Our village and town have undergone tremendous changes since a few years to be exact the 1990s. Though paying occasional visits to the village and town after I left to the outskirts of the city both the village and town are undergoing vast changes which I take notice of during my visits. Like it or not we have to learn with the changes as nothing is static in this world. When I mention changes do not take into account that I hint at only external changes. A man or woman’s, a youth’s or a teenaged boy’s or a girl’s even a child’s mindset too undergo changes, internal changes as well, I would say. Please do not be mistaken that I am venturing into point out the drastic changes taking place in our society as it is a never ending process.
Here I would like to mention about a single factor which often baffles me. About 10-15 years ago, our village on a daily basis suffered acute scarcity of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Hence people had to run helter-skelter, to fish out an unskilled or semi-skilled worker or workers to get things done in their houses or properties. The dearth for workers were not due to the lack of them in our village, there were countless unskilled and semi-skilled workers but they took it as a taboo or something which do not suit their status to work in their own land especially doing manual labour.
Hence, without utilizing the chances in own village, these people often in droves travel to faraway lands to take up works even if the cooly offered to each is quite low.
At about this time Gulf countries were seeking such job seekers and many village workers were in a hurry to catch flights to Gulf countries in search of jobs. To get a job in a Gulf nation, many a step had/has to be taken such as passport, visa etc etc. Many youth with the intention of job, approach agents – some fake, some genuine – and if not careful and cautious chances of getting trapped in wrong hands are umpteen, often losing savings of a life-time earned by their parents or the amount arranged by selling or mortgaging landed properties including houses.
With the outflow of youth to Gulf nations, the village started experiencing the dearth of workers. The ones land in the Gulf countries have no qualms in working under the blistering sun in desert areas even for a pittance sometimes. A job outside one’s motherland is a status-symbol, even today such a thought is prevalent.
With the Gulf nations turning prosperous and self-sufficient salaries are reduced and with the need of unskilled and semi-skilled also declining, lakhs and lakhs are sent back to motherlands thus landing such workers in a piquant situation at home often turning out to be a headache to the rulers.
By this time, another phenomenon made its appearance. Many business tycoons of our villages and towns to meet the shortage of workers, started transporting unskilled workers from the backward North-Indian and North-Eastern States on a daily basis, they are a hard-working lot and simultaneously the ones who are ready to work for a lesser sum compared to the workers of land. They land in our towns and villages in thousands, build tents or their owners arrange living places for them but unhygienic all of them thus inviting diseases like diarrhea, cholera, fever, skin diseases etc. With the onset of inflow to our towns and villages, illiterate workers start to catch trains with the help of their friends and relatives who have already built makeshift tents in the remote corners of villages. Each day in the wee hours of the morning they flock together in the town junction and the ones who come in search of workers get as many workers they are in need of. The workers slog it out throughout the day at the working places and as they are not allowed to join trade unions, the question of collective bargaining doesn’t arise and these workers are not even aware of such things and they don’t need to be aware of it.
They earmark a sum to be sent to their families through money orders and DDs and form long queues in front of post-offices and banks. With the remaining amount, they pull on….
The new face-lift within a few years will remain a common thing not a phenomenon and what all are awaiting in the wings we have to adopt a wait and see approach…
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