The killing fields

NEW DELHI: The tragedy of workers from India risking life and limb to eke out a living in conflict zones was brought to the fore when a Hyderabadi man, who was allegedly forced to join the Russian Army after falling prey to a job fraud, was killed in Moscow’s ongoing war with Ukraine. The fatality comes in the wake of the recent death of a Gujarati youngster, working as a helper with the Russian Army. These are not isolated incidents. This week, a group of seven Indian men stuck on the Russia-Ukraine border sought the government’s help to return to India. The men had arrived in Russia on tourist visas, shelling out in excess of Rs 11 lakh per head, and were forced to join the Russian army as helpers, cooks and drivers after the police detained them for not possessing a ‘slip’.

Refusing enlistment would entail a 10-year-long imprisonment, so the men have taken up training in arms and ammunition in preparation for their deployment to Ukraine. There are close to 100 Indians who are said to have been hired by the Russian army over the past one year. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has downplayed it by admitting that only 20-odd people (Indians) have gone to work as support staff or as helpers with the Russian army. But it’s not just the Russia-Ukraine conflict where Indians workers caught in the crossfire. On Monday, a Keralite was killed and two others from the state were injured when a missile fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah militants struck an orchard near Israel’s northern border community of Margaliot.

In January, a 15-member Israeli team arrived in India to conduct recruitment drives focusing on hiring construction workers. The hiring was to offset the vacuum created by the expulsion of Palestinian workers from Israel. The drive was conducted in Haryana where 1,370 candidates took the test and 530 were selected. In UP, as many as 7,182 people appeared for a test, of which 5,087 were selected. The Haryana government will organise another drive to send more workers to the war-torn nation, which has now increased the quota of foreign manpower from 30,000 to 50,000 for its construction industry. Of this, India will account for 10,000 workers. NSDC sources estimate that if 5,000 candidates work for five years in Israel, New Delhi could expect a remittance of Rs 5,000 crore.

Such whitewashing of risks is being carried out right from the top — like Union Minister for Skill Development, Dharmendra Pradhan, who referred to the Israeli recruitment drive as a stepping stone towards Viksit Bharat. The sheer absurdity of packing off Indian men and women to such perilous geographies to earn their daily bread is not lost on ordinary citizens. Come to think of it, the treatment meted out to migrant workers in some first world economies is also nothing to write home about. A case in point happens to be how the Taiwanese labour minister recently sought workers from Christian belts in the northeast, alluding to how they were homogeneous in appearance and diet.

Even as India seems to be taking giant strides on the economic front, with GDP set to grow at the rate of 6.8%, the unavailability of well-paying jobs that can make ends meet has prompted distraught Indians to take on unacceptable risks. What more will it take for the leadership and stakeholders to realise that unemployment will eventually beget a humanitarian crisis?