Leader of the Ruling BJP, Calls for Complete Halt to Migration to Delhi

-Rajesh Tyagi/ 2 August 2014 

Speaking on the Delhi Budget in Rajya Sabha, Vijay Goyal, one of the top leaders in Hindu supremacist BJP, lashed out at the migrants to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, holding them responsible for the woes of Delhites, that they suffer from lack of infrastructure. He further added that “if we have to solve the problems of Delhi, we need to stop this inflow of migrants". Before this, Sheila Dixit of Congress has expressed similar views against migrants from UP and Bihar.

Sectarian and reactionary views of Goyal or Dixit are popularly shared by big section of pro-rich political establishment. In their bid to cover up their incapacity to provide basic amenities to people even in prime metro cities like New Delhi, the successive capitalist governments attempt to misdirect the concerns of people towards fake but carefully selected targets.

 

Development plans for Delhi, hugely funded by local and central exchequers have been marred with colossal corruption, mismanagement and bureaucratic laxities and are primarily responsible for the chaos that haunts Delhi and its surroundings. The growth of unauthorised constructions is no way attributable to migrants, but to the well-known nexus between government authorities and builder mafia, that thrives openly in Delhi. Major shares of the funds that are allocated for infrastructure are either swindled by authorities through corrupt means or are spent extravagantly by elite politicians and bureaucrats.

The migrants to Delhi, in fact, are the worst victims of this situation, as they are forced to reel under most inhuman conditions of life in slum colonies that exist in outlawed periphery of civilisation, always under the sword of demolitions threatened and carried out by the governments. The threat of demolition of their houses, in which poor people usually invest the savings of their lives, forces them to bind themselves to this or that leader or party of elite rulers.

The abominable conditions of life, for the majority of workers and toilers, in and around Delhi, are being maintained, thus, by the callous governments led by pro-capitalist parties. Delhi on the one hand presents extreme riches with lavish bungalows, expensive cars and extreme luxuries of all kinds, while alongside it co-exist large stretches of hundreds of thousands of shanties that are deprived of most essential amenities of life like toilets, electricity and potable water.

Even worse are the conditions in UP and Bihar, where all parties of ruling elite have taken turns to rule successively. Both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are home to the largest population segments in India, and are among the most economically and socially backward states in the country.  Rate of poverty, unemployment, crimes, disease, lawlessness and illiteracy are the highest in the two states of UP and Bihar in the country, that accentuate migration, forcing the people to flee at the very first opportunity.

No doubt that huge migration has taken place from backward UP and Bihar towards more developed regions like Delhi, but the truth is that these migrants, vast majority of whom is comprised of the workers and toilers, have contributed a lot to the recent development of Delhi. Instead of recognising their contribution, parties and leaders of ruling elite have discredited them, holding them responsible for the woes of Delhi.

Extremely shameful are the statements of the elite leaders that hold the poor workers and toilers responsible for the plight of Delhi. However, these statements are reflective of the mindset and attitude of the leaders and parties of rich and elite, that have nothing to offer to the poor and toilers except fake accusations, blames and hate towards them.

The rightists have a track record of such hatred towards the workers and poors, and towards the regions and communities associated with them. Their aversion  that they have towards Dalits and Muslims is also largely attributable to the fact that this communities, are home to big sections of workers and poors, like the regions of UP and Bihar. In Mumbai, Shiv-Sena has been notorious in conducting such vicious campaign against migrants to Mumbai, again from UP and Bihar. Earlier, Shiv-Sena had carried out similar violent campaign against the migrant workers from South India to Mumbai.

The statement by Vijay Goyal, is not an isolated one in its kind. It is part of a well orchestrated  political agenda of the right wing political regime to target the sections of workers and poors, based on region, community or religion, pit them against each other, and hold them responsible for systemic failures of capitalist establishment itself.  

Needless to underline that mobility of the labour is a factor in our times that is of tremendous economic and political significance as it represents the most revolutionary current in the process of global integration of the world. The reactionaries, the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists and their lackeys thus fear of this mobility and stand in avowed opposition to it. The forces of status-quo strive to keep the working populations inert, tied up to regions, states, provinces or countries and look upon the mobile working class, that defies all false frontiers, with extreme hostility.

The chaos in cities like Delhi is the creation of corrupt elite leaders, parties and bureaucracy under them, and it is only through their ouster that the cities would be freed of all crime, corruption, chaos, wants and repression, to become livable for human beings. To achieve this, the workers, toilers and poors have to break decisively with these leaders and parties of big business, and unite against them on the basis of a socialist program.