After reading Karmelin, a poignant tale of a Goan migrant, human rights activist and Supreme Court lawyer Nandita Haksar writes to Damodar Mauzo telling him that the travails of migrants from the North-East are no different from Goan migrants in the Middle-East.

DEAR MR Damodar Mauzo,

Ever since I read your novel Karmelin I have wanted to reach out to you. It is a very moving novel. You have so sensitively portrayed the anguish of a Goan migrant worker and her special vulnerability to sexual exploitation. I want to tell you stories about the migrant workers who have come from the North East to work in Goa.

North East and Goa are two extreme ends of our country. Yet there have been connections. I am not referring to the fact that Goa has had a Naga governor or a chief secretary. Perhaps you know that there are Naga and Meitei football players in all the Goan football teams. You may not know that some of these football players were able to get into the teams because of help from a former army officer from Goa who was posted in Manipur many years ago. He has not only kept up with his friends in Ukhrul all these years and helped the boys get into the football teams, he has preserved the words of Tangkhul love songs which he sings whenever he gets an opportunity! (Ukhrul is a district of Manipur and the home of the Tangkhul Nagas).

Goans and the people of the North East share a love of football and a love of music. Recently, there was a troupe from Mizoram and they performed their dances all over Goa. Kala Academy in Panaji has hosted an exhibition of Manipuri artists and a Manipuri film was shown by the Entertainment Society of Goa.

CONNECTIONS

THERE are many surprising connections between Goa and North East. But I am not writing to you about these connections. I want to tell you the stories about the first generation of migrant workers who have come from North East to Goa. Perhaps you have seen them. They work as night watchmen, waiters, cooks, receptionists, beauticians, DJs and music teachers. They are working in casinos, hotels, resorts, river cruises and kitchens.

You will see that the peoples of North East always smile, even during the most adverse circumstances. It is a part of their culture. It is considered very rude to speak loudly or to speak without smiling. There is no interaction without laughter, music and good food. But on recent visits to the North East I have noticed that the guitars are silent, the laughter has begun to die down and food is scarce. There are few job opportunities and education does not offer any satisfaction to a growing number of youth.

The Indian state has not developed infrastructure as a part of its counter-insurgency policy. Perhaps you will not sympathise with the movements for self-determination in the North East. There is much to be criticised of the movements but they have stopped the influx of tourism industry that is destroying Goa. They have also preserved their own culture and stopped the denationalisation of their people. Of course all this history is not directly relevant to what I want to tell you. But it may help you get a deeper feel of the circumstances that force these young men and women to leave their homes and come to this end of the country.

It is true that they are not "forced" in the way the Kunbis were once forced to work in the tea plantations of Assam by the British. T B Cunha has described the plight of a Kunbi worker who escaped from Assam and practically walked back to Goa. It took him three months across forests, crossing rivers and hiding in trains. When he arrived back home, he was so emaciated that his mother did not recognise him. We do not know the fate of the other Kunbis who remained in the North East.

Of course the working conditions of the North East migrants in Goa are not like the Kunbis who worked in the tea plantations of Assam in the early 1920s but their stories are full of pain and anguish. Their voices need to be heard.

STORIES OF ANGUISH

THE journey from North East to Goa does not take three months, but it is nonetheless a very long and expensive one. Depending from where they are coming, the young man or woman has to travel several hours by bus to reach Guwahati to catch a train. The journey by train is often the first exposure to the outside world. The heat and the crowded compartments make the journey anything but pleasant or comfortable. And by the end of the journey, the person is left without any money and there is a pressing need to begin work immediately.

Nothing prepares the North East villager for the moment when he or she converts from being a relatively carefree villager in their home surroundings to becoming a migrant worker. Most of these young men and women do not know the language, the customs or the culture. They have to get used to a different food, a different viewpoint and cope with the stress of the tourism industry.

One young man from Manipur told me his story of the first days in Goa. He began working in a hotel at Arambol. He said there were eight employees (he was the only one from North East). His day began early. He got up and quickly washed his clothes and took a bath and then started to peel vegetables - six or seven kgs of potatoes, half a bucket of coriander, three kgs of garlic, one kg of chillies, three kgs of onions. All this had to be ready by eight in the morning. After preparation of the vegetables, he had to help in the cooking and then serving once the guests started arriving.

