Gurugram chokes as harassed immigrant workers flee

GURUGRAM is choking — not from traffic or pollution, but from garbage and administrative negligence. In the name of a crackdown on “illegal immigrants", police actions have triggered a humanitarian and civic crisis. Hundreds of Bengali-speaking migrant workers (mostly from Assam and West Bengal) have fled overnight, terrified of harassment, arbitrary detention and lack of legal recourse. The result is an uncollected mountain of waste and a city in dysfunction. The exodus follows the Gurugram police’s drive to identify undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants. Of the 250-plus picked up, only 10 were confirmed Bangladeshi. The rest were released, but the damage was already done. Word spread, fear deepened and the city’s essential yet invisible workforce — sanitation workers, domestic helps and daily wage workers — vanished. Holding centres and detention camps have only reinforced fears of profiling and mistreatment.

This crisis underscores two uncomfortable truths. First, the urban middle class relies on a precarious migrant economy for its basic functioning — clean streets, cooked meals, construction labour. And second, the same economy is brutally dispensable when political posturing or populist measures demand a scapegoat. The moral and legal difference between undocumented migrants and Indian citizens must be addressed. But take care that it is not done at the cost of due process, dignity and decency. Crackdowns based on linguistic or ethnic identity corrode the social fabric. Migrant workers, whether from across a border or another state, deserve humane treatment; not suspicion.

The Gurugram administration’s subsequent decision to halt the crackdown hints at damage control. But it may be too late. If our cities wish to remain functional and just, they must realise that security cannot come at the cost of humanity. Migrants are not the problem. Our failure to distinguish between illegality and identity is.

Editorials