India: Truck drivers more sinned against than sinning

Although there are no accurate figures for truck drivers and their crew, at the last count in 2004, there were more than 3.5 million trucks operating on India's roads.

Many truck drivers surprised and even angry to learn that they are now labelled as having high-risk behaviour, especially when they see themselves as hard-working, god-fearing people who provide a vital service.

''How do they draw such conclusions about us - nobody ever asks us what kind of lives we lead,'' said Avtar Singh who, every month does the long haul between Ludhiana in the Punjab and Guwahati in north-eastern Assam with a diversion to Kolkata.

For his project, Taylor travelled for months from north to the south and to the east, riding with the drivers, eating with them and sharing their life on the road. ''I kept mum as much as possible and observed them and they accepted me. I never had any problem''.

Taylor initially conceived the project as one dealing with the subject of truck drivers and AIDS. ''I thought, like others, that it would be a story of drinking, violence and sex but slowly, as I came to know them, I found they were like any of us''.

''There were bad men and good men among them, as in other segments of society. True, there's a lot of promiscuity, but it's more out of loneliness. Many of them are actually family men, some are quite well-read,'' Taylor said.

Last year, a University of Chicago student Bulbul Tiwari tried to dispel stereotypes surrounding this working class group in her documentary 'Carriers'.

''Truck drivers in India are considered outcasts and criminals. There is a lot of prejudice against them,'' she said.

Tiwari's film was the first attempt to give a voice to a section of society, often portrayed in a poor light by mainstream media, by allowing members of that section to speak for themselves.

One of the many shop owners offering condom

Taylor feels that the general perception about the truckers as a promiscuous lot and carriers of the HIV virus has led to people looking at them askance, and also resulted in alienating them to an extent.

Rakesh Agarwal, chief of the Bhoruka Public Welfare Trust, which runs HIV/AIDS intervention progammes agrees. ''Are we trying to stamp one class of people as guilty? Does it mean that the commercial sex workers and migrant labourers are less responsible? It's really unfair stigmatisation''.

The Bhoruka Trust works in eastern India and also Andhra Pradesh in the south. In 1993, it ran an intervention programme in Uluberia, off Kolkata, the biggest centre for truckers in transit.

Being involved with intervention programmes among the truck drivers has given the medic interesting insight into their life-style. ''Because they are away from home for long weeks they do indulge in extra-marital sex,'' he said.

As drivers are often away from their families for months at a stretch, their trucks become their homes and many buy sex as well as food, alcohol and a bed at 'dhabas' or roadside eateries which are a feature of India's highways.

But, interestingly, the HIV/AIDS campaigns have had an effect on truck-drivers in that they stay away from 'high-risk' brothels and instead look for sexual services in the remote villages that they pass through, using contacts and networks.

Far from showing high-risk behaviour, truck drivers are careful about their health to the point that they avoid eating at wayside stalls if they can help it for fear of contaminated or unsuitable food.

Agarwal found that many truck drivers actually carry along their own provisions and stoves and cook their own food and this, he thought, was a sign that they were ready to avoid risks.

Like Taylor, Agarwal found that that the communication strategy to reach out to truck drivers, through HIV/AIDS campaigns devised so far, has not worked very well.

''We need a workplace intervention programme, not just a behavioural change programme with focus on HIV/AIDS. Despite all the work we have done, we haven't been able to change the lives and life-styles of the truck drivers,'' he said.

Much of the failure has to do with the fact that truck-driving is still unorganised labour in India. ''There're lots of unmet needs-- social security, accident insurance, basic facilities en route, etc. For this, we need to involve the industry and the truck owners,'' said Agarwal.

India has seen an increase in the rate of HIV infection from a few thousand people in the early 1990s to over five million in 2005, but many believe that the approach to tackling the spread of the disease through targeting groups designated as high-risk has not been as successful as in other parts of the world.

Inter Press Service