Surrounded by some dozen villagers and relatives on the tiled floor of the courtyard of his house, Baldevbhai Patel, 67, is barely able to speak. In the sharp cold of a fading Gujarat winter, Patel is wearing a jacket over his shirt, and his head is wrapped in a muffler. All he can do is nod his head to questions and fold his hands tight as tears roll down his face.
I am in Dingucha village in Gujarat, about 20 km north of Gandhinagar, the State capital. “What is there to say now? The entire world knows about it,” he says, even as a thin stream of visitors flows through the gates of his house, everyone with folded hands and moist eyes.
The old man is still to come to terms with the horrific tragedy that has befallen his family. On January 19, the bodies of his son Jagdish, 39, daughter-in-law Vaishali, 37, and their two children, daughter Vihangi, 11, and son Dharmik, 3, were found in south Manitoba along the U.S.-Canada border.
Jagdish Patel, along with his wife and children who died on the U.S.-Canada border last month
They died from exposure to extreme cold while trying to illegally cross over to the U.S. from Canada. They had found themselves stranded, caught in a blizzard, as temperatures rapidly dropped to around -35°C.
Fearful silence
“Don’t ask him questions about it. He does not speak. Even we don’t talk to him about the incident,” says a young man sitting next to me. As the family’s relatives and friends gather around to mourn the tragic deaths, they blame destiny. The man remains silent, occasionally sobbing. When asked about how his wife is coping, Patel simply says, “She is okay.” The relatives say that Madhuben, 65, is a deputy sarpanch in the village. Ever since she heard the news, she has mostly stayed in bed.
Nobody talks much. The silence is also possibly because everyone knows someone or has someone in the family who has migrated without papers. Except for Baldevbhai’s immediate family, nobody else, not even the neighbours, had an inkling that Jagdish and his family had left Canada and were heading towards the U.S. border. The family had left India in the first week of January. Jagdish’s last communication with home was on January 15, when he informed everyone that they had reached safely. His parents had not told anyone that they had emigrated, saying instead that they had gone on a vacation.
Entering Dingucha is like entering a place of mourning, its streets deserted, houses quiet
The Patel family, like most others in the village, are landowners. They grow crops such as wheat, millet, and cumin. They are not rich, but a middle-class family with land. Their house is medium-sized, with a tiled compound, two rooms upstairs, and a terrace. Both Jagdish and his wife Vaishali were schoolteachers at different schools, one in Kalol town about 12 km south of Dingucha and the other in Gandhinagar, about 26 km away.
About three years ago, Jagdish had joined his younger brother Mahendra in his garment business in Kalol, and the family had moved into a rented accommodation there. A few months ago, the family left Kalol and moved back to their ancestral village in Dingucha. Then, according to local authorities and the police, about a fortnight ago, they left for Canada on visitor’s visas.
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Entering Dingucha is like entering a place of mourning, its streets deserted, houses quiet. It looks more like a town than a village, with its tarred streets, bank branches, a huge temple, a sprawling panchayat building with air-conditioned rooms, and a community health centre.
A mural painted on the panchayat building in Dingucha promises enrolment into a university in the U.K. or Canada “with or without IELTS”, the English proficiency test required for admission to universities in these countries. In fact, most of the walls of the village are covered with advertisements about immigration to the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
Immigration ads and posters cover the walls and street signs everywhere
In this region, Dingucha enjoys a certain distinction. It is called the NRI village. Nearly 70 families from the village have settled in the U.S., and a few others have emigrated to Canada and Australia. And it is the generous donations of many such NRI families that have paid for the construction of the panchayat building, a school, temple, health centre, community hall, besides other initiatives, in the village.
“Most of the Patel families have one or two members abroad,” says Mathurji Thakor, the sarpanch of the village. According to him, the Patels and the Thakors are roughly equal in population, some 800-900 members each, in the village of approximately 3,500 people.
The large number of NRI families from this particular village is seen as both a strength and a weakness, says the sarpanch. “For us, it’s a matter of pride that so many families from our village are settled abroad. Because ‘NRI’ is regarded as a status symbol or a mark of success, most youngsters from the community [Patels] want to get there by any means,” he says. The phrase “any means” indicates why he realises that the NRI dream is also a weakness.
The large number of NRI families from this particular village is seen as both a strength and a weakness
“Most people left for the U.S. in the 60s and 70s,” he continues. “They went on student visas and then settled there. They became magnets for the others to follow. It’s a rat race, a chase for money, a dream of owning a motel or a fuel station in America,” he says matter-of-factly.
Although nobody is willing to confirm it, sources in the police say that a few dozen people from this village alone have entered the U.S. illegally via the Canada border in the last few years.
The villagers suspect that the ill-fated Patel family paid over ₹1.5 crore to agents for safe passage to the U.S. In fact, besides the four found dead by the Canadian authorities, the U.S. law enforcement agencies have detained seven undocumented Indians, and preliminary investigations indicate that all 11 were part of the same group of migrants trying to slip across the Canada border.
The deserted streets of Dingucha village.
Huge diaspora base
Gujarat, with its huge diaspora base, has a few regions that have become well-known for illegal human trafficking to the West and to Australia and New Zealand. In parts of Mehsana and Gandhinagar districts, many villages, mostly Patel-dominated ones, have become the springboard for this. Another belt is Kheda and Anand in central Gujarat, Amreli in Saurashtra, and a few pockets of southern Gujarat. As a result of this heavy demand, there is a widespread network of local agents that works with international trafficking agents, and this network facilitates border crossings for hefty fees that the families willingly pay. It’s a thriving business.
“There are several dozen agents active in this belt. They lure families who are struggling here but have relatives abroad. Since they are not qualified to take the legal route, they pay heavily to touts and agents for safe passage through illegal channels,” says a 40-year-old agent from Kalol. The usual method is to first get a visitor visa to Canada and then move to the U.S. Most villagers blame the craze to migrate on the lack of opportunities and quality jobs in Gujarat; this is what forces youngsters to undertake the high-risk journey to foreign countries, they say.
The Patels’ residence in Dingucha village
“Why do people go to the U.S., Canada and Australia or any other country? Because there is a lack of opportunity here in Gujarat. They don’t find jobs despite working hard here. Therefore, they spend huge amounts of money and take a lot of risks to migrate to the U.S.,” said Gujarat’s former Deputy Chief Minister and prominent community leader Nitin Patel, while addressing a gathering at an event of the Patidar community. Once Gujaratis reach the U.S., he said, they don’t need to worry because of the presence of many of their brethren from the State there, who help them in every possible way. “Their main concern is when they cross the border,” he said.
The Dingucha Gram Panchayat Office
This reasoning, however, still does not explain the fact that most of the villagers who willingly put their life and liberty at risk don’t appear to be escaping dire poverty or persecution or physical danger. Like Jagdish and Vaishali, they are mostly from the middle-class with modest white-collar jobs or with land-owning families. Ironically, once they enter the U.S. illegally, they often end up doing menial and low-paid jobs at gas stations, department stores or motels owned by NRIs, who are happy to get cheap labour and, in turn, don’t report them to the local authorities. Back home though, the dollar speaks and they are considered success stories. And the migration rush stays fuelled.
