Friday, February 27, 2009

Rourkela Steel Plant construction in the 60s

"True to his style, Winkler chose the poor, deprived, marginalized Adivasi (tribal) women as his subject. Why? Because, they were, as a matter of routine, sexually abused by German fitters. In fact, his stark description blackens the glory associated so long with the Rourkela enterprise. He writes, “Countless girls aged fifteen to twenty, most of them Christian from the surrounding Adivasi villages, were enticed to the (German) fitters’ hostels as servants and seduced and sexually abused by German fitters… They soon began trading them as prostitutes… A number of pale-skinned Christian children have already been born, by the time the works are finished, Rourkela will have a flourishing community of illegitimate Indo-German children.”(The Steel Works in Rourkela and the Indigenous Adivasis—Chapter 3 in Winkler’s forthcoming book on India.) Indeed, pictures of these girls, obviously naked, were sent to Germany to allure even more German fitters to Rourkela."

From Josef Winkler Visits Kolkatta

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