Indians, especially from the North, are desperate to get out of the country. Statistics show a huge increase — from less than 2000 in 2014 to more than 16,000 in 2022. I just cannot get my head around this somehow… Only those who are desperately unhappy will want to leave their own soil. I’m not talking about those who are privileged…they have choices and the option to make choices. They can go where they will. These are the poor…they have no options, no choices in this land to which they belong. What a terrible feeling of desolation they must have…and what kind of a country is this that people of the soil should feel that anywhere is better than here. The worst is that so many of migrants die along the way….they suffer so many frightful situations, not to mention the fear which must be eating into their very soul. They have to cope with loss of money, most often all that they have saved, loss of loved ones along the way, loss of self-respect, and finally the fear of loss of their own lives. And there is the constant unspoken fear of what they will do if and when they are allowed entry into another country, or, in case they are not allowed in, then what…? Bartering everything for a tiny place in the sun… it takes a long time, sometimes generations, for the fear to abate…
While one reason for this choice is economic, most are fleeing their own roots, their own country for something which is absolutely unpardonable—discrimmination. Many have given persecution as their reason to flee this country…persecution because they are Muslims, Christians, ‘low caste’ Hindus, and members of the LGBTQ communities. In any country, and especially a land as diverse as India, there are so many man-made divisions, but, no matter the lines on which these divisions are made, the fact is that all of these are human beings first and last. All differences are merely superficial. And the land they belong to, the soil on which they are born, is for them as much as it is for those who don’t fall into these categories. True, some have more, and some have less, but everyone has something. Most importantly there is the sense of belonging to one land. If that sense of belonging to the land is taken away, then what is left? To start all over in another land is traumatic to say the least, and then to establish themselves no matter how flimsily, demands a price that cannot even begin to be estimated… just too too sad. Unbelievably so. I know it is a foolish thing to ask, maybe even puerile…is there noone responsible for these people? Noone they can turn to or appeal to?