Distress migration, river erosion key issues ahead of poll in Malda, Murshidabad
“People who go out of the State to work don’t die,” Raqul Sheikh, 32, assured his wife, Rabijan, 30, who did not want him to leave their village Chauduar in West Bengal’s Malda district in search of work.
A week after he left, in the second week of February, Rabijan got a phone call from Aizawl, Mizoram informing her that Sheikh had died in an accident. Carrying their nine-monthold child in her arms, Rabijan laments, “I did not want him to go, but there was no work here and he did not listen to me.”
Sheikh is not the only one from Chauduar to have died while working at a construction site in Mizoram. In August last year, 12 men from the village died when a bridge being constructed by the Railways collapsed on the workers, also in Aizawl. The village, located about 20 km from Malda town, is still recovering from the tragedy.
‘Few men left’
Nuresha Khatun, former Congress panchayat pradhan (head) of Chauduar, says the village has very few men left because most have migrated for work. “I remember when 11 bodies and later, one more body, came to the village from Mizoram. But the tragedy has not stopped men from going out to seek employment as migrant workers,” says Khatun. The men left behind in the village are either over 60 or injured from working in towers or bridges in other States.
Nemai Chandra Basak, Congress president of Ratua II block, admits that jobs in Malda are irregular and low-paying (₹200 to ₹250 a day). She feels that if minimum wages (starting from ₹376 and going up to ₹501) are guaranteed, people will not work elsewhere and risk their lives.
Lost land
The river Ganga gently ows along the Panchanandapur Ghat in Malda, where large wooden boats line the bank.
Khidir Box, in his 50s, a primary school teacher and resident of Bangitola village under the Mothabari Assembly seat, takes a boat ride under the scorching sun. “I want to show you my home,” he says.
As the boat navigates the chars (river islands formed by silt), he points to two places along the river where his homes were located. “I have faint memories of the rst house. The next house disappeared before my eyes in 1999,” he recalls.
As a boat carrying about 30 people approaches the opposite bank, Box points out that the land there, Paranpur Palasgachi village, was earlier part of Kaliachak II block in Malda, until the river changed its course in the 1960s, leaving the area submerged and displacing thousands. Although the land resurfaced a decade later after the river moved eastward, the area now falls under the Rajmahal Assembly segment in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj district.
Kalyan Rudra, chairperson of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board and author of Rivers of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta, says on the map of Malda, it can be seen that the river formed a mighty bend between Manikchak and Farakka Barrage. “More than 200 sq. km has been eroded along the left bank of the river,” he says.
Experts say the sediment deposition is leading to the emergence of chars in Malda. The river is eroding the left bank in the district, and the relatively sediment-free water downstream Farakka is eroding the right bank in Murshidabad, and in both these cases, West Bengal is losing land. As the land is lost and agricultural soil denuded, people continue to move out of the State to look for work.
River becomes political
Four seats across Malda and Murshidabad districts (Malda Uttar, Malda Dakshin, Jangipur, and Murshidabad) will go to polls on May 7, while Baharampur will go to polls on May 13.
River erosion and the issue of migration are being raised by candidates in their own way. Trinamool Congress candidate from Malda Dakshin Shahnawaz Ali Rehan, who is also a PhD scholar at Oxford University, says the construction of the Farakka Barrage was wrongly done; it obstructed the river, leading to the problem of erosion.
Located 300 km north of Kolkata, the project was implemented to facilitate a pact on the sharing of the Ganga water between India and Bangladesh.
The Trinamool candidate says the Central government should take a more proactive role in addressing the problem of river erosion.
Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, the BJP MLA from English Bazar in Malda, feels only the party can address the issue of erosion and says though river water is part of the National Waterways, the land belongs to West Bengal.
‘Political unwillingness’
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claims that her government has brought migrants under the ambit of the State government’s Swasthya Sathi Health Insurance Scheme, whereas BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari highlights the poor economic condition of the place, saying the youth are migrating to work in BJPruled States. The State government has set up the West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board, which enlisted about 21 lakh migrant workers in the State by November 2023.
In the heart of Baharampur
town, Matiur Rahaman, 42, runs an NGO, Karna Subarna Welfare Society, which tries to reach out to migrant workers stuck in foreign countries. Rahaman says when he approaches politicians across political lines for issues of migrant workers, they do not show any interest. He had written a letter to the Election Commission on April 20 to allow migrants to vote from wherever they are stationed, but he got no response.
“Migrant workers are not concerned about the elections. They are still catching trains from di¦erent stations to leave for other States,” he says.
To prove his claim, Rahaman calls up Subhajit Tudu, a migrant worker, who hangs up after hurriedly telling him that he is at the Satragachi railway station (near Kolkata) to take a train to Kerala.