Surat, once a small sleepy town in the Indian state of Gujarat has within just a generation, transformed into a new megacity. This tropical town, just like any typical Indian city, reeks of filth and wandering cows in the streets. That is, aside from the fact that Surat happens to be the world’s fourth fastest growing city. The city is now a business magnet where more than 90 percent of the world’s unpolished diamonds are processed and polished. So a diamond in any part of the world has a fair and square chance of having moved through this evolving city. India has very little diamond reserves, but a whopping majority of the world’s diamonds, 90 percent precisely, go through the country. Through this town of Surat, actually. Now this statistics apparently suggests that India has managed to master the diamond business, just like the call center business. The reality on ground, however, happens to be the quite unlike what meets the eye.
Dirt cheap wages – cheaper than in Chinese factories, has made Surat the magnet for multinational diamond corporations who seek to get their job done with less investment on labor. The country, as a whole, has basically no labor laws, at least none which are implemented. Workers here in Surat work for minuscule wages, and are surprisingly modestly satisfied. Child labor is omnipresent and unchallenged in the region. Children as small as 10 years old work in these polishing factories, and such observations are not isolated, they are widespread. The Indian government had in the past occasionally cracked down, clearing the factories of children, in the fear of a media scandal – even though the mainstream media, both in India and the west, curiously chooses to ignore this story.
 |
| Over 90 percent of the world’s diamonds — legal and otherwise — are sent on a secret journey to Surat, India. Here, they are polished before going back to every diamond-buying country in the world. Ctsy: Jason Miklian |
Families, unable to support themselves with the most basic amenities, join these diamond polishing factories in the hope of a better life. Despite the promise of money, it’s a hard life. After two decades of constant squinting and working 100 hours a week, the boys that come to these factories with a dream of a better life no longer have the eyesight to do the work. These men are shown the door, left with no job. By 35, they suffer from vision loss and if aren’t lucky enough to get some job, are left unemployed. Decades of continually inhaling diamond grains also often leads to respiratory diseases and tuberculosis.
But these inhumane conditions are not the worst that this billion dollar industry in Surat promotes. The conditions of these workers are bad, no doubt, but they are far better off than their counterparts in Africa. This city is not a paradise, but it sure as hell is, relative to Africa. Millions of workers in African nations like Zimbabwe work for wages so meager that they are unable to sustain even their most basic needs – food and clothing. The scenery in countries like Zimbabwe is basically just modern day slavery.
In Antwerp, Belgium, the city which for almost half a century had served as the hotspot of diamond industries is now near dead. Surat has killed it. And that was inevitable, considering the fact that it was Antwerp’s high security and rigorous documentation against Surat’s cheap labor and no-questions-asked atmosphere.
Conflict diamonds, the illicitly mined stones that fund conflicts in the world’s war zones, had been globally frowned upon in the last decade. So these illegal stones cannot make their way into countries like the United States, UK or France. But wait, they can, thanks to Surat. These conflict diamonds are trucked in from Africa and other mining hotspots straight to the city of Surat where they are polished and processed by workers in concrete whitewashed buildings, and these diamonds make their way into places like the United States, UK and France. It’s that simple.
So the shiny, glitzy diamond ring that some poor bloke spends his entire month’s income on for his engagement, has an overwhelming chance of having being polished by some worker in Surat as if it was about getting a better life and being mined out by someone in Africa as if it was about life and death. This is about your diamond ring, thanks to Surat.
This, however, is a win-win for this Kimberley approved country. There’s more work, more power, more money; and everyone’s winning – from the diamond vendor, the diamond dealer – straight up to the Indian government.
This industry in Surat is ultimately funding the mining of conflict diamonds. Anyone and everyone linked to this industry are funding the mining of conflict diamonds, and thus, conflicts – wars. That is highly hypocritical for India, a country that brands itself as the upholder of peace.
This article is also available on http://thispost.wordpress.com written by the same author)
0 comments:
Post a Comment