Fading Hopes: The Departure Of Punjabi Youth And The Erosion Of Punjab's Vibrancy

Gurjeet Singh*, with Canada Balliye playing in his Alto, along with his friends, is on his way to the famous Gurudwara Talhan Sahib, or Aeroplane Gurudwara, as it is called in common parlance.

As they are travelling, the lavish mansions along the roadside stand empty. After reaching the Aeroplane Gurudwara, Gurjeet and his friends offer a toy plane and pray that their visa to Canada gets approved.

Gurjeet and his friends are among the millions in Punjab who dream of leaving Punjab and settling abroad.

In 2023, so far, 121,593 police clearance certificates (PCCs) have been issued in Punjab. PCCs are issued to passport holders who have applied for residential status, employment, or long term visas.

Here’s another mind boggling number — More than 100,000 students who leave Punjab every year for higher studies rarely come back.

With so many students aspiring to study in the USA and Europe, IELTS (International English Language Testing System) coaching centres and travel agencies have become commonplace across the length and breadth of Punjab.

As per the data of the Punjab government, there are more than 7,000 travel agents in the state. 

However, the visa approval process for Western countries is not that easy to crack. For example, to get a study visa for admission to an undergraduate course, a band higher than 6 is necessary in IELTS. Other than the exam, there is a lot of documentation required.  

To get a visa approval, people in Punjab spend years, sometimes decades. Gurbaj Singh from Gurdaspur, in the course of nine years, has spent more than Rs 30 lakh and still hasn’t gotten the coveted USA visa.

For Punjabis, however, the desire to leave their homeland outweighs the disappointment brought on by failure. In the face of legal means not working, illegal means are adopted. 

Punjabis travel to Russia, and from there, via land routes, they enter Europe. These routes are called 'donkey routes', a euphemism for illegal routes, and the travel agents facilitating this journey are called donkers.

One of the most infamous donkey routes is to the USA through the dreaded Darien Gap between Panama and Columbia.

This route is notorious for being filled with dreaded drug cartels, venomous snakes, fatal diseases, and the dead bodies of those who couldn’t make it.

The average cost these donkers charge for a trip to the USA is Rs 20 lakh per person. Similarly, donkey routes to Europe via Serbia, Russia, and other such countries have similar costs and circumstances.

Punjabis have excelled in these donkey routes. So far, more than 45,000 Indians have illegally entered the USA in 2023, and as per the news reports, the majority of these are from Punjab and Gujarat.

The desire to leave Punjab is so intense that Punjabis are even willing to work as slaves.

In Italy, around 15,000 Indians, the majority of them Punjabi illegal immigrants, work on Kiwi farms like slaves, especially in the harvest season beginning in September-October.

Many illegal immigrants of Punjabi origin can be found working on various types of fruit and vegetable farms in Portugal and Spain. Other than the farms, they can also be found working in the UK and all across Europe in different types of menial jobs in abysmal conditions.

Politicians too are not far behind in taking advantage of those who are desperate to get out of Punjab.

One way of reaching the USA is by seeking asylum in the country on grounds of religious persecution. The migrants, by paying donkers lakhs of rupees and keeping their lives at stake, reach the US-Mexico border.

After reaching there, they present their case at the immigration and asylum tribunal in the form of asylum letters by the MP from Sangrur and the Khalistani supporter, Simranjit Singh Mann.

Mann says, “I’m very grateful to all the countries that honour this letter. Our (Sikhs’) security in India is in danger, and by international law, we can seek asylum legitimately, which people are doing. If the state rules by terror and doesn’t accept some, then people will flee.”

As per his own admission, Mann has issued more than 50,000 asylum letters, with each of them costing Rs 35,000.

The majority of these immigrants haven’t been religiously persecuted, but this asylum letter by a MP of a democratic country has become an easy way for the migrants to reach the USA and for Mann to get money to run separatist agenda.

Now, the question that arises is: Why are Punjabis so frantic to leave and even work as slaves in foreign lands?

The inbuilt urge to explore new frontiers, stagnation of the agricultural economy, and terrorism induced disruption of industries are the three main factors responsible for the youth of Punjab increasingly leaving the country and looking for greener pastures someplace else.

Let's explore each factor individually.

Punjabis, since the time of the Gurus, have always been willing to cross frontiers. Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s udasis were across the length and breadth of India and beyond. Guru Teg Bahadur Ji used to travel to meet Sikh Sangats across the country.

The Punjabi and Sindhi Khatri community is especially known for its resilience and business acumen. There have been multiple instances in medieval and modern history when this community was forced to relocate, but it always survived and then thrived.

Today, businesses like Ranbaxy, Berger Paints, India Today Group, Hero Moto, Hero Cycles, Apollo Tyres, Max Life, and many more are all owned by members of this community.

In modern times, post World War-II, the booming economies of Western Europe and the USA attracted many Punjabis. However, these were still small streams of immigration.

However, by the mid 1970s, with the onset of the terrorism phase, the industrial centres of Punjab in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Mandi Gobindgarh, Batala, and Jalandhar faced major setbacks from which they haven’t been able to recover till now.

This started a major stream of Punjabi migration to Europe and North America.

The much famed green revolution, which had set Punjab on an exponential trajectory of growth, had started to become a burden for farmers since the 1990s.

While the cost of farming inputs, like fertilisers, continues to rise, farmers' incomes are unable to keep pace with these rising costs. Additionally, the amount of land that succeeding generations inherit is gradually diminishing.

In Punjab, 45 per cent of farmers have less than five hectares of land, which is not adequate at all. The average landholding of a farmer in Punjab is 3.62 hectares.

As per Dr G S Kalkat, the former agriculture commissioner of India, 15 acres of agricultural land is the minimum a farmer should have for a decent living standard.

Now the next question that comes to mind is — What can be done to stop this migration?

There is a need for focused attempts at the generation of employment opportunities in the state, but not hollow attempts.

In 2018, the Indian National Congress-led Punjab government opened a start-up hub in Mohali, but with no clear road map, that hub has now become a center for BPOs.

Similarly, in 2018, artificial intelligence and data science courses were introduced at the Punjabi University, Patiala, but with no vision and a lack of planning and financial support, these courses failed to pick up.

There is a dire need for the educational institutions in Punjab to be in alignment with the needs of industries.

Omkar Pahwa, the MD of Avon Cycles in Ludhiana, says, “Students come to us with engineering degrees, and they cannot even take measurements on a vernier caliper, a basic tool of an engineer. They can’t even write a leave application in English.”

The average starting salary of an engineering graduate in Punjab is Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000. With no job security in the state, the Punjabi youth, after completing their schooling, put all their resources and efforts into moving abroad.

The incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had made big promises of reviving industries in the state, but till now, Bhagwant Mann has failed miserably.

Due to the increasing law and order failures in the state, along with the state's debt of over Rs 3 lakh crore, industries are not willing to set up their bases in the state.

The AAP-led Punjab government providing free electricity in the state is also not helping. The annual expenditure from the state exchequer for free electricity exceeds Rs 20,000 crore.

In fact, due to the aforementioned factors, after the AAP came to power, already existing industries in the state started investing in Uttar Pradesh.

The situation is currently dire in the state. The need of the hour is to look beyond short term electoral gains and have a clear vision along with strong willpower to execute that vision.