Gokul works with fire, day in and day out. He turns iron red hot, beats it and moulds it. The sparks make small and big holes in his clothes and his shoes; the burns on his hands are witness to the share of his hard labour in moving the wheels of the Indian economy.
“ Kya hunda hai [What the hell is that]?” he says when asked if has heard of the budget.
It’s less than 48 hours after the Union Budget of 2025 was unveiled in Parliament and the news flashed across the country. But for Gokul, a nomadic ironsmith from the Bagria community, nothing has changed.
“Listen, nobody has done anything for us. Close to 700-800 years have passed like this only. Our generations have been buried in Punjab’s soil. Nobody has given us anything,” says the ironsmith in his forties.
Gokul working in his makeshift hut in village Mauli Baidwan in Mohali district of Punjab
Gokul has been camping in a jhopdi (makeshift hut) on the periphery of village Mauli Baidwan in Mohali district of Punjab. He lives here with his tribesmen who trace their roots to Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh.
“What will they give now?” he wonders. The government might not have given anything to people like Gokul but he certainly pays 18 per cent to the government for each piece of iron he purchases; five per cent for the coal with which he burns fire to mould iron. He also pays the government for his tools – a hammer and sickle – and for every grain of the food he eats.
