Survivors of bonded labour in Maharashtra: unshackled, yet the scars run deep
On a warm morning in March, 100odd residents of Manavseva Project, a shelter home at Arangaon, 11 km from Ahmednagar town in western Maharashtra, are basking in the sunshine after breakfast. Built on a twoacre plot, the home is run by Shree Amrutvahini Gramvikas Mandal, an NGO founded by Dilip Gunjal.
Among the residents are men and women rescued by the State police after they were lured by traffickers or contractors with the promise of work with good pay and food, but forced into bonded labour. Siraj Shaikh, administrative officer of the NGO, says the shelter home is the only refuge for rescued bonded labourers in Ahmednagar. He says most of them are not able to communicate well as they are still recovering from the trauma of living in inhumane conditions, and being beaten, drugged, and forced into working for long hours with little food or water.
Rani (name changed) offers a hug and a handshake. However, she finds it hard to speak. Shaikh says the police suspect that her captors applied lead oxide or shendur (Marathi word for vermilion) on the tip of their tongue as part of their harsh methods to squeeze out more work from her, causing speech impairment.
Rani is one of the 23 people rescued by the Belvandi police from farms in Ahmednagar district since May 2023. Hailing from places such as Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, and Maharashtra, none of them could speak at the time of rescue as they were numb and disoriented after being drugged by their captors with narcotics like cannabis, the police say.
‘Low reporting of cases’
According to December 2018 data from the Ministry of Labour and Employment, of the 3.13 lakh bonded labourers rehabilitated in the country, 1,404 were from Maharashtra.
However, NGOs, the police, and activists on the ground say not many cases of bonded labour are reported in the State owing to lack of awareness of this form of modern slavery, which has been illegal in India since 1976, when the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act came into force. Section 2 (g) of the Act defines bonded labour as “the system of forced, or partly forced, labour under which a debtor enters, or has, or is presumed to have, entered, into an agreement with the creditor”. The National Crime Records Bureau data show only four cases of bonded labour were reported in Maharashtra in 2022.
Police Inspector Sanjay Thenge, who joined the Belvandi police station in 2023, says the prevalence of bonded labour in Ahmednagar’s Shrigonda taluka came to light during an investigation into an unclaimed body found stuffed in a gunny bag in a well. Police records spanning 10 years showed that there were 71 reported cases of unidentified bodies disposed of in a similar manner in the taluka. The sacks were retrieved from wells only when they raised a stink, he says.
Based on a tipoff, he raided four locations and freed six bonded labourers. “The accused told us that they engaged the bonded labourers in harvesting sugarcane from September to April in the district, and sent them for begging in Mumbai and Pune during the holiday and festival seasons. So far, 21 traffickers, 19 men and two women, have been arrested and prosecuted,” says Thenge, who was recently transferred to the Rahuri police station.
Following the rescue, the Belvandi police approached Gunjal’s NGO as the government shelter home for survivors of human trafficking and bonded labour is in Yerawada Central Jail, Pune, and it is inconvenient to travel three hours by road every time there is a court hearing in the trial, which might take months or even years to conclude. Else, the survivors have to remain in the police lockup.
Stricken with fear
Each rescued person has survived extremely traumatic situations, affecting their mental health, says Dr. Suresh Vilas Gholap, medical officer at the NGO.
Several survivors like Karan Kumar, 21, are not in a state to completely recall how they ended up in bonded labour. A native of Bhainso village in Chhattisgarh’s JanjgirChampa district, he initially says he walked to Maharashtra with a bunch of friends, and then states that someone took him and a bunch of boys in a truck and brought them to the Hyderabad railway station. After being forced to beg there for a few days, they were brought to Mumbai, then Pune, and finally Ahmednagar. The police say he was rescued on May 2, 2023 from Shrigonda taluka after arresting a trafficker named Pilaji Bhonsle.
Sidheshwar Mahendranath Roy, 40, from Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal, who was freed from the captivity of his trafficker, Dalkhush Mukida Kale, on December 18, 2023, too can’t clearly remember how he reached Ahmednagar. “I left my home 27 years ago. These men were monsters. They would beat me, mess with my head by giving me some narcotic substances, and keep an eye on me even during toilet breaks. I did not take a bath for months until I was rescued,” he says.
Longing for home
“Will you please convince my wife and sons to accept me and take me back home?” says Bhausaheb Haribhau More, 41, from Chanai village in Maharashtra’s Beed district, who was brought by a mukadam (contractor) to work in the sugarcane fields in Ahmednagar around a year ago.
“I was made to work from dawn to dusk without a toilet break and just twothree hours of sleep in a makeshift hut made of plastic sheets that collapsed with the slightest breeze. I had to sustain myself for a day with just dry bhakri (unleavened flatbread made of jowar or bajra) and crushed chilli.”
Shaikh says More’s captors, Ashok Bhonsle and Jangya Kale, have been arrested, and the NGO is trying to counsel his family to accept him. “They see him as a burden, but we are telling them that he can do small jobs and secure aid from the government to restart his life,” he says.
Struggle for aid
Those rescued from bonded labour are entitled to compensation ranging from ₹1 lakh to ₹3 lakh under the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourer, 2021.
An immediate aid of ₹30,000 is to be provided after an FIR is registered and bonded labour release certificates are issued by District Magistrates or SubDivisional Magistrates. The remaining amount is provided once the case is settled in court.
Though all freed workers at the shelter home have secured release certificates, most of them haven’t received any aid yet. “We have reached out to the district administration multiple times. The problem is that none of them have identity proofs to open a bank account. We are going to apply for their Aadhaar cards. The District Collector has issued a letter to fasttrack the process,” says Gunjal.
The initial aid is not issued in most cases, says a Mumbaibased lawyer, who did not wish to be named. “Full compensation also takes time as it is not given until the accused is convicted. There is a corpus with the district administration that can be used to provide the initial aid.”
Efforts are in progress to rehabilitate the rescued workers, says Mathura Jadhav, a volunteer at the home. Once they are able to carry out basic chores on their own, vocational training will be imparted, says Shaikh. He adds that another NGO, Pratham, has been conducting free skill development workshops for all the residents of Manavseva Project.
The home is completely reliant on donations, says Gunjal. “If the voluntary contributions stop, then we will be able to run the home for a maximum of six months with our personal funds. After that, we will have to shut down.”
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