The perils of sending Indian workers to Israel

Vappala Balachandran

Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

THERE are reports that the National Skill Development Corporation and state employment departments are recruiting Indian citizens for work in Israel. The Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam is reported to have registered 550 candidates from Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in a day for a skill test. These unemployed youths have chosen this option instead of approaching unscrupulous touts who charge Rs 40-50 lakh, as was seen in the recent ‘donkey route’ case.

While the government route is preferable for overseas workers’ recruitment, what is disconcerting is the report that those selected will not undergo the statutory immigration clearance to ensure that their interests are protected at the destination. The report also said that the workers will not have insurance, medical coverage and other guarantees, which the government usually insists on for such overseas employees. It also said that our labour unions are agitated over this and intend to seek judicial remedies.

If all this is true, this scheme is not advisable. Our workers’ contribution to the foreign exchange earnings has always been higher than the foreign direct investment. During 2023, the foreign inward remittance, mainly from our overseas workers, had touched a record $125 billion. During the same period, the FDI was only $70.9 billion.

We also need to remember the June 2014 Mosul incident. That was when the dreaded Islamic State (IS) overran Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, leading to the disappearance of 40 of our workers. For a long time, enquiries by the government through third-party intelligence channels had led to the conclusion that they were safe. Normally, no definitive statement should have been made in Parliament merely on the basis of intelligence channels without getting diplomatic confirmation. Our government maintained its stand even when Harjit Masih, one of the 40 abducted Indian workers, claimed that 39 of his colleagues were killed by the IS. Masih had managed to escape from captivity and surfaced in India.

It was only in March 2018 that the government admitted that they were killed, after a mass grave was found in Badosh, north-west of Mosul, and after their identities were established by DNA testing. The story reconstructed later said that the Indian workers were first kept at a textile factory in Mosul. After Masih escaped, they were moved to a prison in Badosh. Searches, with the help of Iraqi authorities, led to a mass grave in Badosh. It was said that the bodies, which were exhumed, had distinctive features, like long hair, non-Iraqi shoes and IDs. The bodies were sent to Baghdad for DNA testing. Only then was it admitted in our Parliament that the workers were dead.

In 1916, the then Beiyang Chinese government under Gen Yuan Shikai committed a similar mistake by exporting nearly 1,40,000 Chinese labourers as ‘volunteers’ to Europe for manual work before and during World War I. Shikai had assumed power in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty when child emperor Puyi abdicated. He had imperial ambitions and wanted to stabilise his regime by seeking the help of Britain and France to counter the growing power of the revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen. With this end in view, he secretly lobbied with them with an offer to send Chinese troops to join the war. His intention was to recapture Shandong from Germany, which had forcibly wrested it in 1898, and thus expand his empire and be a part of the big powers for post-war settlement.

This was, however, rejected by Britain as it would have gone against its commercial interests. Also, it would have spurred the Indian independence movement with similar demands against Britain, as South China Morning Post said, quoting Hong Kong University historian Xu Guoqi.

However, Britain did not mind getting non-combatant ‘volunteers’. An article in the Smithsonian Magazine (2017) by Lorraine Boissoneault gives details. She says that Chinese labourers were the largest non-European workforce during World War I, tasked with jobs like digging trenches and manning factories.

Since China was officially ‘neutral’ in that war, commercial companies had to be formed to provide this labour force to Britain, France and Russia. The most important company was Huimin in Tianjin. It was a quasi-government undertaking established in May 1916, and had direct links with a minister, Liang Shiyi, who was close to President Yuan Shikai. Huimin organised 25 shiploads of Chinese labourers to ‘repair tanks, assemble shells, transport supplies and munitions, and help to literally reshape the war’s battle sites’.

Most of them travelled to Europe via the Pacific route and Canada. In February 1917, a German U-boat hit a French ship, ‘Athos’, which was carrying 900 Chinese labourers, and caused the death of 543 of them. This led China to officially declare war on Germany on August 14, 1917.

The number of Chinese deaths during the war is disputed. While European estimates put it as 2,000, Chinese sources say that it was around 20,000 due to shelling, landmines and the Spanish flu. It is said that the Noyelles-sur-Mer cemetery in France has 838 Chinese gravestones. A multimedia presentation assembled by South China Morning Post says that the Chinese dug trenches, repaired tanks in Normandy, transported munitions in Dannes (Boulogne) and unloaded war materials in Dunkirk. With the British, they went to Basra, Iraq. The multimedia presentation says: “Graves in Basra, in southern Iraq, contain remains of hundreds of Chinese workers who died carrying water for British troops in an offensive against the Ottoman Empire.”

United Nations organisations have been saying that the Israel-West Bank-Gaza region and the sea around the area is a dangerous conflict zone after the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliatory bombing and military action in Gaza, interference by Hezbollah and Houthis from across the border and seas.

Under these circumstances, sending thousands of Indian workers to that area is hazardous as they too could very well become targets of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Views are personal

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.

#Israel #Rajasthan #Uttar Pradesh