At a time when India is in a state of general excitement about its economic achievements and high growth rates, it has become rather unfashionable to speak about labour bondage and the slave-like relations of production that continue to exist in different sectors of India’s informal economy, which employs more than 90 per cent of the total workforce. Even when `poverty’ and ‘social exclusion’ are talked about as areas of concern and intervention for state policy, these are invariably framed in a language that avoids reference to the social relations of production.

Labour Vulnerability and Debt Bondage in Contemporary India is the outcome of a research study conducted by Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), a New Delhi-based labour research/resource centre, as part of a research project analysing the ‘Effectiveness of Programmes for the Eradication of the Bonded Labour System’. It was released by eminent economist and Padma Shri recipient, current UGC Chairperson and the advocate of dalits, Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat, at India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi, on 9 May 2008. “Earlier the system of bondage was very easy to establish, but it is extremely difficult to identify the current forms of attached labour,” said Thorat. He expressed his happiness in releasing the book, especially because he considered bondedness to be an issue of grave concern, which has to be thoroughly explored and highlighted.

Prof. Ravi Srivastava, member of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, too expressed his joy in addressing the gathering, especially because the discussion is being conducted, not in a meeting of FICCI or CII, but with a group of people who understand the important facets and dimensions of such a grave issue—the unfree labour—on which there has been no systematic study. “Labour relations are changing. India does not realise this because we have always lived in a sea of informalised labour.” He questioned why there should be bondage in a situation of labour surplus and when wages are very low. While praising the concerted efforts of organisations working for bonded labourers, paving the way for the release and rehabilitation of the workforce, he criticised the government for not taking any proactive action to identify, release and rehabilitate this segment of society.

Prof. Prabhu Mohapatra, renowned historian from Delhi University, while emphasising the need to understand bonded labour as a social relationship, said, “Bondage is adaptive. It has many faces.” According to him, the system of bondage has made a large mobile (migrant) workforce immobile. He opined that the central plank should be the demand for a national minimum wage rather than the release of bonded labour.

Prof. Surinder Singh Jodhka, sociologist from JNU and current director Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, said that bondage is an institutionalised social relationship through debt. Being the research coordinator of the CEC study, he explained how labour vulnerability is institutionalised through debt and how employment relationships are made exploitative and unjust through the introduction and systemic incorporation of debt.

Mr. J John, Executive Director of CEC and Editor, Labour File, said that the current forms of bondage are flexible and adaptive. According to him, bonded labour, ingrained in the employer-employee relationship, institutionalises and operationalises labour vulnerability through the medium of debt. “The first and foremost requirement is the amendment to the Bonded Labour System Abolition Act 1976, that has defined bonded labour and set boundaries for administrative intervention by taking into consideration the fact that bonded labour is no more exclusively agrestic and intergenerational. The amendment should consider the reality that in agriculture and in non-agriculture, bonded labour is an employer-employee relationship, on contract, in favour of the employer, and mediated through debt, which feeds on and increases labour vulnerability,” he said. He also emphasised that the “punishment to the perpetrators should be severe.”

Mr. Coen Kompier, specialist on labour standards, International Labour Organisation (ILO), South Asia Regional Office, addressed the gathering by congratulating the effort of CEC in bringing out such a comprehensive report on bondage. Agreeing with Mr. J John, he said that there should be a complete overhaul to the Bonded Labour Act because it restricts its own meaning. He said that even if the ILO would like to take up the issue, the Government of India does not want them to do so; this is in spite of the Indian government ratifying the ILO Convention on abolition on bonded labour. “ILO is very concerned about bonded labourers,” he said. “We have a new project on bonded labour and it has already been launched in Tamil Nadu,” he added.

Published by The Information and Feature Trust, New Delhi, Labour Vulnerability and Debt Bondage in Contemporary India is a 94-page paperback, priced at Rs 200.