He had to work till late into the night. After the last guests left, he and other workers had to clean the restaurant. It was 18-hour work and at the end of it there was no room to sleep in. The eight of them were given dirty mattresses, which were laid out on the sand and they slept there.

The payment was Rs.1800 with two meals. He could not eat Goan food because he was not used to coconut and he slept barely three hours a night. He left his work after six days.

WORSE OFF

HOWEVER, he soon discovered that others had faced worse situations. They had worked for months without getting any wages at all. Sometimes they were given their salary in cheque which they could not encash since they had no bank account. I could tell you many stories about the efforts of the North East migrants to open bank accounts here. Sometimes it is because they do not have identity papers, sometimes they have no introduction.

You will appreciate that a bank account is crucial because most of these youth can work only during the tourist season and then live on their savings during the long monsoon months. They cannot afford to go home. In their villages, the parents seldom know of the trying circumstances under which they work. But when they do find out it is often too late to call back their sons and daughters.

The North East youth are used to insurgency and counter-insurgency, but there are few murders and rapes within their own societies. The entire community was so shocked when one Naga youth, Khushi Jamir, was stabbed in 22 places by a Nepali colleague in Panaji in June 2009. His room mate, a young man from Meghalaya, was shaken to the core as he watched the embalming of his friend’s body with utter disbelief.

You are a writer. It will not take you much effort to imagine the anguish of the mothers and fathers who are told that their sons will be returning home in a coffin. This was the case of Lucky and Thotshang who worked in Hotel Lounge Fly at Baga. They were working as waiters and on that fateful day they had finished their shift and had gone to their accommodation to cook their meal. They were too tired to cook a proper meal so they were frying some eggs when the roof fell and they were killed instantly along with their Nepali colleague. You can imagine the anguish of the parents when they went down to Imphal airport to receive the dead bodies.

NO VOMITING

IN the same incident two other men from Manipur were injured and admitted to the GMC Hospital. One of them was in hospital for several months and his wife had to earn by working at a disco. I went to see the disco. As you enter the disco, you see a big hand written sign pasted above the entrance to the toilet: "Rs.1000 fine for vomiting". Since photography is strictly prohibited, I could not take a photo.

The disco had two rooms. At the entrance was the bar and below was the dance floor. The guests were single men. The DJ and ten other employees were all from Manipur. The men served drinks and acted as bouncers. The women (I also saw a Goan woman dressed in a kind of wedding dress) were paid Rs.500 to dance with any of the guests (mostly single men from outside Goa).

I asked these young people what they thought of their future. They know there is none. The long work hours do not allow them to study or travel and see places. Many of them had come with the hope of travelling and found themselves stuck at one beach. Some of them had not even visited the churches at Old Goa.

There is little possibility of saving money. Many of them send money home. Even if it is a few hundred or a thousand rupees, the money is crucial for the survival of their families. But this means they cannot save for themselves, either to go back home or for their future. I met four brothers and sisters who are working in Goa. They had pooled in their money and sent a ticket to their mother.

The mother had come to Goa, looking forward to being with her children. But she soon got caught in their crazy routine because they were all away during the night and during the day they slept. She was proud of her children because they sent money home but now that she saw their conditions she felt an infinite sadness. She, a mother of ten children, still looked young but her children who were all in their twenties looked tired and worn out.

BEAUTY PARLOURS

WHILE she was visiting Goa she was shocked to learn several women were picked up during police raids on beauty parlours. These young women had been detained at the women’s home at Merces. One of these young women had come to Goa just 15 days ago. It was the first time she had ever come out of Manipur. After coming to Goa, she decided to try and learn some skill and a friend from Manipur told her she could get training as a beautician at a parlour where he was also working. She applied and was told she would be given training for two months. No letter of appointment was given. She learnt manicure, pedicure and something about make-up while her male colleague learnt hair styling.

The young woman, let us call her Mary, told me that the parlour offered woman-to-man massages. For a full body massage with coconut oil, it cost Rs.1000 to Rs.1500 and for aroma oil it cost Rs.3000. It did not seem very odd at first. Mary was never asked to massage and she worked upstairs. But she did begin to notice things that were disturbing. She said she had heard people come in taxis and ask for "extra service" but she was not sure what it meant. She also found out that the other women employees used to give "dirty massages" to men in the cubicles downstairs. Her male colleague had already confided to her that he would be leaving after his training. But the Madam found out about his plans and told him to stay on promising to increase his pay.

