Terrible plight of Indian workers in Gulf countries

Tens of thousands of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia and various Gulf countries have been literally forced to starve, living in miserable camps without any basic amenities, for several weeks and months on end. Theseworkers, employed in construction and other companies, were retrenched from their jobs without any compensation, in the wake of the economic slowdown in these oil exporting countries triggered by the sharp fall in oil prices. Many of these workers have not been paid any salaries for the last 6-8 months. They have no money to buy their plane tickets to come back to India.

According to official estimates, over 3 million Indians work in Saudi Arabia, another 2.2 million in the United Arab Emirates and more than 2 million in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Nearly 2,450 retrenched Indian workers are in camps in Jeddah. In Riyadh another nearly 7,500 workers face a similar plight. Similar reports have come from the other Gulf countries as well.

The fall in oil prices globally have rocked the economies of Saudi Arabia and many other Gulf countries, dependent mainly on oil export. Migrant workers have been the first victimsof this crisis.

External Affairs Minister Shrimati Sushma Swaraj’s admission that her government had no idea of the plight of the workers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, is a reflection of the thoroughly cruel and callous attitude of the Indian state towards Indian workers working in these countries.

By March 2016, many of the workers now struggling to survive in Saudi Arabia had not been paid any wages for several months. By May, some of these workers publicly protested and were immediately locked up in jail, as the law in Saudi Arabia prohibits public protests of any kind. What was the Indian Embassy doing all this time?

A major challenge faced by Indian workers stranded there in such circumstances is the Saudi Arabian legal requirement for an employer’s “no objection certificate” for a worker to leave the country. In most cases, the employers keeps the workers’ passports and other documents at the time of joining the job, and refuse to give them back, adding to the harassment faced by the workers. Indian workers mistreated by their employers have been complaining to the Indian government about this difficulty for many years now. But India has only signed a labour rights agreement with Saudi Arabia covering domestic workers – and not the vast majority of Indians in the country who work in the oil and construction sectors, or as nurses and managers.

While being fully aware of the severe exploitation and ill-treatment, insecurity, harassment and denial of even basic rights, that Indian workers in the Gulf countries face, successive Indian governments have done nothing over the years, to ensure these workers their rights. The Indian state looks at these workers as merely a source of revenue. Remittances to India from the Indian workers in Gulf countries have been to the tune of 35 billion dollars, roughly half of the total remittances from abroad.

There were several signs indicating that the present crisis was going to happen. Since 2013, the government of Saudi Arabia, followed by those of other Gulf countries, has taken steps to make it more difficult for migrant workers to get jobs in companies there, both as manual workers as well as skilled workers. By late 2015, the governments of these countries began slashing subsidies – for education and other social services – that forced many Indian workers to send their families back home. Faced with rising expenses, Indian workers in the Gulf had less money to send back home. Over the 2015-16 financial year, remittances from the Gulf were reported to have dropped by over 2 per cent over the previous year.

The conditions of grinding poverty and unemployment in India, lack of jobs inspite of being educated and skilled, forces lakhs of young men and women to seek a livelihood in countries abroad. A vast majority of these are in Saudi Arabia andother Gulf countries. They are treated virtually like slaves in many of these countries, deprived of all rights. They are the first to get thrown out of jobs, with no social security. They cannot organise or protest against their conditions. In recent times, given the military intervention and fierce contention of the major imperialist powers of the world in that region, they are often victims of war, bombings and killings. Yet, for a large majority of these workers, the decision to give up their jobs and return to India is not an easy one, as they have taken huge loans in order to secure a job in these foreign lands.

There has been massive public anger at the terrible plight of Indian workers who have been forced into conditions of starvation in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. It is only when the magnitude of the crisis becomes so huge that the government even begins to take steps such as providing food packets in the camps, and trying to organise with the Saudi government to bring these workers back to India.

Communist Ghadar Party extends its full sympathy and support to our hard working sisters and brothers in the Gulf countries. CGPI denounces the cruel callousness of the Indian state towards Indian workers abroad.

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