மீள் பதிவு பேட்டி: பிரண்ட் லைன்
Subrabharathi Manian. His writings espouse the
cause of the poor.
“THE greatest tragedy of Tirupur, the erstwhile
bastion of the leftist and trade union movements in western Tamil Nadu, is that
the class consciousness of the workers, more particularly the migrant labour in
the garment industry, has been blunted and they are being pushed into the
drudgery of a monotonous, dull and mechanical life,” says Subrabharathi Manian,
a member of the Sahitya Akademi Advisory Board, who in his writings espouses
the cause of the poor and the marginalised, particularly the migrant labourers in
the garment industry.
Talking to Frontline, he expressed anguish at
reports on suicides and attempts to commit suicide by migrant workers and their
family members. “Many migrant workers in the garment industry, who alienate
themselves from the trade unions in a bid to earn more through hard work,
ultimately slip into depression the moment they realise that they have been
drawn into an illusory world of prosperity,” he said.
According to him, the worst hit among the migrants
are single parents and their children. He recalled how he, along with his
parents, migrated to Tirupur five decades ago, when he was hardly 10 years old,
from his native Segadanthaazhi village. For hundreds of families in
Segadanthaazhi and a few other villages in the area, Tirupur's fledgling
hosiery industry offered hope .
Manian learnt a lot about the travails of migrant
labourers when he was an employee of the Telecom Department in Hyderabad for
eight years, until 1993. The labourers, most of them from southern Tamil Nadu
looking for work in Andhra Pradesh, inspired his first novel, Matrum Silar (And
a Few Others), in 1989. Issues such as inter-State river water disputes, which
posed a formidable challenge to national integration, provoked him to pen Sudu
Manal (Hot Sand) in 1992.
When he returned to Tirupur in 1994 he was stunned
by the growth of the knitwear industry, which had started earning foreign
exchange to the tune of Rs.10,000 crore. But soon he was able to see the other
side of the “Dollar City”, with 30,000 children employed in the hosiery
industry. Beside, the release of untreated effluents into the Noyyal river, the
lifeline of Tirupur, by dyeing units added to the agony of the farming
community.
As a socially conscious writer committed to
socialism and democracy, Manian wielded his pen against the evil practice of
child labour and the pollution of the Noyyal. His novel Saayathirai (The
Coloured Curtain), published in 1994, described the devastating effect of
effluents from dyeing factories on the cultural and economic life of the
people. Translated into English, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada, the novel won
the appreciation of the literary world. A recipient of the “katha” award for
the ‘best short story writer' and the Tamil Nadu government's award for ‘best
novel', he has authored 30 works, including seven novels, 13 short story
collections and a travelogue.
It was a sad reality that activists of different
political parties in Tirupur were prepared to discuss everything under the sun
but carefully skirted issues such as child labour, labour rights and protection
of the environment. Marxism helped him to see things from a different
perspective. Along with a few NGOs, he and his friends in the progressive
literary circles launched an awareness campaign on child labour and environment
protection. However, he made it clear that they were not opposed to industrial
development or science and technology.
They were disheartened by the lukewarm response
from the people and the industry but saw light at the end of the tunnel in the
form of pressure on the exporters from buyers. This forced the exporters to
adopt mechanisms such as social audits, including ISO 9000 and Social
Accountability 8000, to ensure labour standards and eco-friendly garments, he
said. The media forced the government to intervene, he added.
Though child labour was no longer in vogue in the
big export units, it was still practised at the sub-contract level and by some
of the units producing knitwear for the domestic market, said Manian. Exporters
now responded to issues relating to pollution, and corporate social
responsibility and fair trade practices were among the issues that were widely
discussed in the town, said Manian.
Large-scale influx of migrant workers added a new
dimension to Tirupur's problems. These first-generation workers are mostly
single men or women and they tire themselves out when still young.
Manian said government agencies, exporters, trade
unions, political parties and intellectuals should put their heads together to
evolve a strategy to ensure that the garment labourers were treated humanely.
Writers had a key role to play in this regard, he concluded.
S. Dorairaj
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