----------------------------------------------------------------------- Documented by Goa Desc Documentation Service & circulated by Goa Civic & Consumer Action Network (GOA CAN)<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Ph:2252660 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Stop Migrant Bashing -------------------------------- We are told that the post-mortem report of the immigrant worker from Agassaim, whose death sparked off a protest recently, indicated that he committed suicide. Even if we accept the post-mortem report at face value, there remains the question of whether it was police harassment and persecution which provoked him to commit suicide.
The deceased's co-workers have alleged that the police subjected him to continuous and inhuman torture. A charge which we are quite willing to believe. When it comes to the poor and marginalised sections of society, the police have no compunctions, whatsoever, about resorting to torture. If the victim, or to use police terminology the alleged suspect or accused, is a Goan the policeman exercise a little caution, as in the State you never know who is connected to whom.
But immigrant workers are, of course, fair game. In fact, the increasing large number of immigrant workers in the State are apparently responsible for all the ills of the State. Year after year, we are solemnly assured that it is the immigrant construction workers who are responsible for the malaria epidemics that break out every year in Panjim and Porvorim and other parts of Goa. It is the migrant workers who are responsible for the filth on our beaches.
Never mind that it is the criminal irresponsibility of the builders who create tanks on building sites and choke the drains that makes the poor wretched migrant workers particularly vulnerable to malaria. Again it is the criminally irresponsible builders who do not provide even the bare minimal sanitation facilities at construction sites. Which forces the migrant workers to perform their ablutions on the beaches and other open spaces.
The immigrant workers are here in Goa because Goans will not do the back-breaking work of actually constructing the the mansions or flats in the building that they live in. They are here because all the skilled Goan carpenters and masons and plumbers and electricians have already gone off to the Gulf or are desperately trying to get there. That is why the overwhelming majority of the carpenters in Goa are from Gorakpur. Which by coincidence happens to be one of the most criminalised districts in Uttar Pradesh.
Goans are reluctant to work in the hospitality industry, largely because even the starred hotels offer pathetically low salaries.They may do so, if at all, for a brief period to be able to get the experience certificate, which is the passport to a job on a cruise liner. That is why all the seven and five-star and non-star hotels in Goa are manned by industrial trainees from Orissa and Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh who get a stipend of as little as Rs 200 a month for the privilege of a star apprenticeship.
There was a time when the security guards in Goa were honest to goodness, genuine Nepalese if not Gurkhas. But the Nepalese have long since moved up, if not the social ladder at least the occupational ladder. A significant proportion of the cooks, including chefs in Goa are Nepalese. This includes all the 'Chinese' chefs. Increasingly a lot of stewards and even the managers in all the fancy restaurants are Nepalese.Their historical jobs as security guards and watchmen have long since been taken over by the Oriyas. This is because all those running security agencies have discovered that the Oriyas will work for far less than anyone else.
All the workers on the steel rolling mills are of course from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh because they are the only ones who will work in the heat and the dirt and the dust of a steel rolling mill. A lot of people who are employed by the Panjim Municipal Council for door to door collection of garbage are from outside as Goans are loath to sully their hands with garbage.
Whatever little agriculture on any kind of commercial scale survives in Goa is thanks to the hard work by labourers from Karnataka and other parts of the country imported into the State.
A large number of trained and qualified nurses in the State are unemployed. Despite which untrained nurses who are more in the manner of paramedical workers are routinely imported from Kerala to take care of critically ill and invalid old people. The list is endless.
Whether we like it or not the ground reality is that the economy, whether industrial or agricultural or the service sectors like tourism, is overwhelmingly dependent on immigrant labour.
The veteran labour leader, Christopher Fonseca claims that when he complained to Karnal Singh about the police harassment of the migrant workers which probably drove him to suicide, the Deputy I nspector General wanted to know why he was so keen on protecting outsiders.
Never mind the irony that Karnal Singh is just as much a migrant worker. But we are not really surprised by Karnal Singh's response. Because this is also how Goans themselves respond. No one, of course, will give a thought to the fact that the mansions they live are the product of the sweat and labour of the migrant workers.
That if their farms are productive and profitable, it is thanks to the migrant
workers. If Panjim eventually becomes binless it is because of the migrant
worker. The domestic servants in many of the homes of the bold and the
beautiful people of Goa are tribal girls suitably groomed after being deloused.
A leading Catholic priestly order was engaged in maid running for a long time. And it is nurses from Kerala who are the preferred choice to look after ailing old people in the State. And yet when anything goes wrong, it is always the migrant labourer who is blamed.
We think this is absurd and the police and citizens alike need to review this hypocrital attitude towards migrant labour. If they all decided to go away, the Goan economy would collapse. Unfortunately, for the migrant labourers they have nowhere else to go, because for them Goa is their Dubai and Kuwait. ---------------------------------------------------- Editorial in HERALD 30/7/03 page 6 ----------------------------------------------------
======================================= GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE Documentation + Education + Solidarity 11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507 Tel: 2252660 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] website: www.goadesc.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Working On Issues Of Development & Democracy =======================================
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