April 10, 2010
In Baghdad, for a fast buck
"We need to get the job done." This was the refrain former US president George W Bush used every time he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq. His men in the war zone, however, would have told him that whenever they wanted to get a job done, they turned to an Indian.
Considering India has not contributed a single soldier to the coalition forces in Iraq — even ordinary citizens are warned not to travel to the conflict ridden country — it is surprising that one of the untold stories of what happened after the second US invasion of Iraq is that of what the Indians did there. One of the enduring images of the First Gulf War in 1991 is special Air India flights taxiing into the Saddam Hussein International Airport (now renamed Baghdad International Airport) to bring back the thousands of Indians stranded in the country.
This time, it is a completely different story. Instead of fleeing the war-torn country, Indians are risking everything to get involved in the rebuilding effort. Indians now run the show not only for the British and American troops, but also for the global corporations that have bagged multi-billion-dollar contracts to work on Iraq's oilfields, infrastructure projects and security. According to a quip often heard around Camp Victory — a massive US army base in Baghdad — whenever the commanding officer wants hot water for his morning shave, his men go looking for an Indian.
"The coalition's is an occupation force and their soldiers have their own needs and demands. They want everything to be like back home and that is where the Indians come into the picture. Indian workers take care of almost everything at American military camps, be it fixing a computer or ironing a commander's uniforms," says a senior official at the Ministry of External Affairs.
According to Indian embassy records, there were no Indian nationals in Iraq in 2004. Today, though official estimates peg the figure at 8,000, sources say there are more than 80,000 Indians living in Iraq despite the government advisory against travelling to the country. With no direct flights between India and Iraq — which has a visa-on-arrival policy — Indians enter Iraq via Kuwait or Dubai and their official documents never acknowledge they were living in Iraq. Their adventures remain unsung.
"I work as a driver at a multibillion dollar infrastructure project in the Iraqi city of Baquba," says Kuldeep Singh, a resident of Amritsar in Punjab, as he boards a Kuwait-Baghdad flight. "I have a visa to work in Kuwait, so every few months I go there just for a day to get it renewed and fly back into Iraq."
US multinational KBR Inc and Kuwaiti firm Prime Projects International (PPI) are two major organisations that provide Indian workers to various construction projects, oil fields and military camps in Iraq. They source workers through a network of contractors in India. The worker himself pays hefty commissions at every level and ends up taking only a quarter of what KBR and PPI charge the company that hires him.
In the years just after the second US invasion, manpower suppliers in Iraq were relying on men from neighbouring Arab countries like Lebanon and Syria, but things did not work out very well. "Indians are now preferred as they are hardworking and don't ask too many questions. They stick to their job and speak good English. They also bridge the gap between local Arabs and the foreigners. Most importantly, the Brits and Americans don't see us as a security threat," said Gangadhar Mameda, an electrician from Hyderabad who worked for two years servicing surveillance cameras at Camp Victory before moving to the American military facility in Al-Asad.
There are around 6,000 Indian workers in the Green Zone — the 10-sq km fortified international neighbourhood in central Baghdad that houses foreign nationals, US officials, five star hotels and various ministries of the Iraqi government. Indians work as caterers for international embassies in Baghdad and if you ever get a chance to attend a high-profile dinner thrown by an international agency in the Green Zone, chances are that your waiter will be an Indian. The residents depend on Indians for all possible jobs from plumbing to keeping the lawns manicured, from simple carpentry to repairing computers.
So why do Indians risk their lives and travel to one of the most hostile places on the planet. The primary reason is that there is good money to be made in the war zone. An ordinary, blue-collar , unskilled worker can earn around $700 a month in Iraq — which translates to around Rs 31,000 — and all of it is sent directly to his family back home. The workers stay in air-conditioned containers with bunk beds. There is television for entertainment and several phones to get in touch with the family. All project sites and military camps are heavily guarded with no scope for workers to move outside. "We don't have to spend a penny as everything — food, accommodation, clothes etc — are provided by the contractors," says Kuldeep Singh.
More than 250 Indians are also working on the construction of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimaniya and 500 have found employment at a steel mill in Arbil. Even the Chinese — who have pocketed the rights to a super giant oil field in Rumaila — have employed Indian engineers.
Hundreds of Indian techies are also working in Iraq — in fact, the entire accounting system of the Trade Bank of Iraq was developed by an Indian, Arvind Lele, who lived in Baghdad for four years until health worries forced him to return home to Faridabad. Says R G Reddy, an IT engineer from Andhra Pradesh: "I took up a job at Taji (northern Iraq) because the money was better than anything I would make in Hyderabad. There are four more Indian techies at the facility and we all live together."
The chance to return home for an ordinary Indian worker comes once in two years when his employer pays for a return ticket out of Baghdad. "We get just 45 days' leave, but I won't return before two months. My family worries a lot while I am away and I am going to spend as much time as possible with them before I throw myself back into Iraq," says Mameda, the electrician from Hyderabad.
