Fly by night

The issue of illegal Indian migrants has never overly exercised this country. Even data on the number of Indians who attempt to gain a backdoor entry into the various countries of the world has proved as shadowy as the stowaways themselves. The actual figure will never be known of course, but in 1999 the government gave Parliament evidence of how large it possibly could be: some 2,36,085 Indian nationals had been deported to India from various countries over the earlier three-and-a-half-years. The mafia that control this trafficking of humans is, quite obviously, extremely powerful. And, for proof of this, we have Babubhai Katara, BJP MP — caught while personally attempting to escort two illegal migrants to Toronto by using his diplomatic travel documents.

The BJP displayed commendable swiftness in disowning Katara and expelling him from the party, not that it had much of a choice. But Katara’s culpability is far more serious than the mere embarrassment it might have meant to one political party. It signals the apathy of the Indian establishment to the international crime of illegal human trafficking. The only moment when some attention was paid to it was in the aftermath of the Malta boat tragedy in 1996, which saw the drowning of at least 140 young Indians — lured by the prospect of gaining entry into Europe. The incident occasioned some scrutiny of fly-by-night travel agents selling dollar dreams to unemployed young men, especially in Punjab, but precious little came of it. Today, these hole-in-the-wall operations continue to flourish and Paramjeet Kaur, one of those whom Katara was escorting to Toronto, was just another of their victims.

But the latest scandal places India in something of a moral dilemma. With what credibility can it raise the issue of illegal migrants with other countries, if members of its own establishment can abuse their official position to act as business partners of human traffickers?