PM’s words at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas strike a raw chord for Malayalees.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: The images of Indian workers coming back in droves from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations are still fresh for many, in India. But then memories are also short for some. The Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, mentioned how Saudi Arabia had “successfully addressed the challenges that more than a million workers faced following changes in Saudi Arabia’s labor policies,” speaking at the 12th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, Wednesday.
Contrary to Singh’s words, however, the reality is far different. The situation was and is still a nightmare to tens of thousands of workers who had returned home after the Saudi Arabian government tightened immigration laws.
And before recent memories get erased, here are some harsh realities which should not be forgotten by both the countries.
For decades, Indians, many of them from Kerala, braved demonic weather and abysmal living conditions coupled with harsh and rigid labor laws help the blooming of urban monoliths in the deserts of the Gulf and Saudi Arabian peninsula. In fact these inhospitable tracts of land had always have been a second home to the peripatetic Malayalee immigrants with scores of them working there for decades to earn, remit and ensuring the home fires does not get extinguished.
True, that these Arab nations have to protect their own people first; to protect them from the vagaries of rising unemployment and the scepter of an ever increasing influx of immigrants. But all this has translated to sheer misery to the foreign workers, many of them from Kerala who have returned to face an uncertain future. The scenes at many Kerala airports are witness to tearful welcomes as opposed to boisterous home-comings just couple of years ago.
The fluctuating fortunes has been by no means sudden as Saudi Arabia had actually announced its new labor laws called ‘Nitaqat’, or categories, nearly two years ago. Its enforcement makes one thing clear – that at least a tenth of the workers in private and public companies and businesses will be Saudis. The Saudi government has also cracked down on illegal workers in the country. Like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait too is turning unattractive for Indian workers. The government recently announced plans to send back 100,000 illegal workers annually.
It is a clear case of use and dispense. For the Saudis and elsewhere in the world workers especially the immigrant variety means little. Compassion and empathy are alien terms in these desert regimes where you are as good as your last brick laid. The moment the labor is found to be not in sync they are thrown out under some pretext or the other.
It should also be noted here that these workers anyway had a raw deal, there was hardly any labor laws to speak about in these desert countries, everything is skewed in favor of the employers who have the right to hire and fire at will. Despite such mean conditions, workers from India and across the globe had contributed to the shining edifices that have been built over the years.
But the words of the Prime Minister are not exactly sweet nothings to those workers back home in India who are staring at an uncertain or no future at all.