Ludhiana to London

Arguably, the largest industrial city in India’s Sikh dominated state of Punjab is Ludhiana, located adjacent to the Doaba Region whose claim to fame is its large Diaspora abroad – including the UK. Hip departmental stores compete with run-off-the- mill shops in villages, most of which boast indecently big bungalows inhabited for a few days annually by their NRI (non-resident Indian) owners.

As the Doaba NRIs shuttle between London and Ludhiana, so do the daily wage laborers between India’s Bihar state and Ludhiana. Upto 70 percent of Bihar’s population lives below the poverty line and, till a few years back, was better known for its “wild west” lawlessness under its former chief minister Laloo. The Bhaiyyas,as the migrants from Bihar are known all over India, virtually form the working hands of industry in Ludhiana, in fact the most of Punjab. They handle menial and manual work for a pittance, living in temporary, close-knit, congested slums in sub-human conditions (even by Indian standards). But once a year, for a few days, they travel back to Bihar to their inglenooks in their best fineries. An example of success to emulate for Bihar’s poor, this migration increasingly becomes a steady, regular annual feature – trickle becomes flood. They congest townships, exhibit a mob mentality, view attempts to integrate them with suspicion and are particularly sensitive to criticism to which the response is brashness born out of an inferiority complex. But today, bhaiyya settlers have become a major vote bank in Ludhiana’s political scene and much as they may be detested, they cannot be ignored. White collar lifestyles amongst Punjabis dictate that bhaiyyas are needed, even if they are not wanted.

Bhaiyyas are to Ludhiana what the Asian immigrants are to London. Howsoever repulsive this odious comparison will seem to the latter, this is precisely the attitude shared by the typical next door British “Curry-Basher” towards the immigrants.

The famed British (or for that matter, American or European) way of life is all about peace, freedom, liberal values, endless opportunities and unconditional assimilation. Great Britain, like India, is a melting pot of an amazing multitude of cultures and races. All shades and grades of rightists duel with leftists irrespective of color or creed. Notwithstanding the simmering and subdued racist undercurrent, the nation stands as one when the Union Jack sways in the wind. But Indians are considered to be a threat everywhere - not the radical islamo-fascists kind but the bhaiyya kind. Heck, they do not blow bombs or fly airplanes into buildings or have an ambition to convert the world to Hinduism. They are the ones who quote the rules or use greenback-bended rules to jam the proverbial foot in the door. They live a wretched life for years doing menial, back-breaking work slowly doing a phoenix-from-the-ashes act until a senator suddenly realizes that all the back office processing is now with Ludhiana (or Bangalore for that matter) and jobs have “migrated” to India. Then, suddenly, another whiz kid journalist realizes that his childhood township has been overwhelmed with an alien Indian culture. Sounds familiar and of course, Ludhiana understands.

Albeit White Britain looked down at the immigrant communities during the fuzzy period of their assimilation, it now considers its multi-cultural society a victory of liberal values over racism. But, seamless integration is as yet a distant dream.

Curry bashing exists because Indians have nothing to flaunt but their impoverished and split personality, the result of centuries of invasions and decades of post-independence pseudo-modernist socialist governance. India’s cultural wealth, majorly defined by its Hindu roots, is now an anathema because of a sustained left liberal campaign. Vedas, Upanishads, Arthashastra, epics like Mahabharta and Ramayana, Bhagvad Gita have been relegated as far-right wing Hindutva staple. All that remains is the Kamasutra, celebrity slums, cheap labour and Eric Burne’s contention that India has a life script of mass suicide through an uncontrolled population growth. A few socialites in expensive tussar silk sarees snug in their Victoria’s Secret underwired lingerie and smug in their faux liberal social causes hob- nob with London’s glitterati attempting to “come up to their standards”. Living this falsehood, India has developed a surfeit of street-smartness but a severe paucity of intellectualism, a place where back-stabbing guile is valued above cultured decency. Coming from this stock, the NRIs have quietly adapted to their new homeland, demanding nothing, cowed into good behavior by an efficient administration and the threat of repatriation. With no social contribution to flaunt but cheap labor, the stage is set for curry-bashing. And how does one fight it? Not by mass rallies, as in Australia! Not by riots, as in UK recently. This standard technique – mob power - is the language of the underprivileged aka bhaiyyas in Ludhiana, and brings to fore the threat to a way of life. The cycle starts, with the level of violence sequentially rising.

The Islamo-fascist movement has significantly contributed towards this sense of insecurity, what with Gaddafi’s 200 dollars – a – sermon for Italian women, Swiss apprehensions of a mosque laced skyline, French discomfort with the burqa, fatwa against the Dutch MLA Geert Wilders, the German Interior Ministry’s assessment of a 1000 live-in potential Islamic terrorists and, across the Atlantic, the mosque near WTC Ground Zero. The talk of a Eurabia or Shariat while living in a democratic society is ironic because these models already exist in the Islamic regions, which countless immigrants are trying to escape.

Probably, the biggest sufferers of the racial attacks motivated by Islamo-phobia are the Sikhs who form a major chunk of the NRIs from Punjab; known for their enterprise, optimism and celebration of life. The most visible facets of a devout Sikh are his turban and beard, easily, and unfortunately, confused with that of an Islamic cleric – or Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban / Al Qaeda operatives. Sikhism, a militant response of Hinduism to Islam, has absorbed aspects of both. Sikh means a disciple, or student; so does Talib, from which Taliban is derived. Both consider themselves as warriors of God – hence the martial traditions including the turban to protect the head. Both reject idol worship. The dome of a Gurudwara- the Sikh’s temple- is rounded like a mosque but striped like a Hindu temple. But the similarity ends there. The Sikhs were akin to Europe’s Crusaders, sworn to protect Indians from Turkis , or Islamic invaders. If anything, it is the Islamo-fascists who should be attacking them!

The baseline is this. The immigrants have to leave their sense of inferiority or pretension of superiority and blend seamlessly. Notwithstanding Britain’s or the West’s enduring capability to assimilate, the burqa or the turban are alien concepts in this free land, where nationalism should be worn on the sleeve, not one’s religious distinctness. The immigrants and their ancestors came here with the dream of savoring a better way of life. And to live this dream, they have to keep it that way – by changing themselves, not their chosen country or culture.

It is a merger, or a migration.