Labour lost: Why govt refuses to recognise these bonded labourers

Conversely, this money is not being utilised to free people like this group from Vandre, because in the government’s books, they simply do not exist.

Perhaps, suggests Vivek Pandit, chairperson of the Sangathana, which works towards freeing bonded labourers, they need to come to Vandre and meet thelabourers.

Forty-six year-old Drupda Ramu Katkari’s face lights up when she talks about her newly acquired freedom. “I can go anywhere and do what I want,” she says, with something akin to surprise. “I can work if I wish to or stay at home if I so desire.” For one who has spent ten years of her life as a bonded labourer, where all that she got was one set of clothes and two meals in a day, she appears amazingly resilient. “Those were our bad days, but at least we now have hope that those days will never come back,” she says, taking pride in the fact that and her relatives know their rights, have got organised against the village Patils, and are now free.

Drupda’s husband had borrowed a sum of Rs 900 for his younger brother’s marriage from the village headman Parshuram. In villages like Vandre, Padgha there was no question of the headman ever refusing. “We would gladly be given loans when we approached the Patils because they knew how to take us repay for generations together,” explains Drupda, whothus became a bonded labourer along with her husband, brother-in-law and his newly married wife.

“Who would risk the sound thrashing?” she asks, saying this proved an effective deterrent to any questions about the loan repayment.

She is not alone. If the Sanghatna is to be believed, there are over 1,200 bonded labourers in Thane district itself. “The state-wide figures are bound to be higher,” says Paromita Goswami, Sanghatana activist.

In a system of repression, age is no deterrent. Kishan Laxman Waghe, a 16 year-old Katkari boy had grown up in the local Patil’s house as a full-time servant till a few months back just because his father had borrowed Rs 200 to attend to his mother’s illness. “I would be beaten up till I was unconscious even if one of the buffaloes went astray from the herd,” he recounts with horror.

The Sanghatna got nine labourers from the Vandre village, Padgha, freed from the clutches of Parshuram Patil in September, 1997. “It was a tough fight, but the Katkaris, whotrusted the Sanghatna, relied on us totally,” explains Goswami. The government’s chicanery, says Pandit, is not new. In 1984, he had written a letter to then chief justice P N BHagwati regarding the problem of bonded labourers in Thane. Justice Bhagwati admitted his letter as a writ petition and a special commission appointed to study the matter gave a favourable report. “In between, the vigilance committee, in a bid to mislead the apex court, said since I was a member of their panel, there was no question of the labourers’ problems being ignored,” said Pandit. Later, when the panel heard of Pandit’s move to apprise the apex court of the truth in the matter, they reinstated him on the panel in December, 1997.

“We have since been fighting for the rights of the labourers," explains Pandit.“Every labourer is entitled to Rs 1,000 as immediate compensation, assistance in starting an income generation activity on priority basis under government schemes like IRDP and TRICEM,” Pandit explains, adding,“Every landless lanbourer can claim assistance in procuring land, and those without shelter can demand housing under the Indira Awaas Yojana on a priority basis.” Due to little awareness in rural areas, where bonded labour is still rampant, the benefits remain on paper, he comments.