MESSIAH FOR THE STRANDED
On September 25, 33-year-old Sheikh Farooq from Telangana, who had been working in Riyadh as a chauffeur, was found dead there. It took over two months for his remains to be brought home because of a lack of funds. This is the plight of many who migrate to Gulf nations as menial workers. At least 34,000 such Indians have died there in the past five years, including 1,200 from Telangana.
For over six years now, not a day has passed without Basanth Reddy attending to distress calls from such people overseas or their relatives in India. “My experience as a construction worker in Bahrain opened my eyes to the exploitation,” says Reddy. The ordeal of a co-worker who was diagnosed with cancer was the turning point. Reddy reached out to other workers and the employer for financial assistance. He discovered many others with even worse problems—migrant workers who had been lured by unscrupulous agents with fake visas and no work permits languishing in jails. To help, he relies on crowd-funding, putting in his own money as well.
Since his return in 2003 after a six-year stint in the Gulf, Reddy has run the Gulf Telangana Welfare and Cultural Association. He works with Indian consular representatives to help free those who have been jailed and have them repatriated. He also holds awareness programmes to educate people about the dangers of emigrating for such jobs, persuading them to enrol in courses by the National Academy of Construction in Hyderabad and take up construction jobs in India instead. “Things have improved from the days when other labourers had to deposit their passports as security for a body to be released and sent back home,” says Reddy, pointing out that bodies of many dead workers still remain in Gulf countries. He has helped bring back the remains of more than 400 such unfortunates. ■
“MY OWN EXPERIENCE AS A CONSTRUCTION WORKER IN BAHRAIN OPENED MY EYES TO THE EXTRAORDINARY EXPLOITATION”