It was almost 10 at night. I was out for a walk as I had nothing better to do. Then came a cacophony of voices. I turned around to see a bunch of queer looking guys talking loudly, with some sort of electronic music playing from the player (may be it’s the mobile). The mouths were loaded with some kind of tobacco/ paan and inspite of that they were making the cacophony in clear eligible sounds.
In a short time these slim, short, squint eyed guys from north-east have occupied an inherent part of otherwise impenetrable Kerala population as manual labourers.
Kerala always faced a shortage in unskilled labour category. People migrate fast into the skilled domain. The social inequality in Kerala landscape is more or less flattened by education and NRI remittances. But even when there’s a labour shortage, there’s no shortage with opportunities. Hence we had to look out for the inevitable manpower to do the ‘menial tasks’.
I remember the thin scrawny guy and his wife who came to work in our fields- Lukose and Rahel. I remember calling him ‘Glucose’, taking a jibe at his scrawny frame. The response was the toothy smile. Years rolled on by. We sold off the fields and migrated to city. Then we learnt that ‘Glucose’ daughter did well in her academics to end up as a college professor. For an idealist its a glowing example for utopian society. But for a bourgeois it means shortage of natural labour.
Then came the villain of villains- recession. The malayalees who were out to set the markets on fire, realised it’s better to invest on materials that can seen & touched. Huge money started flowing into Gold & land. Real estate boom ensured that the human resources that were already in shortage, was sucked up. This opened up doors of opportunity for impoverished, illiterate , out of work young men from northern parts of India. Here they were ready to work for a pittance. Soon the laws of natural selection prevailed and the ‘cheap’ labour started dominating the labour landscape of Kerala.
They worked from morning to night, demanded little, ate little, never talked back and chewed a lot of paan. These illiterate men seemed to be eligible to don the mantle of saviours. Even with little education many were capable of making out letters in Malayalam. They would take off all of a sudden to their homeland for a couple of months. This would irk the ‘contractors’ who took them on sub-contract. It’s these ‘contractors’ who hit the gold mine by recruiting these ‘cheap labour’. In turn they rented them out for higher wages. Another interesting phenomenon was, Hindi language which were not at all in Kerala landscape started to be heard around Kerala.
The inherent tension when a foreign element tries to embed itself into your otherwise comfortable system came into fore. Soon rumors and subsequent media reports on terrorism and robbery by these migrant community started to surface. The neo-liberal saviours started to be looked on with tension and suspicion. The absence of any valid ID proofs became a hindrance for the police officers to track them down. The ‘cheapness’ in labour also started to reduce when they started organising and demanding more wages.
Even then, these illiterate group of people were very successful in embedding themselves in every walk of life. Today no hotels or construction firms can run without them. Recently a regional issue flared up which saw these people immigrating back to their homeland. Soon the alarm bells started ringing and the top ministers had to cajole them to stay back. Although the cleanliness level is very low and the food cooked is no where near palatable, the hotels have no choice but to employ them. When put to do something, they do it but perfection is not at all taught in their moral science classes.
Looking into the future, I see quite a few settling down here. They might get married to our women and produce the squint eyed version of Malayalees. We will see some Hindi & Bhojpuri hoardings coming up. Soon they will run for the elections and the ‘ethnic’ Mallus will fight it out.
May be the recession turned out to be a great demographic leveller after all,
In a short time these slim, short, squint eyed guys from north-east have occupied an inherent part of otherwise impenetrable Kerala population as manual labourers.
Kerala always faced a shortage in unskilled labour category. People migrate fast into the skilled domain. The social inequality in Kerala landscape is more or less flattened by education and NRI remittances. But even when there’s a labour shortage, there’s no shortage with opportunities. Hence we had to look out for the inevitable manpower to do the ‘menial tasks’.
I remember the thin scrawny guy and his wife who came to work in our fields- Lukose and Rahel. I remember calling him ‘Glucose’, taking a jibe at his scrawny frame. The response was the toothy smile. Years rolled on by. We sold off the fields and migrated to city. Then we learnt that ‘Glucose’ daughter did well in her academics to end up as a college professor. For an idealist its a glowing example for utopian society. But for a bourgeois it means shortage of natural labour.
Then came the villain of villains- recession. The malayalees who were out to set the markets on fire, realised it’s better to invest on materials that can seen & touched. Huge money started flowing into Gold & land. Real estate boom ensured that the human resources that were already in shortage, was sucked up. This opened up doors of opportunity for impoverished, illiterate , out of work young men from northern parts of India. Here they were ready to work for a pittance. Soon the laws of natural selection prevailed and the ‘cheap’ labour started dominating the labour landscape of Kerala.
They worked from morning to night, demanded little, ate little, never talked back and chewed a lot of paan. These illiterate men seemed to be eligible to don the mantle of saviours. Even with little education many were capable of making out letters in Malayalam. They would take off all of a sudden to their homeland for a couple of months. This would irk the ‘contractors’ who took them on sub-contract. It’s these ‘contractors’ who hit the gold mine by recruiting these ‘cheap labour’. In turn they rented them out for higher wages. Another interesting phenomenon was, Hindi language which were not at all in Kerala landscape started to be heard around Kerala.
The inherent tension when a foreign element tries to embed itself into your otherwise comfortable system came into fore. Soon rumors and subsequent media reports on terrorism and robbery by these migrant community started to surface. The neo-liberal saviours started to be looked on with tension and suspicion. The absence of any valid ID proofs became a hindrance for the police officers to track them down. The ‘cheapness’ in labour also started to reduce when they started organising and demanding more wages.
Even then, these illiterate group of people were very successful in embedding themselves in every walk of life. Today no hotels or construction firms can run without them. Recently a regional issue flared up which saw these people immigrating back to their homeland. Soon the alarm bells started ringing and the top ministers had to cajole them to stay back. Although the cleanliness level is very low and the food cooked is no where near palatable, the hotels have no choice but to employ them. When put to do something, they do it but perfection is not at all taught in their moral science classes.
Looking into the future, I see quite a few settling down here. They might get married to our women and produce the squint eyed version of Malayalees. We will see some Hindi & Bhojpuri hoardings coming up. Soon they will run for the elections and the ‘ethnic’ Mallus will fight it out.
May be the recession turned out to be a great demographic leveller after all,
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