Ahead of upcoming celebrations, labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been departing Gujarat's diamond-trading centre of Surat to return to their home regions. Large numbers of travellers heading home for Diwali and Chhath Puja have packed the platforms at Surat and Udhna stations, leading officials to put crowd management protocols in place.
Numerous accounts have pointed to the Gao Chalo Andolan and unresolved labour grievances as a factor behind the departures, though no authority has issued a formal statement on the matter. A meeting of officials was convened to address crowd management protocols and the broader question of security arrangements.
Among those present were the Surat District Collector, the DCP, the SDM, the GRP DySP, the SITCO CEO, the Surat Station Director, and supervisors drawn from the departments directly involved. Officers from the Police, RPF, and GRP have taken up positions across high-footfall and sensitive zones within the station with the aim of keeping passenger movement orderly and unimpeded.
Around the clock, feeds from a network of CCTV cameras feed into the control room, where staff keep watch so that any developing incident can draw an immediate response. Drinking water, fans, and other basic provisions have been put in place to meet passenger needs.
Roughly a week ahead of Diwali, the return journey home is customary for many workers, though the Gao Chalo movement got under way at an earlier point in the calendar this year than has typically been the case. On-the-ground reporting from a news outlet indicated that a number of workers described their journeys as trips back home ahead of Diwali and Chhath Puja, with no connection to any workplace dispute.
Not all worker departures from Gujarat point to the labour dispute — travel tied to festivals accounts for a share of those movements in ordinary times, making it difficult to attribute every departure to industrial tensions alone.
A dispute between workers and employers in Surat's textile and embroidery sector has given rise to the Gao Chalo Andolan. The campaign drew broader public attention in early October, after organisers called off the protest in response to assurances they had been given. Workplace code adherence formed the basis of a separate directive put out by the labour department.
Workers reported having been assured from the outset that their request for a day off on Sundays would be factored into any decisions. The situation deepened when a number of employees found themselves without work or owed unpaid wages following complaints they had raised about leave entitlements. A labourer from Prayagraj told reporters that pay was withheld on an occasion when he put in a request for time off. Across Surat, numerous other workers reported encountering similar conditions.
Labour representative Ajay Dubey put forward a two-month stay-away period, tying any return to the resolution of outstanding demands, and called on workers to lodge formal complaints, keep away from Sunday shifts, and move to establishments operating within the rules. Workers affiliated with the Gao Chalo Andolan have been seeking formal acknowledgement of their job-related demands from employers, based on available reports. Backing for the effort has been building, though a portion of workers remain unclear on what it is seeking to achieve.
Accounts from workers and field dispatches point to festive travel ahead of Diwali and Chhath Puja as the primary driver behind the packed platforms, even as labour tensions continue in the broader backdrop. The proportion of employees who return to their posts once celebrations conclude will indicate what the strike delivered.
