our turn. We don’t want him to come back because there is nothing for him here,” she says.

A village elder, Nirmal Kaur, chips in, “Nobody wants to send their children so far away but our situation leaves us with little choice. There is no income from any source, there are no jobs and the earnings from agriculture are just not enough. If we don’t send our sons abroad, our livelihood is in peril. The government has no solution for this growing tribe of unemployed youth. The illegal entry to foreign shores becomes the only hope for some, even if land has to be sold. It has become a compulsion,” she utters the oft-spoken word. Her husband Gian Singh and co-villagers nod in unison.

“It took my son one month to reach the US. We were so worried that we hardly ate. The anxiety till he reached his destination was almost killing. Now that he is there, he is doing well. It has been five years. We have rebuilt our house with the money he sends. His wife is with us and our world is perfect,” says Jitender Singh (name changed).

Married for just a month before her husband left for the US over two months back, this young villager keeps her phone close all the time. “It keeps us connected. He will come back and take me once he can legalise his entry,” she says.

In Karnal’s Baldi, similar stories are repeated. A farmer’s brother and a cousin went four months apart. “The landholdings have shrunk and do not yield enough to make ends meet. There are no jobs in the market. This is the best way to earn decent money even if you are not skilled. In my village, nobody was ever interested in settling abroad but rising unemployment has left them with no choice. In the last two years alone, 10 boys have taken the donkey route,” he says, not willing to be identified.

Another tell-tale sign of the booming interest in migration is the mushrooming of IELTS centres. Billboards of agents promising prompt visas and selling foreign dreams have found their way onto electricity poles in villages. In Kaithal alone, the number of IELTS centres has grown from three to 102 in a span of four years. In Kurukshetra, the number stands at 172 while there are 49 immigration and IELTS centres in Ambala.