Forward:
The road builders of Ladakh in north west India represent millions of workers around the world who are so desperate to survive, they are willing to subject themselves to a toxic environment and dangerous conditions. The employers of these workers who oversee their welfare are usually ambivalent governmental organizations or private corporations who profit on their workers' dispensability with the goal of maximum profits.

I believe that there needs to be accountability, respect, education, and sufficient safeguards so that a human's life is not only acknowledged but cared for by an employer -- whether it be a government of the people or a private corporation spooning its shareholders.

Introduction:
About five years ago, a friend and I had rented a tourist/traveler film about the Indian Himalayas from our local library. We were hypnotized by the beauty and grace of the area's rugged geography and its inhabitants. The film planted several seeds in me to visit this area, to spend time there, to see for myself this place where the Indian subcontinent was crushing into the Asian plateau creating a zone of rock uplift which we know as the Himalayan mountain range. But there was one scene in that film that lasted with me more than any other. It was a sequence that was maybe only three or four seconds long and it was shot from a moving car! On a high mountain road: black smoke, dark, soot covered workers, red flames, and a glance to the person with the video camera that said to me, "I am here."

The Road Builders Project:

In this part of the world, the destructive forces of ice, wind, rain, snow, avalanche, and the bouncing and lurching of heavy cargo lories shape roads that experience an entropy perhaps like no others in the world. The natural elements dictate the roads closed for half the year or more. The rest of the year, the heavy trucks that ply these roads provide an artery from an older way of living to an outside world which exports a western lifestyle of plastics, furnishings, and other perceived necessities.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to each of these cultures but that is not the subject of this writing. What is however is this thing in the middle -- the physical thing that connects these two places. And in specific, the human element that makes the connection possible.

Red flames jump and dance through wafting curtains of blackness. Silhouetted figures stand dark not from any bright light behind them but from a black sticky residue of tar that coats their skin and clothing.

Large flat pans and oil drums propped up over oil fed flames. When a fire is fueled from oil, the thickest of black smoke billows violently into the world. It is a smoke so insidious that it can only come from an oil fire or burning tires. When I see smoke like this, I think, "Something's wrong here. There's been an accident."

The workers stand or move slowly in what appears to be some kind of inferno, resigned to this fate. No one wears masks or respirators, there doesn't seem to be any concern for the residue that coats their inner and outer bodies.

Their employer: the government of India.

The employees: desperate young men willing to work these high passes for a few more rupees.

What do the workers know about the hazards of breathing and exposing oneself to super concentrated tar molecules in gaseous form? Nothing. They have received not even a minimal education as to what the health risks are in doing this work. They have received not even the most minimal of respiratory protection such as a cheap filter paper mask. And many of them work without even adequate physical protection from the elements. Extremely cold and windy conditions are common on these roads. Many of the workers have only flip flop sandals from which they use to drip boiling tar onto crushed gravel.

Hundreds of individual lives are lost each year amongst the road builders. These are due to extreme climate, accidents, and other calamities. Not to mention the long term health risks due to toxic exposure from their place of work. These figures are unaccounted for and likely push the number of casualties from this work much higher.

Please send an email to:

T. R. BAALU
Hon'ble Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways
transmin@hub.nic.in

and

Lt Gen Ranjit Singh, SM
Director General
Border Roads Organization
bro-jdedp@hub.nic.in

Click HERE if you would like to email both in a single letter.
Of course, the message you write will have more impact if it is coming from your own words, your own experiences. However, the next best thing would be to use this message (copy and paste it in). Explain your concern for the workers.

Please forward any responses you get back to me. I would really appreciate that.

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