Bonded labour a thing of past? Gujarat rural workers are now more aware: Ex-official

By Rajiv Shah

This is sort of rejoinder to my Counterview story. I was a little surprised on receiving a phone call from a former government official, who retired in 2015, Bipin Bhatt, whom I have known as one of the more socially conscious senior babus of Gujarat. A non-IAS bureaucrat, I first interacted him during my Gandhinagar days, when I used to cover Gujarat Sachivalaya for the Times of India. At that time he was Gujarat’s rural labour commissioner, a post which he occupied between 2004 and 2007. Thereafter I have been in touch with him.
Bhatt phoned me up objecting to the story (“Debt bondage, forced labour, sexual abuse in Gujarat's Bt cottonseed farms: Dutch study”) based on a study published by a Dutch NGO, Arisa, with the active help of the Ahmedabad-based labour rights group Centre for Labour Research and Action (CLRA), which has carried out considerable work among migrant workers, especially those who are from Gujarat’s eastern tribal belt.
Apparently, Bhatt phoned up realising that I had still not seen his comment on my Counterview report which he had sent to me on Telegram. He was right. I had not seen his objection, which was in the following words, “I have strong reservation against such surveys and reports. I have served as rural labour commissioner from 2004 to 2007. Apart from government duty, I am an activist.”
Especially objecting to the part of the report which said advance offered to wage sharecroppers in North Gujarat leads to their bondage type situation in Bt cottonseed farms, Bhatt commented, “Such surveys do not show the correct picture. The advance system does not provide labourers all the time. They take advance and may not turn up. They always ask money for daily requirements.”
He concluded by stating, “The bonded system existed and has almost vanished now. It had sexual angle, too”, even as seeking the original study from me in order to go into “more details”. I forwarded the report to him.
Be that as it may, talking to me on phone he told me that his experience both as former rural labour commissioner and as a farmer who has a 62 bigha farm (jointly owned by family) between Malpur and Modasa suggests things are “not as simple as what the study appears to make out.”
The farm which he owns, situated in Aravalli district, is regionally in the same area where the Arisa study has been done – Banaskantha and Sabarkantha districts of North Gujarat, he told me. “I know the whole region very well, have travelled to many villages. It seems the surveyors failed to cross check with other workers or villagers, and did not investigate enough”, he underlined.
According to him, labourers, including those he has been hiring for his farm, where he has been growing commercially usable trees to be sold after a few years’ duration “because it’s a barren land”, suggests that they do not turn up to work without advance. “Even if they take advance, they would run away in case they get a better offer from someone else. Surely, they cannot be kept in bondage even if they are indebted, as your report seeks to suggest”, Bhatt said.

He continued, “Not only have the rural workers learned to bargain for higher wages, they wouldn’t work for more than the time for which they are hired, such is the awareness. They calculate every penny. Once eight hours are over, whether you like it not, they will just leave the field after demanding wages for the day. In fact, this is true of domestic workers hired in the rural areas as well. Even women workers refuse to work more than the time for which they are hired.”
Bhatt further said, “City dwellers who do such type of studies do not appear to understand rural realities well. They have little or no idea about how things have changed in villages. Indeed, rural workers, without exception, have become very aware, more than we think they are. I know one city dweller activist, who hasn’t seen a maize field. This person had just seen corn in a city market.”
Notably, the former government official acquired fame after a newly constructed locality was named after him – Bipin Bhatt Nagar – in Bhuj following the devastating January 26, 2001 Kutch earthquake, after which he is said to have done seminal work in rehabilitating those who had to be displaced because of the massive destruction that had taken place.
A local dailies Kutch Mitra and Divya Bhaskar (Bhuj edition) even today remember him, he tells me, forwarding me cuttings. Ironically, soon after the locals named the Bhuj locality after him, Bhatt was summarily transferred. A Gujarat Administrative Service (GAS) cadre, he was never promoted to IAS, though he told me, several of his batchmates were. “They are still working in government after retirement. But I have no regrets.”
So, what does Bhatt do today? He claimed, he works with tens of NGOs. “You can look up my Facebook timeline for more details”, he insisted, which I did. Indeed, I realised that I have long been his Facebook friend, though I admit, I don't see the social media very frequently – one reason I miss what all he regularly posts about his claimed interactions with NGOs, especially in North Gujarat. Most of his Facebook friends are well-known longtime Gujarat activists.

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