In Baghdad, for a fast buck
"We need to get the job done." This was the refrain former US president George W Bush used every time he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq. His men in the war zone, however, would have told him that whenever they wanted to get a job done, they turned to an Indian.
Considering India has not contributed a single soldier to the coalition forces in Iraq — even ordinary citizens are warned not to travel to the conflict ridden country — it is surprising that one of the untold stories of what happened after the second US invasion of Iraq is that of what the Indians did there. One of the enduring images of the First Gulf War in 1991 is special Air India flights taxiing into the Saddam Hussein International Airport (now renamed Baghdad International Airport) to bring back the thousands of Indians stranded in the country.
This time, it is a completely different story. Instead of fleeing the war-torn country, Indians are risking everything to get involved in the rebuilding effort. Indians now run the show not only for the British and American troops, but also for the global corporations that have bagged multi-billion-dollar contracts to work on Iraq's oilfields, infrastructure projects and security. According to a quip often heard around Camp Victory — a massive US army base in Baghdad — whenever the commanding officer wants hot water for his morning shave, his men go looking for an Indian.
"The coalition's is an occupation force and their soldiers have their own needs and demands. They want everything to be like back home and that is where the Indians come into the picture. Indian workers take care of almost everything at American military camps, be it fixing a computer or ironing a commander's uniforms," says a senior official at the Ministry of External Affairs.
According to Indian embassy records, there were no Indian nationals in Iraq in 2004. Today, though official estimates peg the figure at 8,000, sources say there are more than 80,000 Indians living in Iraq despite the government advisory against travelling to the country. With no direct flights between India and Iraq — which has a visa-on-arrival policy — Indians enter Iraq via Kuwait or Dubai and their official documents never acknowledge they were living in Iraq. Their adventures remain unsung.
"I work as a driver at a multibillion dollar infrastructure project in the Iraqi city of Baquba," says Kuldeep Singh, a resident of Amritsar in Punjab, as he boards a Kuwait-Baghdad flight. "I have a visa to work in Kuwait, so every few months I go there just for a day to get it renewed and fly back into Iraq."
US multinational KBR Inc and Kuwaiti firm Prime Projects International (PPI) are two major organisations that provide Indian workers to various construction projects, oil fields and military camps in Iraq. They source workers through a network of contractors in India. The worker himself pays hefty commissions at every level and ends up taking only a quarter of what KBR and PPI charge the company that hires him.
In the years just after the second US invasion, manpower suppliers in Iraq were relying on men from neighbouring Arab countries like Lebanon and Syria, but things did not work out very well. "Indians are now preferred as they are hardworking and don't ask too many questions. They stick to their job and speak good English. They also bridge the gap between local Arabs and the foreigners. Most importantly, the Brits and Americans don't see us as a security threat," said Gangadhar Mameda, an electrician from Hyderabad who worked for two years servicing surveillance cameras at Camp Victory before moving to the American military facility in Al-Asad.
There are around 6,000 Indian workers in the Green Zone — the 10-sq km fortified international neighbourhood in central Baghdad that houses foreign nationals, US officials, five star hotels and various ministries of the Iraqi government. Indians work as caterers for international embassies in Baghdad and if you ever get a chance to attend a high-profile dinner thrown by an international agency in the Green Zone, chances are that your waiter will be an Indian. The residents depend on Indians for all possible jobs from plumbing to keeping the lawns manicured, from simple carpentry to repairing computers.
So why do Indians risk their lives and travel to one of the most hostile places on the planet. The primary reason is that there is good money to be made in the war zone. An ordinary, blue-collar , unskilled worker can earn around $700 a month in Iraq — which translates to around Rs 31,000 — and all of it is sent directly to his family back home. The workers stay in air-conditioned containers with bunk beds. There is television for entertainment and several phones to get in touch with the family. All project sites and military camps are heavily guarded with no scope for workers to move outside. "We don't have to spend a penny as everything — food, accommodation, clothes etc — are provided by the contractors," says Kuldeep Singh.
More than 250 Indians are also working on the construction of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimaniya and 500 have found employment at a steel mill in Arbil. Even the Chinese — who have pocketed the rights to a super giant oil field in Rumaila — have employed Indian engineers.
Hundreds of Indian techies are also working in Iraq — in fact, the entire accounting system of the Trade Bank of Iraq was developed by an Indian, Arvind Lele, who lived in Baghdad for four years until health worries forced him to return home to Faridabad. Says R G Reddy, an IT engineer from Andhra Pradesh: "I took up a job at Taji (northern Iraq) because the money was better than anything I would make in Hyderabad. There are four more Indian techies at the facility and we all live together."
The chance to return home for an ordinary Indian worker comes once in two years when his employer pays for a return ticket out of Baghdad. "We get just 45 days' leave, but I won't return before two months. My family worries a lot while I am away and I am going to spend as much time as possible with them before I throw myself back into Iraq," says Mameda, the electrician from Hyderabad.
Times of India.com
