North Indians may shift to Surat

SURAT: Rakesh Choudhary, a 32-year-old medical representative from Sitamarhi in Bihar, will soon have a new address. After making Mumbai���s Mira Road his karmabhumi for seven years, a shaken Choudhary is set to shift to India���s diamond capital.
As Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray intensifies hate campaign against north Indians, people like Choudhary have started looking for safer havens outside Maharashtra.
���Rakesh will be joining us soon,��� says cousin Manoj Thakur, who stays at Limbayat in Surat. Scared Biharis and UP-ites say they don���t want to meet the unfortunate fate of Dharamdev Rai, 25, a labourer from UP, who was lynched to death in a local train at Khapoli station in Mumbai on Tuesday, allegedly by MNS activists.
Pradip Tiwari, who hails from Varanasi and have settled in Surat for past 11 years, says many of his relatives who used to frequent Mumbai for employment, now have decided to look elsewhere, for means of livelihood.
���With jobs aplenty even for unskilled ones in places like Vapi, Navsari and Surat, many among those leaving Mumbai will rush to these places,��� says Jitu Vakharia, who runs a textile processing house in Pandesara here. Vakharia, who employs a number of north Indian labourers says there will be a lot of labourers shifting to Surat from Mumbai.
A majority of the seven lakh workers in Surat���s textile sector are north Indians, informs Vakharia.
���Fearing onslaught by MNS many of our relatives had even stopped talking to in our mother tongue in public places in Mumbai,��� says Tiwari.
In view of what has been happening in Mumbai, north Indians coming to Surat and adjoining areas in the region, is possible, says Sunil Mishra, spokesperson of Bihar Vikas Parishad in Surat city.
According to a recent report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in Surat 88 per cent of total population of about 45 lakh have jobs, leaving Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, far behind. According to sociologist Satyakam Joshi, for many displaced north Indians from Mumbai, Surat and nearby areas would be preferred destinations.
amarendra.jha@timesgroup.com