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As women cook over fires and men rest after work, children go out to play under the sweltering afternoon sun. They zip and dash around the massive heaps of plastic waste that stand tall around their makeshift houses in Bengaluru’s Varthur.
Over a dozen of them live in these fragile settlements, hailing from families that migrated from West Bengal’s Nadia and Murshidabad districts in search of work. Once landless farmers, their parents are now ragpickers, whose daily labour keeps Bengaluru green, clean, and smart.
These children are raised in the urban shanties of Bengaluru until they are around seven or eight years old. Later, parents are forced to send them back to their native villages to live with extended family and get an education.
Working under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (formerly Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike), migrant ragpickers earn almost Rs 10,000 per month, often delayed or inexplicably reduced. “If we are paid Rs 10,000, the people on top of the chain will eat up Rs 20,000 of it,” a resident of the Varthur settlement told TNM.
The minimum wages for unskilled workers in Karnataka were prescribed last year, and ragpickers, classified as unskilled workers in Zone I, are entitled to more than Rs 15,000 per month, which amounts to Rs 603 per day. In reality, the wages they receive only come up to Rs 400 per day.
“If we were back in West Bengal, we could send our children to school; we wouldn’t have to live in fear of police walking by our house, branding us illegal occupants. So many people migrate to Bengaluru to earn money for their homes, whether they work in Electronic City or here. What is our fault?” asks Fariha*, a mother of three.
Eleven households rent this plot of land in Varthur from a local landlord for a collective monthly rent of Rs 15,000. They jointly pay the electricity bill, which goes up to Rs 7,000 in the summer months. No plumbing or water system is in place – residents bear the cost of buying water twice a week, adding Rs 1,200 to their monthly expenses. Eleven households use one community toilet.
Caught between the rising costs of keeping their children with them in the city and the fear of eviction from makeshift houses, these migrant workers must jump several hoops to get by daily.
Living in a vicious cycle
The families living in Varthur had originally come to the city eight years ago in the hopes of better opportunities for their children.
“We thought this was a big city, not like the village where we lived… getting educated here, we hoped, would mean getting a good job somewhere. We thought if our children studied here, then they would at least be employed at hotels, at showrooms, or at the very least as delivery drivers,” said Baleeq (name changed), a father of three, whose children eventually finished their schooling only to return to the shanty in Varthur.
Baleeq has worked in waste collection for the city civic body for eight years. Before moving to Bengaluru, he spent several years doing the same work in Haryana. He decided to shift to Bengaluru after Haryana became dangerous for Muslim migrants, with a rise in gau-rakshak (cow protection) squads cruising the northwest countryside, roughing up Muslims over allegations of beef smuggling.
His daughter, 26-year-old Ruqaiyyah* was sent back to their village in Nadia district as a child to begin her education. She was the only one from her family to receive a full schooling till Class 12.
“My parents supported me even after my schooling. They tried to help me find jobs in Bengal, looking for school-educated workers, but nothing lasted, and nothing paid enough,” Ruqaiyyah told TNM. After four years, she got married. Now, she lives with her husband and three children in the Varthur shanty.
Baleeq’s 22-year-old son, Javed*, also works in garbage collection at the same meagre wages as the rest of the men in his family. “I have only studied till Class 8,” he told TNM. Javed had to leave his schooling to start working alongside his father during a family emergency.
Many residents also fear sending their children to school in Bengaluru, since they do not know Hindi or Kannada. “If my son only speaks Bangla, he will be bullied by his classmates. He will be alienated and made a joke out of. Who would want that for their child?” asked Fariha.
Residents have, as a result, gotten stuck in this vicious cycle—generations growing up in the dwellings and not being able to find gainful employment despite schooling. Some of them have even lost hope in schooling.
“The kids will come and work here after all,” a resident told TNM.
Women are accorded the responsibility of taking care of the younger children at home. Women whose children have grown up and gone back to the village take up work as domestic help in nearby high-rise apartment complexes, earning upto Rs 13,000 per month.
The collected and stockpiled trash is sold every 3-4 months to nearby plastic factories, which use it for cutting and recycling. This extra income, roughly Rs 25,000, significantly boosts the ‘regular’ earnings of the families.
Children spend the most critical months of their lives in these makeshift dwellings, growing up playing around massive mounds of garbage that pose a surefire health risk. But parents can’t afford to fall sick. Their low incomes mean they have no savings. A hospital visit pushes families into debts that can take years to repay.
Several residents describe winter months when they’ve gone to work sick, as they couldn’t afford days off.
No relief from BBMP
Despite working from 6 am to 1 pm daily (as well as evening shifts in case of a shortage of workers), residents are still not considered official government workers. GBA authorities have time and again promised them recognition and issuance of ID cards classifying them as government employees, but to no avail.
Residents have also learnt to expect nothing and ask for little. TNM learnt of an alleged incident that took place two months ago. A representative from the Karnataka State Minimum Wages and EPF Advisory Board visited the area and asked them if there were discrepancies in their wages. Shafi-ul (name changed), a ragpicker from the neighbourhood told them he had not received his wages for two months.
“He was living on borrowed money from everyone else in the neighbourhood. We are all living hand-to-mouth, but when money is late, it pushes people over the edge,” said Javed.
Shafi-ul pleaded with the board member to raise his concern with higher authorities, saying he needed the money to pay back his loans and stand on his own feet. A week later, he was allegedly fired.
All the long-time workers are landless farmers who used to rent a bigha of land from big landlords for six months. They would sell some of the produce and subsist on the rest. “Back home, we only own the land on which our house stands,” Hussain told TNM.
“We are doing the same thing here – we work to save and survive. After four years of working diligently here, I could save enough to build my parents a proper cement house on our land. I was able to marry off my sister. With enough time and money, one day I could buy a stretch of land near the highway and open a shop. It would be consistent income for the family at least,” he added.
*Names have been changed to protect their identity.