Between home, hostility & hard choices: Illegal immigrants fuel WB's polls

The noise around migrants from West Bengal swelled last month after the state's chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, led a march in Kolkata to protest against what she called the harassment of Bengalis

Rahim, an artisan from Kumartuli in West Bengal, is one of hundreds who leave their homes each year to travel across India in the run-up to Durga Puja, which falls in late September this year. His work, he says, is “sacred”: Shaping clay into the goddess Durga, “bringing something to life”. 

“I feel like the goddess has chosen me for this task. If the goddess herself didn’t look at my religion, why should I bother about it? Despite my religion, I am respected wherever I go. This year, though, we are undecided on whether we’d go,” he says, his voice weighted by the uncertainty stirred by deportation drives in parts of the country. 

The noise around migrants from West Bengal swelled last month after the state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, led a march in Kolkata to protest against what she called the harassment of Bengali workers in other states, particularly those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

“They are calling them Rohingyas. Rohingyas are in Myanmar, not here. Around 2.2 million migrant workers are being targeted. I appeal to them to return home. They will be safe here,” she said. 

The row deepened when a letter from the Delhi Police referred to Bangla as the “Bangladeshi language”, sparking outrage in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) accused the Centre of insulting a constitutionally recognised Indian language. The BJP retorted, accusing the TMC of shielding illegal Bangladeshi settlers. 

As the West Bengal elections near, reports from across India tell of Bengali migrants being interrogated, harassed, and even deported. In Odisha’s Jharsuguda, workers say police knocked at 3 am, herding them into cramped rooms on suspicion of being Bangladeshis and demanding multiple proofs of citizenship. In Gurugram, verification drives targeting undocumented immigrants have triggered mass departures, with 300–400 Bengali-speaking families heading back to West Bengal or other states. In Maharashtra, a Bengali worker’s death has become a flashpoint. 

What the numbers say? 

In Delhi’s Madanpur Khadar, Neelima, a young girl just learning English in a government school, stumbles over words scrawled on a police barricade. Her mother watches, uneasy. “She’s oblivious to what is going on here... We come here to earn a livelihood. It’s difficult to understand why they look at us as troublemakers,” she says. 

The Multiple Indicator Survey by the National Sample Survey (2020–21) lists employment as a primary reason for migration among men: 38.7 per cent in rural areas and 56.1 per cent in urban areas. For women, it is largely tied to marriage: 93.4 per cent in rural areas and 71.5 per cent in urban areas.  

The deportations pivot on documents — or the absence of them. The survey shows that just 27.9 per cent of rural migrants and 18.1 per cent of urban migrants transferred their ration cards when they moved. Aadhaar transfers were even rarer: 3 per cent in rural areas and 5.6 per cent in urban areas. 

A crisis in making? 

Fear of deportation is already pinching businesses in the National Capital Region. Reports say the sudden departure of Bengali-speaking sanitation workers has left waste management in disarray. With rubbish piling up, housing societies have been forced to hire tractor trolleys to cart it away. 

Security companies, too, are feeling the squeeze. Many rely on workers from West Bengal and Bihar, and say those who fled are hesitant to return. “We are falling short of nearly 100 workers at this point. We follow all due procedures under the law and have assured both the government and the workers. But it remains difficult to get these people back,” says an executive at a Gurugram-based security firm. 

Not an easy ride home 

Back in rural West Bengal, those who have returned face a bleaker reality. Jobs are scarce, and the pay — when work is found — is often half of what they earned in Delhi or Mumbai. “The wages in Delhi or Mumbai are twice of what we earn over here. The only possible work here is daily wage labour. While I feel safer now, the job situation is much worse,” says a migrant.