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Unit 2: Major Segments of Indian Society

they are assured food, clothes, free tobacco, etc., in practice they get the food that is left over, and Notes
clothes that are discarded by family members. They are made to work for 12 to 14 hours a day and
are forced to live with cows and buffaloes in shed. If they fall ill, they may be procured some
medicines from the local Hakim depending upon the sweet will of the employer.
The total number of bonded labourers identified and freed in India by March 1989 was 2.42 lakhs,
of whom 2.18 lakhs (i.e., 90%) were said to be rehabilitated also (Yojana, May 1989:23). Thus,
hardly 8 per cent of total bonded workers in India have been identified so far, indicating lack of
interest of state governments in solving the problem of bonded labour.
Rehabilitation
Getting bonded labourers identified and freed was the statutory obligation of the state governments
only but from November 1987 onwards, voluntary organisations also came to be authorised both
for identification and rehabilitation. Of the 2.18 lakh bonded labourers rehabilitated up to March
1989, three-fourths were in four states of Orissa (23.8%), Karnataka (23.3%), Tamil Nadu (17.1%)
and Uttar Pradesh (12.1%), one-fifth in three states of Andhra Pradesh (11.1%), Bihar (5.2%) and
Madhya Pradesh (3.5%), and the remaining 4 per cent in three states in Rajasthan (3.2%),
Maharashtra (0.4%) and Kerala (0.4%) (Indian Labour Journal, August 1989:1277). There is also a
provision in the 20-point programme (of 1986) regarding the identification and rehabilitation of
the bended labour. Under this programme, the Government of India issued instructions in August
1986 to the Deputy Director General (Labour Welfare) of all the states to take follow-up action.
Since then, the Union Ministry of Labour has been monitoring and evaluating the programme of
identification, release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers from time to time.
Rehabilitation is both physical and psychological. Physical rehabilitation is essentially economic
whereas psychological rehabilitation has to be built up through a process of assurance and
reassurance. The two must go side by side. The first prerequisite of psychological rehabilitation is
that the freed bonded labourers must be wrenched away from the old habitat and be rehabilitated
at a place where they will no longer be subject to the ruinous influence of the erstwhile bonded
labour-keepers. Unless they are psychologically assured that after release from bondage, debt will
not regulate their destiny any longer, there is every possibility that they may slide back to debt
bondage.
Basically, there are three phases of rehabilitation: (i) immediate physical subsistence after release;
(ii) short-term measures to help the freed workers to start a new life (for example, allotment of a
house site, assistance for construction of a house, allotment of a plot of agricultural land, supplying
a pair of bullocks and agricultural implements, or provision of avenues of gainful employment,
etc.); and (iii) long-term measures (such as, arranging credit, training in new skills, developing
existing skills, providing a remunerative price support, ensuring non-formal literacy of adult
members and formal literacy for children, securing medical care, protection of civil rights...). It is
thus rehabilitation which will give the freed bonded labourers the status of human beings so that
they may be able to identify themselves with the mainstream of a civilised human society and
realise the dignity worthy of human existence.
Lacunae in Effective Rehabilitation
Qualitatively reviewing the implementation of the rehabilitative programmes for bonded labourers
in different states, we find that while some states, like Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Andhra
Pradesh point out the welcome features of identification and rehabilitation, some other states need
to introduce innovative changes. The following visible lacunae in the implementation of the
programme need to be dealt with immediately:
Firstly, instead of treating the programme in isolation as the programme of a particular ministry/
department, there has to be coordination among various ministries/departments concerned like
those of agriculture, animal husbandary, irrigation, forest, fishries, etc., so that the programme is
dealt with as an integrated national programme. Secondly, since the social milieu and the social
structures which prompted the bonded labour system in the past continue to dominate the village
life and its economy even today, they need to be probed and changed with commitment. Thirdly,

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