Skip to main content

"Bonded situation" among Gujarat's 50.4% of migrants in sugarcane fields; they're permanently in debt: Report

By Rajiv Shah
A German government-funded report has said that more than 50.4% of an approximate 1.25 lakh migrant labourers working in Gujarat’s prosperous sugarcane block of Bardoli, most of them tribals from Dhule and Nadurbar districts of Maharashtra and Dangs and Tapi districts of Gujarat, remain in a permanent state of debt, with their incomes going into “negative” as the harvesting season draws to a close.
Working from November to May each year, these migrant workers are trapped into a “bonded situation”, the report, titled “A Bitter Harvest: Seasonal Migrant Sugarcane Harvesting Workers of South Gujarat”, researched and published by the Prayas Centre for Labor Research and Action (PCLRA), and supported by Germany’s Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, says.
Prepared by an Institute of Social Studies, Surat ,scholar Prof Kiran Desai, and Prayas’ Sudhir Katiyar, the report says, a major reason why they are forced to in and around Bardoli is, “lack of employment and earning opportunities” in their home districts. While 75% of them are landless, 20% own less than 2 acres of land.
The report, covering around 7,300 sugarcane harvesters and 2,000 brokers in Bardoli area, says, for most of the migrant workers, it is “a zero sum game” because they take an advance from the brokers or mukadams, who take them in groups to the sugarcane fields. The advance is deducted from their wages, which they get at the end of the season. The interest they must pay for the advance they take comes to a whopping 50%.
According to the report, “The expansion of agricultural land under sugarcane and establishment of sugar mills on cooperative basis in south Gujarat region, especially in and around Bardoli, area has been a replica model of agro-industrial development adopted in neighbouring districts of Maharashtra”.
Like in Maharashtra, in Gujarat too, these mills are owned “mainly middle and large farmers belonging to dominant higher and intermediate castes”, who have “imposed or reaffirmed their political, social and economic hegemony and clout through the instrument of sugar cooperatives”, the report says.
The migrant workers from the backward tribal belts of Maharashtra and Gujarat are preferred, according to the report, because the “local halpatis agricultural labourers demand higher wages”, while “the migrant labourers provide a cheaper alternative”, one reason why the cooperative owners insist want mukadams to bring in migrants much before the harvesting season begins “to accomplish other agricultural works at a cheaper labour cost.”
According to the report, ideally, considering the amount paid to the migrant workers, the income of the couple – usually husband and wife – called kyota in local parlance, should have been in the range of Rs 20,001 to 30,000.
“But when wages are paid to the harvesters by the mukadams outstanding debt in the form of advance given (with 50 % interest) is subtracted”, the report says. “Add into that costs of cereals in the form of juvar and millet-bajri as well as of materials such astadpatri and plastic to erect makeshift habitat, which were given by the factories at the start of the season.”
Pointing out that all this is “also deducted” from advance, the report says, “Almost half of the workers had negative balance in terms of amount received, i.e., they are in indebted state even after four to five months of tireless labour. The rest 50% of the workers could earn positive net amount in the range of Rs 1,000 to 30,000 after subtracting outstanding advance and other amount.”
“Deciphering the data further it is revealed that around one-third of harvesters had earned in the range of Rs 10,000 and less, whereas the rest 15% could earn more than that and up to Rs 30000”, the report adds.
This amount they get, the report says quoting 50% of those interviewed, after they “toil for 12-14 hours and worse”, while “another 30 per cent even mentioned more than 14 hours of daily labour”, adding, “Often they have to go late night, at odd hours for loading harvested canes to lorries or carts. In terms of months the harvesting season lasts for four to six months.”

Comments

Pankti Jog said…
Very interesting and alarming....
Hasan said…
So is India!😊
Madhu Menon said…

It’s rampaging in the interiors of Bharuch and Narmada districts, the practice of Chakkar-Paniyari by Patels - not so rich but land owners - is prevalent there !

TRENDING

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857  By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

The curious case of multiple entries of a female voter of Maharashtra: What ECI's online voter records reveal

By Venkatesh Nayak*  Cyberspace is agog with data, names and documents which question the reliability of the electoral rolls prepared by the electoral bureaucracy in Maharashtra prior to the General Elections conducted in 2024. One such example of deep dive probing has brought to the surface, the name of one female voter in the 132-Nalasopara (Gen) Vidhan Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra. Nalasopara is part of the Palghar (ST) Lok Sabha constituency. This media report claims that this individual's name figures multiple times in the voter list of the same constituency.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk  The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi*  This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman*  Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.