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Out of India ... Hitting the road for Pakistan Veeresh Malik
What the Indian and Pakistani officials fail to realise is, that there already exists an India-Pakistan bus service, which bypasses the legal Wagah-Attari border, and extends its service further eastwards to Bangladesh and Nepal. I discovered this excellent and cheap service quite by accident when I was test driving a new car in the Eastern parts of the country. The border between India and Bangladesh, as we all know, is absolutely open. Farm labour, required increasingly as vital components of the green revolution in Punjab on both sides of the border, sweepingly called ‘Bihari labour’, easily enter India into any of the adjoining West Bengal districts, say Malda or Kishanganj. While one had heard stories about such movements, one had never really seen them. The new car we were test-driving had finally given up its ghost in the badlands around Begusarai, in north Bihar. Abandoning it at a petrol pump, we decided to head back for Delhi, and were told that the best way would be to take our chances on the video coaches that ply regularly, all the way to Delhi (about 1100 km), disguised as pilgrim buses. It was insinuated that ‘Bihari labour’ from further east also used these buses, because trains were, apparently, very crowded. The truth, however, was that the bus was just part of a larger package deal. The passengers in the bus could best be described as "various". A working knowledge of Bengali got us organised very soon, and the truth became apparent. There were young girls and boys bound for points further West in the Gulf. There were labourers headed for Sindh and West Punjab. Everybody in that bus was actually headed out of India, via an efficient network of hubs and spokes. The first major halt was at the ancient caravan city of Dalsinghsarai -- where the north-south, Indo-China (Tibet/Nepal) and the east-west (Indo-Afghanistan) axis traditionally met, way back in the regime of Ashoka the Great. Today it was just another dirty town, served by road and railways (broad as well as metre gauges). There was an estimated transient population of between 20,000 and 50,000 people, according to local ball park figures, at any given time. From Dalsinghsarai, the re-convened convoys set off, in various directions. Towards Moradabad and Ambala if they had to go into Punjab. Or Ajmer via Delhi if they have to cross through Rajasthan. The inter-change, with new lots joining through Nepal, was very smooth and in quick time we were on a bus headed for Delhi, with a promise that we would be let off in South Delhi. Somewhere near Siwan, the bus went through a change of identity, relinquishing Bihar registrations for Uttar Pradesh. We then crossed over into UP by an unknown back road, making some of the best driving times I have seen, non-stop, no halt for food or rest, for fear of getting noticed. Arriving in Delhi was as smooth as jam. While others waited at the Maharajpur border, we were waved through pronto. We were now a ‘chartered’ bus, which took us straight towards the Bhogal area, where we disembarked. The people in the bus would now be further sub-divided and grouped, destination-wise, for the final run North out of India. Bus journeys from India to Pakistan, carrying Bangladeshi "Bihari" labour, are as old as history. There is a complete industry, I have heard, on this out there, which even connects the sea route through the Gulf of Kutch to Karachi via Porbandar, with the added benefits of narcotics and alcohol smuggling. One DTC or Pak-Daewoo bus on the GT road should, therefore, not really worry us so much! | |
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