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Freedom has always been an Expensive Thing

Advocacy is more than just a new development phrase. Advocacy is about giving people bargaining power. Ulf Jacobsen, Tim Whyte, Ib Schou and Dilli Chaudhary from BASE went to India in November to study advocacy. It became a very inspiring tour and the group met more than ten advocacy organisations in Bombay, Pune and Ahmedabad. A report from the study tour is available from MS-Nepal. Vivek Pandit of India is a very active advocacy activist. He recently received the "Anti Slavery Award" from Anti Slavery International. The following is an extract of the speech he held in England after receiving the award.

Speech delivered by Vivek Pandit, Indian Advocacy Activist, when he received the Anti-Slavery Award 1999

When we went to work in the rural areas in the late seventies we knew nothing of bonded labour or slavery. What we saw in the villages was that they were not a homogeneous community. We saw that the landlord belonging to the upper caste, with more money and political connections owned the tribals who were landless, abjectly poor and belonged to the lowest stratum of the caste system. The power was literally concentrated at the core even geographically. All resources came to villages where the landlords lived, while the tribals (indigenous people) were pushed to the far-flung hamlets, in the interior and inaccessible forests.

We learned from the people how they took small sums of money from the landlords during illness or marriage and then were bonded to him for generations. The bonded labourer was less than an animal. The landowner’s bullocks were better taken care of than the human beings. After the season transplantation of paddy the bullocks were rested for a month or more and all this time the bonded labourer was expected to gather the green fodder for the cattle. I remember that the tribals would work without respite till their feet rotted by being continuously in the water. Whereas ironically the owners would beat the tribals who could not work.

These were the slave citizens of a free country. This was the irony in the largest democracy in the world. When we began working for the release of bonded labourers we realized we were challenging the vested interests in the area. The release of bonded labour is a process from slavery to freedom and freedom is never gifted away. Freedom can only be won through struggle, by building the strength of the people. We realized that those in bondage have to be prepared to overthrow their chains at any cost, even at the cost of their lives. My advice to those who say they want to free bonded labourer but are unable to do so because of police cases or threats by landlords, I ask them, “What else did you expect?” It is only natural that the powerful will react to keep their interests intact. R. Martin Luther King has said, “ Freedom has always been an expensive thing.” Indeed we have to be prepared to pay the highest price for it.

The essential condition of bondage is in the minds of the people. While recording the statements of the hundreds of bonded labourers, whenever we asked, “What is your problem?” invariably they replied, “Nothing.” A bonded labourer has no dreams and torture is way of life. They have been conditioned to accept that their place is at the periphery of society. The process of release and rehabilitation of bonded labour is to restore the personhood of the person, to restore self-esteem, confidence, and the feeling that they too can win and until yesterday they had nothing but they can build for a better tomorrow for their children.

Release from bondage can only come through collective action saying ‘no’ to an inhuman system. Thus, there were uniting slogans that brought together the bonded labourers:

Tribals are human beings not cattle

“We are demanding our rights as human beings.” Slogans and songs like these are helpful in reinforcing the feeling of dignity in the bonded labour. When the landlords attacked them a tribal woman said, “We will eat bitter roots and crabs, but we will not bow down before the landlords. “ That became another powerful slogan in the struggle against bonded labour. The system of bonded labour could not be fought in isolation. The struggle against bonded labour was linked to the larger struggle for rights of agricultural labourers, for minimum and equal wages, for the restoration to tribal land grabbed by the landlords and so on. The movement grew, as it was not strength in members but strength in feeling, belief and solidarity. More and more marginalised people joined it and strengthened it.

We learned that bonded labourers do not become free because they are not convinced that they can remain in freedom. The message that goes across to the bonded labourer is that the entire system is against them. The landlords are obviously exploiting them, but the law enforcement agencies do not help them either. They know that they are being tortured but there is no one to listen to their plight. They are not even convinced that social workers or NGO’s will listen to them. I remember when we first came across the issue of bonded labour, we spent nearly tow whole years trying to convince the tribals to become free. The landlords were angry that we were campaigning against them, and the tribals ran away whenever they saw us because my uncle was a bonded labour keeper. They thought we were the agents of the landlords. We were frustrated and were losing heart. Then one day we were attacked by the landlords, our belongings were thrown out of our rented house. We had nowhere to go. That night the tribals took us home and dressed our wounds. They realized that we were with them and since then we have remained with them. The relationship was strengthened when we registered offence against my uncle. Bonded labour exists not because of them but because of us. We can work with the bonded labourers for their release only when they are convinced that we are ready to be with them, and we are ready to risk everything including our lives to remain with them.

Freedom comes from countering power. Only by building the strength of the bonded labourers can their voices be heard, not only heard but acted upon. Our task is to help them through this difficult transitory period when they have no support and no help. This is always the testy period. Once we overcome this, victory for them is answered. A bonded labourer does not become free overnight. In this period of transit we have to help them in every possible way. Once they are free, the bonded labourers become part of the larger community of the workforce and are free to sell their labour to any person. The issues of the larger community become theirs. The poverty, illiteracy, disease and exploitation that are the lot of the free labour also become their lot.

Another lesson we learned was that social legislation by itself cannot destroy slavery. While powerful laws are important and useful, without an insistent and equally powerful voice to demand their implementation, laws have remained on paper. Similarly, any other tool like using the media, public interest litigation or using legislative devices have to be linked to collective action if they are to bring long lasting change in the lives of the people.

The commitment and readiness to take risks is often missing. I have seen NGO’s who purport to release bonded labourers both in India, Nepal and elsewhere but whose paid staff are keepers of bonded labour, or whose orientation is against any kind of risk taking. Sometimes I come across NGO’s who have made a project of releasing bonded labourers, and their activities include savings and credit, literacy classes, alternative employment and so on. I feel that if voluntary agencies react to their poverty and illiteracy instead of strengthening them for release then they too do not hold out any hope for those in bondage. How can people whose entire time from sunrise to sunset is owned by another come for literacy classes? And how will literacy help them? How can those who earn only in kind and just enough to keep body and soul together put savings? Why should they save to buy their freedom when the law abolishes bonded labour? Once we calculated the amount that a bonded labourer would have earned if he were a free labourer, and we found that actually the landlord owes him money instead of the other way around. So why should a bonded labour save to pay off an imaginary debt? One of the conditions of slavery is physical force therefore how can he go for alternative employment? If any person identified as a bonded labourer by an NGO’s accepts and is allowed to accept alternative employment by the owner then by deduction this was not a condition of bondage at all.

Releasing bonded labourers is not a project. It is entering into the politics of tilting the balance of power in favor of the marginalised. This requires knowing the various democratic institutions, the laws, and the pulse of the people, the mind of the opponent. But once bonded Labourers are free, the sky is the limit. They do not wait for alternative employment or rehabilitation packages. Freed bonded labourers in Thane (our district in Maharastra) have helped other bonded labourers all over the country in their struggle for freedom. They have even collected one Rupee each as a token contribution in the freedom struggle of the African National Congress. They have truly understood in their hearts that no one is free till every one is free.

In our struggle we have met the most feudal-minded bureaucrats, but we have also met many that have put their careers at stake to support the case of the bonded labourers, There are politicians, media persons, and judges who have helped us in many ways, thus, there are many persons in the system who are sensitive to the problems of the people. Without their support our organization and we could not have achieved what we have.
 

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