Discrimination and the Indian Population

Discrimination and the Indian Population of the United Arab Emirates Introduction: The United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971 under conditions which would separate it from the rest of the Arab sphere, achieving a unified 'trucial' status with the British colonialist force in the Middle East. This would allow it to make the transition into independence without the revolution and upheaval which had been necessary in so many other Middle Eastern theatres. No doubt, its oil wealth and its receptiveness to western intervention in the form of Foreign Direct Investment would help to expedite and ease this process. Indeed, today, it is without competitor the fastest growing economy in the Middle East. A variety of indicators rank it amongst the largest economies in the world, and its major two emirates of the seven (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) are top destinations for multinational corporations, businessmen and unskilled laborers, all of whom have tended to flock to the UAE for an opportunity index which appears as exponentially better than most of its neighbors. In spite of this, the Emirates continues to reflect a culture rife with inequalities and prejudices, with the conditions faces by its Indian labor class chief among examples of discriminatory housing, religious hostility, labor abuse and repressive legal mistreatment.

Research Questions: As we enter into a discussion of the social and economic disenfranchisment of the Indian population of the UAE, the research will be guided by broader questions concerning the private, professional and public spheres of the nation as they relate to ethnicity, religion and geopolitical orientation. Guided by the overarching research question, which asks to what extent Indian Nationals face discrimination and inequality in the United Arab Emirates, the literature review will attempt to engage a discourse on the complex array of intervening conditions both within and without the Emirates that makes this so.

