Traditionally, agriculture in Punjab, like any other peasant society, was a way of life. Social, economic and political life inter-penetrated to constitute a complete organic whole. For instance, social relations were extended to all the means of production, both animate and inanimate. Similarly political life was deeply embedded into the social hierarchical order, sustained by the economic inequalities in the last instance. Ever since market economy has penetrated agrarian social relations in Punjab, thanks to the Green Revolution of the late 1960s, the traditional whole has ruptured, paving the way for engaging unfree labour.

At present, rural labour can broadly be classified into three categories: attached agricultural labourers, casual labour in agriculture and casual labour in non-agriculture. Among all the different forms of labour, the attached agricultural labourers, who are known by different names, such as Siri, Sanjhi and Sepi, are the worst exploited lot. The employer provides no medical help to an attached agricultural labourer even if he meets with an accident while at work. There is no holiday or provision of paid leave. If a worker wants to take off from work, he either has to produce a substitute for himself or an amount, equal to the highest daily wage rate of a casual worker in the area, is deducted. In case an attached labourer wishes to quit his job, he can do so only after clearing his outstanding debt. He is forced to borrow this amount from some other moneylender, often another employer. The attached labourers are ‘free’ to quit any number of employers but not the yoke of debt.

          We visited 37 villages in Jalandhar and 28 in Bathinda districts in search of bonded labourers in agriculture. Data was collected from 898 households, out of which we found that nearly 90 per cent were attached labourers. In Jalandhar, there is hardly any local attached labourer in contrast to Bathinda where local labourers working as attached agricultural labourers are a large number. Access to education and emigration abroad are the two sources of empowerment of the local Dalits in this region. They are not ready to soil their hands any more for abysmally poor wages. The gap left by the local attached agricultural labourers in Jalandhar is filled by the migrant attached labourers, who are working at a wage rate of Rs 600–1600 per month, depending upon the skill and the age of the worker. Some labourers are supplied by agencies that maintain a proper record of each and every labourer. In the neighbouring districts of Hoshiarpur and Nawan Shahir, bonded migrant labourers, often from the tribal belt of North India, are also engaged as attached labourers.

The condition of the local attached labourers from Bhatinda is worse. There is not a single attached agricultural labourer who is not under debt. The most common practice is for an attached labourer, on joining a new employer, to take his annual wages in advance, over and above the amount he has borrowed from his previous employer. The amount of debt advance often ranges from Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000. Usually attached labourers start working at an early age at the will of their parents. Parents engage their male children as attached labourers in an attempt to get rid of the perpetual state of debt bondage that they live in. As grown-up labourers, experience shows that it is not easy to get rid of or escape the debt trap. The labourers are never paid regular wages and are kept on sweet hopes. Despite foregoing their regular wages, the debt amount keeps on piling over the original amount of debt advance. The labourers have no hope of overcoming this state of perpetual indebtedness. Moreover, the employers maintain the accounts, and the labourers, being illiterate, cannot remember their advance debt and expenses. They have to accept whatsoever the employer tells them at the end of every year. They are not free to change their employer unless they arrange cash to clear the outstanding debt. The only source is the subsequent employer, and thus, the chain of debt keeps on extending over their whole life. There is a lot of difference between the wages promised and the wages actually paid. A large number of them have not been promised even the minimum wage, not to talk of the payment of the minimum wage. Even those labourers, who have been paid the promised wage during the first month of employment, have had to be satisfied with promises only thereafter. According to the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, most of these labourers fall under the definition of bonded labourers.

During our visit to Bhatinda, we found that there were four such labourers who had to sell their houses in order to clear their huge debts. In two cases, the houses of the labourers were attached, and in one case a buffalo was attached to recover debt, which is a clear violation of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The farmers treat attached labourers as day and night labourers. Consequently, if any labourer is absent from work, he is fined at double the rate of the normal wage paid to him. It has also been interpreted (though wrongly) that the attached labourers need not be given any paid leave. Even in the case of sickness, a labourer not only has to spend all the medical expenses from his own pocket but also pay a fine for all those days for which he remained absent from work. We found labourers who have been physically assaulted by the landlords and are coerced to perform illegal acts such as stealing government wood. There was a labourer who was not allowed to attend the funeral of his relative. One of the labourers also attempted suicide.

On the basis of our above observations, we have estimated that most of the attached labourers often fall into the trap of debt bondage and nearly three-fourth of them hail from a single caste, namely Mazabi Sikh. Labour tenures stand abolished under the Bonded Labour System (abolition) Act, 1976. The bondage is primarily perpetuated through a heavy advance of debt on a usurious compound rate of interest, ranging from 24 per cent to 60 per cent. Once indebted, it is difficult to free oneself from the debt trap. The labourers are indebted not only to the farmers but also the commission agents in the grain markets, who use the same weapon of debt to torture them.

Although there are not many cases in which physical coercion is involved for keeping them in bondage, the fact remains that most of them are born with debts and die in debt. We came across four such labourers who met with accidents while working in the fields. Two of them inhaled insecticide/pesticide while spraying the crop and two others were seriously injured — one on his backbone after falling down from an electric pole and the other fractured his leg while repairing a tube well. These labourers were not compensated in either of these cases. The brother of the labourer who died is now working to clear the debt left behind by his brother.

Children between the ages of 8 and 10 are also engaged in work with the same employer with whom their fathers are engaged, so that some relief from the debt is secured. They are promised Rs 2000–4000 per annum as wages, which they seldom receive because their wage is adjusted against the interest of the pre-existing heavy debt, accumulated by their parents. Women labourers from the same families are engaged in cleaning cattle sheds for the interest amount of the debt advanced in the beginning, which  may be between Rs 3000 and 5000 per household. And all this happens in a state that has pioneered the Green Revolution in India. It is time to take stock of the future of the 33 per cent Dalit population of rural Punjab in whose share there is not more than 2.3 per cent cultivable land. The prosperity of Punjab’s agriculture certainly owes a debt to the agrarian labour force, and not the other way round.