Pheroze Vincent: Dalit labourers from Bihar face pharaoh-like slavery in Haryana brick kiln
In the Book of Exodus,
the second book of the Bible, Egypt’s Pharaoh is said to have ordered his
Jewish slaves to make bricks without straw. Those who didn’t make enough were
beaten. Over 70 labourers from
Bihar, including pregnant women and children as young as 12, have narrated a
similar story of bondage for almost a year at a brick kiln in Haryana, where
they were unpaid, poorly fed, beaten and forced to slave long hours. Unlike biblical times,
bonded labour is a criminal offence in India. Yet the Kurukshetra district
administration has not issued any of the freed labourers with a release
certificate under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.
Without the
certificate, the labourers cannot claim compensation under the Central Sector
Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourer, 2016, which is Rs 1 lakh for
adult males and Rs 2 lakh for women and children in addition to the unpaid
wages. Nor can they claim any benefits under the welfare schemes meant for
rescued bonded labourers. Also, without the release
certificate, the charge of bonded labour cannot be established against the kiln
owners or labour contractors.
While the efforts of a
union leader and a social activist led to these bonded labourers’ rescue on
Friday evening from Diwana village, Kurukshetra police had not charged or
arrested anyone till Monday night. “When I asked the
subdivisional magistrate of Pehowa (in Kurukshetra) for their release
certificates and compensation, he initially said he would look into it,”
activist Nirmal Gorana, whose complaint had led to the rescue, told The
Telegraph. “Later, he just
awarded Rs 1,000 to each of the 21 families and said nothing more could be done
and they should return to Bihar with the money. He said, ‘Khana bhi toh
khilaya hai (They have been fed, haven’t they)?’”
The group included 23
men, 21 women and 40 children including a few babies. The youngest of those who
were made to work, Ajay from Jagta village in Banka district, claimed he was 12
but looked no more than eight. “We would make bricks
all day and I usually got only gruel to eat. My parents and I would be beaten
if we asked for anything. Sometimes we were beaten up for no reason. As I am
small, they only hit me with their hands. The elders were beaten with sticks,”
he said.
Many of the women now
suffer from night-blindness because of malnutrition and the children have
rashes. Three women gave birth under bondage. “They would make us
work even when we were pregnant. The overseers would threaten to kick my womb
and kill my baby,” Ishtan Devi, who delivered a boy three months ago, said.
“Before the delivery
they let us go to the government hospital. The doctors knew we were bonded
labourers and did not charge us out of pity, saying, ‘We know your owner is a
b******’.” The freed labourers
are now camped behind a historic bungalow on Jantar Mantar Road, Delhi’s
protest plaza, where they began a dharna on Monday. The bungalow houses several
offices, including those of the Janata Dal United and the Bandhua Mukti Morcha,
an NGO that works with bonded labourers.
All the families are
Musahar Dalits from Banka district who had migrated for work in western Indian
brick kilns several times before. They are now surviving on the charitable
langar offered by the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib nearby. Ajay, who has passed
Class II, is one of the most educated among the group. Their declared ages are
their own estimates. “The contractors Yugal
and Abhishek Chauhan, who had taken us to Haryana, had promised us Rs 660 for
every 1,000 bricks we made. After they left us there, we were only given food,
before which they took away our Aadhaar cards,” said Poonam Devi, 25, who now
suffers from night-blindness.
Normally, working
eight hours a day, a labourer can make 500 bricks a day, she said, but at the
kiln they were forced to produce 1,500 bricks daily, working gruelling hours. “No money was given
even for medicines, and they would beat us up if anyone wanted to see a doctor,
or if they found us using a cellphone,” Poonam said. One thousand bricks
sell at around Rs 5,000 in Delhi, a three-hour drive from Kurukshetra. Poonam, who came to
Diwana with a month-old baby, had earlier worked in “much better conditions in
Bhilwara” and was a member of the Rajasthan Pradesh Eent Bhatta Mazdoor Union
there. She managed to call Madan Das Vaishnav, the union’s convener, last month
with a mobile phone she had hidden.
Vaishnav told this
newspaper over the phone: “Over the last 15 days I called the SP
(superintendent of police) and the DSP’s office in Kurukshetra and they
promised action. When nothing happened, I called Gorana in Delhi.” He added: “In
Rajasthan, too, many workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and
Chhattisgarh end up as bonded labourers to repay moneylenders back home. We
have rescued around 250 of them since 2013.”.. read more:
