February 16th, 1997

THE BODY SHOPPERS Begging for the chachas All Aboard But None Abroad Sruvival Sumitter Singh recounts his ordeal Making it big, somewhere else Lure, loot and scoot Dravidian dilemma

What does Murshidabad have in common with Mecca? Its beggars! The streets of Mecca and Medina are full of girls and boys from the eastern-most district in West Bengal filling their bowls with the benevolence of the rich Arabs.
The Arabs give alms in the belief that if they donate liberally to the poor, preferably handicapped children in the holy cities they will be rewarded a hundred fold. The Indians take it so that their families back home don't go hungry. But the ones who are apparently cornering the rewards are the agents, touts, or chachas as the children call them, who convince parents into parting with their kids. This is the latest in body shopping, to borrow a phrase from the wired world. And by some estimates the returns for the body shoppers of the IT industry.

While the families of the children of Murshidabad were lucky to get back their little ones after theri Saudi odyssey, tragedy struck several families in Punjab: their children met a watery grave in the Ionian sea off Malta. Over 200 youths from the Doaba region of the state, comprising Jalandhar, Kapurthalal, Hoshiapur and Nawazshahar districts, had virtually been lured to their deaths by unscrupulous agents exploiting their weakness for the foreign land.
Unlike the poor Muslims of Murshidabad, these relatively well-off youths had paid through their nose, though for the same purpose: the chance of a better life. But it was not to be.
Yet hundreds are waiting to take the same tragic course, and the inhuman export racketeers of Murshidabad would surely snap back into action, come next Haj.

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