A temporary relief from bonded labour

Determined to money the acquisition of his 2 sons and daughter, Panchanan Muduli, 44, of Balangir, a occidental Odisha territory that depends connected rainfall for agriculture, near location successful aboriginal 2025 for Hyderabad. He had been promised enactment connected a poultry workplace and a spot to slumber with the chicks  he would beryllium rearing. Though the wages were meagre, conscionable ₹10,00 a month,  he felt helium would astatine slightest get a dependable income helium could nonstop home. The stench, the humiliation, the loneliness proved unbearable. In astir a month, helium discontinue and began the travel home.

At Vijayawada railway station, desperation caught up with him. A fishery workplace proprietor offered him work. Muduli agreed. What followed was worse: 15-hour workdays, makeshift shelters, and a occupation that tied him to the spot helium worked at. He and different labourers lived nether changeless ticker and fearfulness for 7 months, helium says.

One day, erstwhile a comparative of the proprietor died, the labourers escaped. They walked for hours done the wood to fly captivity from Perumallapuram village successful East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh. Muduli was aboriginal rescued by officials of Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district and declared a bonded labourer nether the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.

He returned to his village Dumerpadar carrying the anticipation that the instrumentality would assistance him rebuild his life. Months passed. Help did not come, helium says. Within 5 months of rescue, Muduli chose to migrate again. This time, with his woman and 5-year-old daughter. They moved to a ceramic kiln successful Telangana successful November 2025, and proceed to enactment there.

The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, past a landmark successful India’s history, completed 50 years of enactment successful February 2026. It came into unit retrospectively successful October 1975 and is “the strategy of forced, oregon partially forced, labour nether which a debtor enters… into an statement with the creditor…” The reasons are mostly economical oregon caste-based, some of which the instrumentality covers.

Under the Act, which has not been amended since its enactment, the State authorities is required to behaviour periodic surveys to ascertain the beingness of bonded labourers. However, the past root of information is the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC)-2011. As per its assessment, 8,304 bonded labourers mostly tribals, were rescued and released successful Odisha. The fig of legally released bonded labourers successful the state was 1.65 lakh. However, the Odisha authorities ne'er revealed what enactment it had taken to place and rehabilitate these 8,304 people.

Five decades aft its enactment, the word “bonded labourer” continues to evoke images of slavery, thing galore believed had vanished with assemblage regularisation successful India. Every territory medication successful Odisha was asked to make a corpus money of ₹10 lakh so that contiguous alleviation could beryllium provided to released bonded labour. Half the districts successful Odisha, bash not person specified a fund.

Individuals and families migrate  

In 2017, Dambarudhar Majhi, 35, from Odisha’s Nuapada district had migrated to Karnataka successful hunt of survival, lone to find himself trapped successful what helium present calls the worst ordeal of his life. He and his household slept beside heaps of rotting chicks. Cleaning droppings from dawn to dusk became routine.

“The 3 months we spent wrong the poultry workplace felt little similar enactment and much similar a punishment. It was worse than the hellhole described successful mythologies,” helium says. “The proprietor had promised america ₹10,000 a month, but wages seldom came. He would not let america to leave,” Majhi recalls. In desperation, the mates secretly sent their children distant with a relative. By chance, the children stumbled upon labour officials at Yesvantpur Junction railway station. What followed was a rescue operation. “That day, we got our freedom,” helium says.

Nine years on, the rescue certificate remains cautiously preserved successful their home, but the rehabilitation promised nether the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act ne'er arrived, helium says. Fearful of returning to migration, the mates present survives connected regular wage work, but they tin get conscionable 1 repast a day.

Their communicative echoes that of Jayaraj Jagat from Nuapada, who, on with his wife, was rescued from a ceramic kiln successful Tamil Nadu successful 2012. They received ₹19,000 each arsenic rehabilitation assistance, they say. For a little period, the wealth offered alleviation and dignity, allowing them to enactment backmost successful their village. But the poorness and deficiency of accidental to gain successful their colony proved relentless.

By 2017, the mates had nary prime but to migrate again. They returned to the aforesaid rhythm of exploitation. For six months each year, they lived nether 6-foot-high makeshift shelters successful ceramic kilns, moving up to 14 hours a day. Illness was a luxury they could not afford. Hunger, debt, and compulsion near them with nary exit. Currently, they are moving successful a ceramic kiln successful Telangana.

Freedom sans alleviation

Delays successful rehabilitation assistance are a problem, particularly for inter-State migrant labourers. “When rehabilitation is delayed, rescued labourers are pushed backmost into the aforesaid profession, nary substance however harsh oregon exploitative the conditions are,” says Umi Daniel, Director of Migration and Education, Aid et Action, an planetary non-profit moving astatine the intersection of poorness and education.

Timely fiscal enactment is lone the archetypal step. “We whitethorn person freed radical physically from their captors, but not from the indebtedness that binds them. Helping them basal connected their ain feet is simply a semipermanent process,” Daniel adds. Without sustained support, rescue becomes a impermanent interruption, not a imperishable escape.

The instrumentality mandates adjacent monitoring of rescued bonded labourers, with their details recorded successful authoritative registers. It besides requires the District Collector to designate an serviceman to oversee their rehabilitation and guarantee semipermanent protection. District-level vigilance committees, chaired by the Collector, are meant to anchor this process.

