Racism as a Crime Against War Refugees in Rahul Varma's Job Stealer

For a refugee or an immigrant to some extent, an alien land often becomes a territory of suffering and exploitation. Whereas for an immigrant, the new place of adoption may not seem so hostile, for a refugee or exile the circumstances of his home country drive him from one land to another. The will of a refugee remains immaterial as he is forced to leave his homeland. The option of choice, therefore, does not remain with a refugee who has to bear racial discrimination to a greater degree. In all cases, however, the diasporic people are always haunted by a sense of loss, nostalgia, as Salman Rushdie also points out: “Writers in my position, exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are always haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt.”(1991:10). The present play articulates the experiences of refugees who find themselves in the worst of both worlds and bear the scars of racism. Since these hapless refugees cannot go back to their ischolar_mains or their homes, their lives become equated with untold misery and suffering. The fleeing of these refugees from their war-torn country is confronted with racism on their arrival in Canada. The paper further attempts to contest the hegemonic power structures that remain instrumental in the subjugation of refugees. Dwelling on health-related problems of the refugee workers, the play interrogates the racial attitudes of the white employers who drag them into sordid and menial works. The play also describes the conflicts between indigenous and refugee workers.