And then it happened. The parlour was raided by policemen. Everyone was arrested, including the Madam who owned the parlour. Mary’s friend was beaten at the police station and sent to jail. She was put into the detention centre.

Mary was in the protective home for 25 days. The home was filthy. One of the inmates had a baby and the baby had defecated on the dining table where the food was served. When she refused to eat the food, one of the inmates said: "Are you from the royal family that you won’t eat?" While she was in the home some members of a NGO did visit but they were not concerned with the living conditions and they made little effort to explain anything to her. All they told her was that she would have to wait till her father came and took her out.

Mary’s father came from Manipur to take her out. The father could not speak English and it was the first time he had travelled so far from his village. He earned barely Rs.1000 a month as a chowkidar of a church. In order to come to Goa, he had to sell his only buffalo and now he did not know what he would do since it was ploughing season. His family was ruined. Mary’s father’s world had collapsed around him. He was far, far from home. He felt crushed and utterly helpless. The only people who were supposed to help, members of a NGO, shouted at him for not protecting his daughter from prostitution. He did not know what "prostitution" meant.

INDIGNANT

MARY was indignant. She had started training and was earning an honest living, dreaming of becoming a beautician. She had never heard of dirty massages till she came to Goa and now the court ordered that she return home with her father. She had no one to represent her interests and no one to help her get back her bag with some money from the police, which was so important under the circumstances. Meanwhile her friend who had been arrested was released on bail. He had gone to the police station to ask for the FIR, but the police refused. The madam, his employer, refused to give him the bail order or any papers relating to the case. She had stopped paying him since the parlour was closed and now he had neither work nor money to go home. He tried to contact a NGO for a lawyer but the lawyer insisted on fees which he could not afford.

After the media published reports about the North East women being arrested from the beauty parlours other North-easterners found it increasingly difficult to rent homes in the area. One family told me that more than 15 people had refused to rent out rooms and then their employer intervened and got them some accommodation. More and more people from the North East are coming to Goa. They are forced to come because of the unbearable situation created by the lack of development and indifference of the Indian state to the problems of the peoples of the North East. When they come here to Goa, their lives as migrant labour takes them away from their cultural roots and makes them alienated beings. They turn to alcohol and sometimes to drugs.

Is this a Goan problem? Is it an Indian problem? Or is it a problem for the North East? Whose problem is it? Whether it is Karmelins of Goa in the Middle East or North Eastern migrants in Goa or Bihari migrants in Nagaland and Bangladeshi migrants in Assam, these migrants are targets of discrimination, vulnerable to exploitation and manoeuvred by cynical politicians, religious fundamentalists and well intentioned NGOs.

The politician makes them pawns in their election games; the religious fundamentalist (Hindu, Muslim and Christian) uses their loneliness and vulnerability to spread his poisoned views; the NGOs make them projects to be funded by foreign donors. Politics of resistance is fractured. There is no vision to guide the action of the postmodern activist. The NGO working on trafficking works comfortably with the police who violate the rights of citizens; the feminist feels no need to show solidarity with migrant workers and trade unions have no interest in a migrant worker wrongly accused of prostitution. In the fragmented postmodern world of the liberals, there is little place for grand narratives of justice or humanism or even human rights standards. There is little scope for human solidarity or effective, collective, political action.

FUNDAMENTALISTS

THE migrant everywhere is left at the mercy of right wing religious fundamentalist parties such as the Shiv Sena or the RSS in India or the ultra nationalist parties in Europe and the USA. Recently, 5000 RSS cadres met in Panaji. Their main concern was the migrants.

I have been shocked to see how the RSS cadres took over Azad Maidan in Panaji; how they tried to take the legacy of T B Cunha by paying homage to him and no one seems to have protested. Who does one turn to in such times? I believe only a writer can tell the truth through his or her stories.

Stories are medicine. Stories can transform people and their perceptions. That is why I am writing to you to tell you a few stories which are becoming a part of a saga of migration….The stories I have told you connect very different people, are a bridge between different worlds but remind us of our common humanity. I write to you with the hope that you will make these stories your own and infuse in them the power of your words and your humanism.

You may wonder who I am. It is irrelevant. I am a fellow citizen. Is that not enough that we are both human beings, we are both citizens of a democracy, we both live in Goa…. Is anything else relevant?

Thank you for your patient hearing, and may be if we meet we will share more stories.

Nandita Haksar,
February 5, 2010.