The Odisha nodal serviceman liable for rehabilitation of released bonded labourers, Binod Senapati, says helium was unaware that radical were not being assisted. “Whenever different States pass america astir rescue and merchandise of our labourers, we instantly pass the District Collectors to instrumentality attraction of them,” helium says.

Daniel says rehabilitation cannot beryllium reduced to a one-time currency payment. “Survivors indispensable beryllium linked to anti-poverty programmes specified arsenic housing, livelihood schemes, and societal information to interruption the rhythm of vulnerability,” says Daniel.

Jagat echoes this: “I americium bully astatine tailoring. My woman excessively knows a small spot of tailoring. Had we been provided handholding support, I would not person migrated to different State to enactment successful specified harsh moving conditions.”

Daniel says that determination was 1 sustained involution successful Odisha, erstwhile astir 1,200 rescued bonded labourers from 500 families were rehabilitated (from 2010–2015) and connected to authorities payment programmes, “helping them rebuild their lives with dignity”.

Before 2016, the Centre and State authorities utilized to wage ₹10,000 each arsenic assistance to a labourer aft their rescue from bondage. Under the 1976 law, identification, merchandise and rehabilitation of freed bonded labour is the nonstop work of States and Union Territories.

However, successful 2016, the Ministry of Labour and Employment introduced the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourers, aboriginal strengthened and relaunched successful 2022. Fully funded by the Centre, the strategy does not necessitate immoderate matching publication from State governments. It guarantees contiguous alleviation of up to ₹30,000 to each rescued labourer, followed by graded rehabilitation assistance of ₹1 lakh, ₹2 lakh, oregon ₹3 lakh, depending connected the gender, severity of exploitation, and vulnerability. The assistance is meant to beryllium a instauration for rebuilding lives aft bondage. Yet, hundreds of released bonded labourers proceed to hold for rehabilitation.

Few recognize this spread amended than Baghambar Patnaik, a septuagenarian civilian rights activistic who has taken up the origin of 1,472 released bonded labourers earlier the Orissa Human Rights Commission. The petition covers 1,085 labourers from Balangir district, 44 from Subarnapur district, 28 from Bargarh district, 114 from Nuapada district, and 201 from Kalahandi district.

“A labour collective, Shramvahini, coordinated the rescue of hundreds of workers from antithetic States. Most were migrant labourers from occidental Odisha who had endured bonded conditions,” Patnaik says. “They underwent summary trials earlier Sub-Divisional Magistrates successful the districts wherever they were rescued and were issued merchandise certificates. But rehabilitation ne'er followed,” helium points out, adding that galore returned to the aforesaid exploitative enactment they had escaped.

The activist, who spent clip successful jailhouse erstwhile helium led a soundless rally of barbers, attributes the nonaccomplishment mostly to mediocre consciousness and anemic accountability wrong the administration. “The instrumentality exists. The provisions exist. What is missing is timely action,” helium says.

Caste-based bondage

Bondage successful galore villages survives not done chains, but done caste. For generations, families from barber and washermen communities person remained trapped successful hereditary servitude, paid not successful wages but successful a fewer kilograms of rice. The arrangement, unwritten, yet rigidly enforced, passes from 1 procreation to the next.

“We are forced to execute tasks similar shaving villagers during decease rituals, clearing leftover nutrient aft feasts, and carrying ceremonial offerings connected our shoulders,” says Lalatendu Barik of Brahampur village.

“This enactment is imposed connected america by birth. There is nary escape. Anyone who resists faces societal boycott,” helium continues.

When members of these communities began resisting the system, the backlash was swift. They faced intimidation, exclusion, and economical isolation from ascendant caste villagers.

Following sustained protests by radical and involution by civilian nine groups, hundreds were formally identified arsenic bonded labourers and issued merchandise certificates nether the 1976 Act. But acknowledgement did not construe into rehabilitation, they say.

“Due to deficiency of administrative sensitivity, the State authorities failed to nonstop rehabilitation proposals to the Centre,” says Patnaik, who has moved some the Orissa High Court and the Orissa Human Rights Commission seeking justness for the affected families. “Years later, alternatively of extending assistance, the authorities cancelled galore of their merchandise certificates,” helium alleges.

As galore arsenic 1,283 radical from tehsils, including Brahmagiri, Krushnaprasad, Delang, and Nimapara in Puri district, were erstwhile officially recognised arsenic bonded labourers. Today, galore of those certificates basal revoked.

Barik is among them. “I was declared a bonded labourer connected March 3, 2016. But an April 8, 2025 study says I americium nary longer 1 due to the fact that I person stopped performing customary services,” helium says.

Patnaik calls it a denial of reality. “This reflects heavy bureaucratic ignorance,” helium says. “The authorities is unwilling to admit that caste-based bondage inactive exists and comes nether the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976,” helium says.

Daniel says implementation of the instrumentality remains anemic arsenic it requires coordination among assorted departments similar labour, revenue, panchayati raj, and the police. “There is nary wide ownership, defined roles, oregon modular operating procedures to guarantee that the historical Act benefits the astir vulnerable,” helium says.

satyasundar.b@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew