Punjab, the land of five rivers, has always carried the burden of floods. Year after year, torrential rains and swollen rivers wash away houses, livestock, and fields, leaving families staring at the sky in despair. This year, too, countless families have been pushed into relief camps, waiting for help that crawls slower than floodwaters. But while victims cling to plastic sheets and donated food packets, the state’s political elite are busy rowing their boats in another direction—the immigrant debate. It seems in Punjab, even a flood cannot wash away the love politicians have for diversionary tactics.
Entire districts such as Ropar, Hoshiarpur, and Ferozepur lie devastated, yet the government’s energy is being spent not on rebuilding homes but on building speeches about outsiders. Farmers have lost crops, soil fertility, and cattle, but leaders have lost only their sense of shame. Compensation packages have been announced with much fanfare, but victims joke that the paperwork to claim them could itself sink in the flood. Relief distribution is as selective as election promises: those with political connections miraculously receive more, while the poor are left clinging to hope as tightly as they cling to relief-camp tarpaulins.
And then, the great magic trick unfolds—the immigrant issue. While victims are still drying their belongings in the sun, politicians suddenly discover their passion for protecting Punjab’s culture from “outsiders.” It is easier, after all, to hold a press conference on immigrants than to visit muddy relief camps. A farmer in Kapurthala summed it up bluntly: “We lost everything in water—our home, our fields, our animals. But the leaders only talk about immigrants, not about us.” Perhaps floods, too, should apply for immigrant status—then they might finally get government attention.
The political logic is simple: flood rehabilitation requires money, planning, and above all accountability—three things that rarely win elections. Immigration, however, offers ready-made villains, fiery headlines, and endless shouting matches on television. So while widows wait for compensation, while children drop out of college because their books were washed away, and while the elderly rot in tents, leaders thunder about how immigrants are “flooding Punjab.” What irony—real floods displace citizens, but political floods of rhetoric displace the victims themselves from the headlines.
The stories from the ground expose this cruelty in sharp relief. A widow in Anandpur Sahib who lost her husband to electrocution now waits endlessly for the promised cheque. A college student in Jalandhar, whose books and laptop drowned, wonders if his education also sank with the flood. An elderly couple in Ferozepur continues to live in a tent months later, surviving on donations. Yet when cameras roll, leaders prefer to pose in spotless white clothes, warning about “outsiders,” as if the real outsiders are not their own citizens shivering in relief camps.
Civil society activists, meanwhile, are left sounding like broken records. They remind the government that disaster rehabilitation is not a seasonal slogan but a long, continuous process. But their warnings rarely compete with the political orchestra of scapegoating immigrants. Analysts wryly note that in Punjab, the only thing that flows faster than floodwater is rhetoric. Both issues—flood relief and immigration—deserve attention, but mixing them only deepens mistrust and divides.
At the heart of it, Punjab needs leaders who can wade through water, not swim in excuses. Rehabilitation must be treated as duty, not charity, and relief camps should not become permanent addresses for citizens. But so long as politicians find it more rewarding to fight imaginary battles with immigrants than real battles with corruption and mismanagement, the victims will remain abandoned.
Floods in Punjab may be natural disasters, but the neglect that follows is entirely man-made. When rehabilitation is sidelined by immigrant debates, it is not just a lapse of priorities but a betrayal of humanity. Punjab’s displaced families deserve dignity, justice, and action. Until then, they will continue to drown twice—once in the floods of nature, and again in the floods of politics.