Literature Review: A nation that is at once seen as progressive in relativity to others in its region and which is yet given over to distinct imbalances in ethnicity and gender-due in no small part to its religious uniformity-its economic system proceeds in a difficult and somewhat contradictory mode. (SR, 1) In a nation markedly composed, more than any other country in the world, of immigrant citizens, and yet oriented toward an internal development that might keep its citizenry apace with the progress courted by its oil economy. (UNICEF, 1) Indeed, the treatment which is given to many of the Indian expatriates who have made their home in the Emirates is nothing less than explicit in the terms by which it willfully seeks to isolate and disadvantage them. An article from 2007 notes that, "an Indian National who has lived all his life in UAE expressed his shock when the Giant Real Estate agents mentioned that Indian customers would not be leased the apartment, and that they were under 'strict instructions' from landlords to consider only Europeans as tenants for the apartment." (DREM, 1) This is one of the many areas in which there appears to be a cultural tendency to marginalize the significant Indian population both economically and socially. In a region where Islamic faith and capitalism run into each other with uncommonly seamless interdependence, many of the global conflicts that impact this relationship are evident in the cultural discomfort still evident throughout the region and the Emirates in particular. Among them, the tendency in the broader culture toward explicit gender inequality and the tendency which denotes a sympathy for the conflicts facing Muslims abroad both mark the UAE as being less culturally progressive than its economic status seems to imply. The treatment which Indians face in the UAE is both a racial prejudice and one with roots in the highly charged conflict between India and its neighbor in Pakistan. A concise reflection on the ongoing tension between the Hindu state of India and its territorial adversary in the world's most predominantly Muslim nation of Pakistan helps to underscore the cultural rift that manifests throughout the eastern sphere of the world, with the Emirates demonstrating the impact of a more highly integrated setting there within. Pakistan's relationship with India has long been a defining element of its modern existence as well as a high priority issue for the global Muslim population. Particularly, the disputed zone of Kashmir has, throughout the state's life been a cause for hostilities. "Three full-scale wars-in 1947- 48, 1965 and 1971-and a constant state of military preparedness on both sides of their mutual border have marked the half-century of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan." (Kronstadt, 3) This rivalry would even provoke the acquisition of nuclear weapons for both sides, with Pakistan and India becoming the first two nations of the developing world to orient successful nuclear programs. Beginning in 1972, Pakistan became an active producer of nuclear power. This would result in the 1988 India-Pakistan nuclear agreement, which placed regulatory control over the production and demonstration of further nuclear power. That breakthrough in relations would be followed by a range of agreements between the two states intended to gradually scale down military tensions. (Pojer, 1) Nonetheless, religious tensions continue to dominate affairs in the Kashmiri region, coalescing in the 1998 nuclear tests by both Pakistan and India. These alarmed the world community, bringing about a greater recognition of the need for international oversight of nuclear practices and invoking U.N. sanctions against both. Still, this would set off yet another period of hot hostility between the two nations, with localized skirmishes producing widespread violence and a sense of lasting global hostility between Muslim populations and Indian nationals abroad. At present, "India blames Pakistan for supporting a violent separatist rebellion in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley that has taken between 40,000 and 90,000 lives since 1989." (Kronstadt, 3) Though the region is currently in a state of ceasefire, this is nonetheless an uneasy and temporary peace with no defined resolution on the immediate horizon. The result is that, even with hostilities at a temporary cessation in the region, Indians must face open social exclusion or tension in many parts of the Arab world. With the UAE being one of the chief economic destinations in the region, it has become one of the likeliest points of intercession for this type of interaction. Thus, as we return to a discussion of the housing issue, we find that like the ceasefire in the Kashmiri region, the official policy in the UAE is one of intended compatibility but that behaviors still reflect the deep- seeded and pronounced feeling of hostility between the demographics. (Bener et al, 1) This is to say that legal policy does explicitly prohibit the kind of discrimination which has locked many Indian citizens out of housing. "But, the problem with such cases is that they are difficult to be proven. After-all, the Landlord can always defend himself by claiming that he refused the tenant for personal reasons. Nevertheless, in case racism is proven, the trade license of the Landlord can be revoked by the authorities concerned." (DREM, 1) This points to an imbalance that is not legal but is truly ingrained. But as the literature here encountered goes on to demonstrate, there is a clear pattern of ethnic discrimination in the UAE on a wholesale level. Tensions between Indian and Arab populations are certainly present, but the modern capitalist integration of the Emirates belies a continued sense of cultural and ethnic isolation betwixt groups that is most certainly precipitated by economic interests. Where housing and employment both are concerned, evidence abounds of a diverse but segregated society, with a view of its most populated cities revealing "many signs . . . demonstrating discrimination based on not only nationality but also by which area of a country people come from, and by religion." (Seabee, 1) Perhaps more than anything else, the conditions of segregation are indicative of nation which has been integrated not organically but by the call of capitalism, producing a widely transplanted and uncomfortably diversified land in a region more often than not characterized by sharp and sometimes violent forms of cultural isolation or division. The socioeconomic motives hinted at here above do also have a strong bearing on the nature of the discrimination, which assumes a distinct economic hierarchy based on wage patterns derived from different national backgrounds. Countless anecdotal cases have emerged in the literature review to demonstrate that the correlation between wage and ethnicity is based on views of the expectations that one's nationality will have bred in terms of income. Such a case derived from an article in 2004 illustrates this pattern. Here, "S.M. Kumar, an IT engineer, was offered a monthly wage of Dh4,000 while working in his home state of Goa, on the west coast of India. He thought his dream had come true. Dh4,000 meant Rs52,000. Only when he arrived in the UAE did he realise he had been hoodwinked. His Arab counterpart with the same qualifications, skills and experience was being paid Dh7,000, and his Western colleague still more - Dh10,000." (Salama, 1) The evidence is stark that even where skilled labor is concerned, there remains an extremely entrenched sense that differentials in wage expectation represent an opportunity for exploitation and greater profitability amongst employers. This is to say that, in a theoretical regard, ethnic prejudices and religious hatred may not even enter into some of the broader economic patterns. Instead, in such instances, this is a form of economic opportunism which, not unlike America's categorical exploitation of Mexican labor, has manifested as a devastating form of economic discrimination. The results are indeed quite damaging, evidence suggests, to the Indian population of the Emirates, which has not experienced the type of wholesale economic elevation that has marked the nation as a whole. This is especially true today, as global recession leaves this oft-mistreated group to bear the brunt of negative trends such as low wages, poor labor conditions and unemployment. As a result, "Indians and other expatriates in the UAE are increasingly becoming susceptible to the scourge of depression, research has shown. The prime causes are discrimination at the workplace, longer working hours, home-sickness, and the chaotic state of peak-hour traffic." (INP, 1) These conditions are part of a pattern that relates to a relative absence of political representation, community orientation or economic opportunity for the disenfranchised Indian National population. This is a condition which has even in some instances yielded evidence of the repressive tactics to which the UAE will resort when faced with resistance. The untenable working conditions facing many Indian laborers have produced murmurings of worker discontent that are infrequently allowed in the Middle East. A regional culture of strong-armed and deeply centralized governance makes unionization, striking and a pursuit of worker rights at the labor class level frequently unlikely. However, the heightened level of industrialization and growth is changing things in the Emirates, where in 2007, "the Dubai police used force on 4,000-odd striking construction workers protesting against poor wages and living conditions. Most of them were Indians. Such protests in UAE are rare as strikes are banned and workers are not allowed to form unions." (Mahapatra, 1) The use of violent and repressive force against the striking Indian laborers underscores the odds which are facing Indian expatriates as a whole, with the Emirates only manifesting diversity at the most surface level. Evidence suggests that though previously rare, resistance to these conditions is surfacing more and more frequently, and simultaneously, is revealing with greater intensity the degree to which the UAE government is willing to engage in aggressive authoritarian measures. In July of 2008, "around 3,000 Indian workers were detained at an undisclosed location on the outskirts of the UAE capital on charges of arson and rioting. The workers of a large ceramics manufacturing unit in the emirate of Ras Al- Khaimah were rounded up by security agencies after they went on a rampage at their labor camp on Friday night to protest the poor living conditions and low wages." (Makkah, 1) The 'work camp' context in which many of the laborers persist denote something of a ghettoization of the Indian labor population and the response of detainment with the threats of imprisonment and deportation promised both illustrate a political willingness to reinforce populist hostility toward the minority population. Proposed Methods The literature here above denotes that there are several distinct areas in which the United Arab Emirates has enabled and even helped to reinforce a cultural prejudice against the Indian population. As the research compiled here above seems to illustrate a decisive pattern which in general promotes segregation across lines of ethnicity, nationality and religion for economic purposes, a more refined study is here proposed whereby a broad qualitative survey of labor experiences in a selected industry amongst individuals of a diversity of nationalities. Based on the literature review above, one area which seems to imply room for consideration is information technology (IT), where there are significant sample populations available amongst Arab, European and Indian populations.

A survey method would be an appropriate way to gather data first on such biographical factors as age, region of residence, position in an organization, level of education, income and familial status. Subsequently a survey instrument comprised of open-ended questions regarding such matters as labor conditions, experiences relating to ethnicity and social experiences would be intended to yield insights regarding the respective working and living conditions of the demographics considered.

Anticipated Results: The survey is expected to yield immediate evidence of a clear differential resulting from available background information. Particularly, all evidence from the literature review suggests that patterns will denote a clear economic hierarchy in terms of wage and living conditions which is set according to ethnicity. It is anticipated that the separation will denote that Europeans earn the highest wages, Arabs the second highest and Indians and other such minority populations on the bottom earning tier. The open-ended question survey is expected to yield evidence as to the relationship between this wage and housing hierarchy and the generally negative experiences greeting Indian populations in the social, cultural, economic and political regards.