Comment | Bonded labourers of Bengaluru
The HinduIn February, a non-profit organisation based in Bangalore, International Justice Mission, issued a press release in which it detailed the rescue of 204 bonded labourers in the suburbs of the city. Recalling this incident is relevant in the context of Karnataka State government’s decision to hold back migrant workers who are desperate to return to their homes after the lockdown rendered them jobless and starving. The H1- B visa programme and the Indian IT outsourcing industry combined is a hybrid of exporting work and importing labour — an IT company takes dozens of workers to the U.S., and simultaneously shifts several times more American jobs to its Indian locations, in a typical business model. These workers are mostly skilled and they can technically reach the highest peaks of the U.S. economic pyramid — Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, CEOs of Google and Microsoft, respectively, started their American careers with these temporary work permits. As for capitalist democracies, the advantage that comes with exporting work is also to push exploitative labour relations that might be difficult to sustain within their societies to the peripheries of the global system.
History of this topic
Silk slaves: India’s bonded laborers are forced to work to pay off debts
CNN
Migrant crisis in Karnataka reveals dark underbelly of Bengaluru's economy, and how recruitment agencies exploit labourers
Firstpost
Karnataka stares at Mumbai-like migrant labour situation
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