Every year, thousands of young Punjabi villagers risk everything to get to the West. Like Naresh, their decision is motivated neither by bread-line poverty nor economic desperation. The trigger is more a middle-class desire to get on in life, to keep climbing a ladder of affluence to secure their families’ long-term comfort.

Punjab is India’s richest state, but it is also the source of most of India’s illegal immigration to the West. There is no real contradiction, explained Stuart Gardner of the British High Commission in New Delhi, responsible for repatriating illegal migrants. “Punjab might be the most well-off state,” he said, “but to emigrate illegally, you need money.