#dnaEdit: The untold story

Government’s prompt response to the incident of an Alabama policeman assaulting an elderly Indian man that left him severely injured and partially paralysed was commendable. No sooner had news of the attack become public, than the ministry of external affairs (MEA) sprung into action, and asked for speedy investigations. The widespread condemnation both in India and in the US has culminated in the arrest of the police officer who has been accused of civil rights violations. For the victim Sureshbhai Patel, who doesn’t speak English, his brown skin had apparently provoked extreme action by a paranoid police patrol team. 

While Patel’s suffering became a rallying cry for justice — that the incident happened in the US, no doubt, turned the spotlight on the case — the plight of thousands of helpless Indian workers in the Gulf rarely generates similar reactions. The same Indian government, which has been admirably strong in making its displeasure known to the US authorities over the treatment meted out to Patel, is indifferent to the sufferings of its own people in oil-rich countries. 

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in a response to Parliament last month revealed that more than 45 per cent of the 6,483 Indians jailed abroad are lodged in Gulf prisons. Saudi Arabia has the maximum number of jailed Indians (1,469), whereas the rest of the seven Gulf States together hold  2,906 workers behind bars. The MEA statistics differ wildly with the figures from organisations such as the Migrants Rights Council and the Palamuru Migrant Labour Union, which put the number of jailed workers from Telangana alone at 6,000. Ironically, the migrant Indian population in the Gulf constitutes only 26.48 per cent of the 2.19 crore Indian diaspora and the majority of them are employed in blue-collar jobs. In the absence of labour laws in Gulf countries, these people, mostly from the states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, serving as construction workers, cooks and attendants, are vulnerable to exploitation. They work for long hours, draw paltry salaries, live in sub-human conditions and suffer the worst humiliations. These gross violations of human rights elicit only occasional responses from the Centre, which is aware of the sizeable contribution of this labour to the Indian economy in the form of remittances. According to a World Bank report, much of the $71 billion that India received in 2013 came from the Gulf. 

Though India and UAE had signed a prisoner-exchange deal in 2011, the agreement has remained ineffective. Had it been implemented, it would have allowed Indians jailed in UAE to spend the remaining term of the prison sentence in their country. After close to four years, India still lacks the will to push UAE authorities to send these prisoners home. Indian embassies in the Gulf do not provide legal assistance to these workers, many of whom are victims of employment scams. Finally, the Kerala government has woken up to the devastating impact of fraudulent recruitment practices, seeking the Centre’s help to weed out private operators who dupe people by promising them jobs in the Gulf. It now wants to conduct recruitment through a state agency that will also look into the terms and conditions of employment in the Gulf. 

This is a particularly harrowing time for Gulf workers due to drastic fall in oil prices. Hundreds of them face the prospect of unemployment and may be forced to return to India. The crisis may trigger even further exploitation and salary-cuts. These unskilled and semi-skilled workers don’t have much of a choice. They know that back home there are limited employment opportunities.