very badly, indeed. and dubai is among the better ones. it's these
poor people killing themselves in the desert who are sustaining
kerala's money-order economy, not that 'kerala model' snake-oil that
amartya sen has been peddling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/middleeast/06dubai.html?th&emc=th
also interesting to note that the 'south asian' 24-year-old pakistani
guy claims he gets $112 a month in paki-land as a pipe-fitter. what,
7000 paki rupees for a pipe-fitter? the indian guy who says he was
making $37.5 a month seems to be understating it: who gets paid 1500
indian rupees a month? maidservants make more than that at each of the
3-4 houses they go to.
the numbers look bogus: people must be making more, else even
unskilled labor wouldn't voluntarily go live in those horrible desert
lands. of course, skilled labor such as doctors and engineers make
good money in these places, tax-free.
but the suffering sounds quite true.
3 comments:
Rajiv,
As Mallus, you and I should be knowing it. I have friends who earn between 10k & 15K (in rupees) in the Gulf. So, I don't think the numbers are bogus. Again, which job in Kerala pays an unskilled worker that kind of money? And that's precisely the reason they flock to the gulf knowing fully well the conditions they will have to endure.
This is a truly "secular" issue.
The anxiety of Indian nationals, of whatever religious persuasion to go get enslaved in the Arabian desert diminishes the dignity of all Indians. This is a true national shame, which is exceeded only by the disgusting practice of
Mutah (temporary) marriage of dirty old Arab sheiks who travel to India to marry teenaged daughters of poor Muslim rickshawallas.
That such crimes go unpunished is a travesty of justice and enhances the arrogance of the Arab barbarians even more.
Even worse is the fate of the poor Indians (from all regions and religions) going illegally to the war zone of Iraq to toil as menial labour for the American military, jobs that Americans or even Iraqis won't do: cooks, drivers, etc.
Not to mock at their misery or
heap any kind of indignity at them,
but this is simply a national disgrace.
This is one issue on which Edafattah Ahamed is unlikely to do anything.
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