Hyderabad: Millions of expatriate Indians are credited with contributing to the integrated development of the oil-rich Gulf countries, while at the same time enriching their own families back home with petro-dollars.
However, thousands of workers who believed in the middlemen and illegal agencies and travelled to the desert lands of the Middle East with a lot of hope of a bright future, are now lamenting in miserable conditions there. When all was well, the governments showered a lot of praise on the Gulf workers for their contribution of precious foreign exchange, but are now showing their backs when the same workers are facing difficulties and are languishing in the foreign lands without any hope of returning to their motherland.
A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Supreme Court over the negligence of the governments towards the Indian expat workers. The three-judge bench, headed by Justice NV Ramana, issued notices to the CBI along with 12 state governments. The lawsuit, filed by the President of the Gulf-Telangana Welfare and Cultural Association for the Protection of Indian Workers' Rights, brought to light a number of key issues.
The petitioner seeks diplomatic intervention and legal assistance for the 8,189 people languishing in Gulf jails and 44 facing death sentence, along with clear guidelines to bring back the dead bodies of the workers who lost their lives in the Gulf back to their hometowns. While countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China and Bangladesh are actively taking the initiative to deport their workers, the complaint is that the Indian embassies abroad are acting indifferently.
Further, there is also a plea to appoint the CBI as the nodal agency to investigate domestically the illegal smuggling of illiterate workers and other related crimes. The Central and State Governments need to provide immediate solutions to bring back the hapless illiterate poor women who went to the Gulf as house-maids and workers in search of quick money, and were sold there as slaves and pushed into brothel houses.
Read: Life's not all rosy for Indian migrants in the Gulf
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, there are 85 lakh Indians working in six Gulf countries. The Centre reported to the Lok Sabha in July that over 77,000 complaints of various forms of harassment had been received between 2016 and 2019 and 36 per cent of them came from Saudi Arabia, and concluded that the number of complaints was nominal compared to the actual number of really suffering expatriates.
Non-payment of wages in a foreign country, violation of labour rights, denial of residence permits, non-provision of medical facilities and non-payment of compensation for casualties are all life and death problems for the labourers in the Gulf. The deaths of nearly 34,000 migrant workers between 2014 and 2019 do not seem to be a serious issue for governments there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Qatar in June 2016, assured that he was aware of the problems of the workers and would talk to the leaders to resolve them. However, the series of complaints pouring in prove that the assurance did not help in improving the situation. The total amount of remittances sent to India by expatriate Indians worldwide between 2012 and 2017 was $41,000 crore -- about $21,000 thousand crore of which came from Gulf countries.
It is the duty of the governments to ensure the welfare of the hard-working labourers earning precious foreign exchange to the country and see that their lives are not crushed by the hands of cheaters.
The Centre had in February declared that there were 29 illegal agencies in the two Telugu states cashing in on the Gulf-dreams of innocents, and warned that the number had risen to 85 in Maharashtra, Punjab, and Delhi. While the states create a secure system to legally enforce labour migration, the Centre must be prepared to build a strong mechanism by which the respective host governments fully guarantee employment security to the workforce and their rights in the workplace. This way, a safe and successful migration system can be ensured.
Read: SC seeks MHA's response on PIL seeking rescue of Indian workers in Gulf
