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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Over 3 lakh bonded labourers work in Rajasthan

-The Times of India
 

JAIPUR: Babu Bhai, a sahariya adivasi in his 50s, spent 24 years of his life as a bonded labourer at Umrao Singh's farm at Chainpura in Kishanganj, Baran district. His father had died when he took a loan of Rs 3,000 and that led to his bondage with no reprieve. When his brother died, Umrao Singh did not let him attend his brother's funeral as he had asked for money which he didn't have. His entire family, wife, children and daughter-in-laws were a part of the bondage repaying the loans which had increased manifold. The time he was released by the help of Jagrit Mahila Sangathan of Baranin district in 2010 the loan on him was 12 lakhs.

His misery doesn't stop here. Senior district magistrate refused to give his family a bondage freedom certificate and so he has no state support for rehabilitation. But it was MNREGA, which helped them initially and they also got Sahariya free ration shops from the government ration shops, which kept them going along with ploughing the land they got back from Umrao Singh. However, they still fear the Sardars and the Dhakar who kept them in bondage for half their lives. They wanted more government support to improve their lives.

He is not alone leading a miserable life in this century. Rough estimate compiled by bonded labour activists says that over 3 lakh bonded labourers worked alone in bricks kilns in Rajasthan. However, government and administration deny the presence of even one bonded labourer. These narrations were a part of the feedback meeting of the India Exclusion Report prepared by the Centre for Equity Studies from Delhi held at a government institute in Jhalan area on Monday which is to be released on the 25th June, 2014.