27 Mar, 2007
PALIGANJ (PATNA): In Bihar government's official records, bonded labour doesn't exist. But at least a couple of farm workers at Paipura Barki village, about 60 km from Patna, have not been able to throw off the yoke of bondage even though they have worked for nearly three decades for their "masters". Meet Jawahar Manjhi, 45, who has a wife and four children. About 27 years ago when he was a teenager, his starving family took rice on loan from the local 'mahajan' (lender) for a wedding. It was decided that Manjhi would work in the lender’s field and repay with his labour. For a day's work, he would be given one kg of rice, which is one-third of the normal payment of three kg. Since then Manjhi has been working six days a week, eight hours a day. But the loan remains to be repaid. "Originally the loan was one 'mun' (about 40 kg). Twenty-seven years on, I don't know how much have I repaid and how much more I owe to the 'mahajan'," said Manjhi. Completely unlettered, he has no idea how the interest was calculated but he has been told he would be "freed" if he pays a lump sum Rs 5,000, an amount distinctly out of his reach. Manjhi does not remember having put his thumb impression on any paper which binds him to work. But he says he cannot get away. His wife Kanti Devi fears her sons would also become bonded labourers. Sitting outside their one-room mud house, she said, "The one kg of rice is not enough to feed our family of six. There is never any money in the house. Where do you think the cooking oil, spices and salt will come from?" The family has had to take more loans in the past few years just to manage two meals of salted rice a day. "I don’t know how we will repay it all in one lifetime," Kanti said bitterly. The dusty lanes in the village, which falls under the Paliganj of Patna district, convey a palpable helplessness that often accompanies extreme impoverishment in Bihar. Most people are landless farmers, who work at non-negotiable terms and are only a trifle more fortunate than Manjhi and, as he says, "many more like me". State deputy CM and labour minister Sushil Kumar Modi told TOI, "We have no information of any bonded labourer in Bihar."
PALIGANJ (PATNA): In Bihar government's official records, bonded labour doesn't exist. But at least a couple of farm workers at Paipura Barki village, about 60 km from Patna, have not been able to throw off the yoke of bondage even though they have worked for nearly three decades for their "masters". Meet Jawahar Manjhi, 45, who has a wife and four children. About 27 years ago when he was a teenager, his starving family took rice on loan from the local 'mahajan' (lender) for a wedding. It was decided that Manjhi would work in the lender’s field and repay with his labour. For a day's work, he would be given one kg of rice, which is one-third of the normal payment of three kg. Since then Manjhi has been working six days a week, eight hours a day. But the loan remains to be repaid. "Originally the loan was one 'mun' (about 40 kg). Twenty-seven years on, I don't know how much have I repaid and how much more I owe to the 'mahajan'," said Manjhi. Completely unlettered, he has no idea how the interest was calculated but he has been told he would be "freed" if he pays a lump sum Rs 5,000, an amount distinctly out of his reach. Manjhi does not remember having put his thumb impression on any paper which binds him to work. But he says he cannot get away. His wife Kanti Devi fears her sons would also become bonded labourers. Sitting outside their one-room mud house, she said, "The one kg of rice is not enough to feed our family of six. There is never any money in the house. Where do you think the cooking oil, spices and salt will come from?" The family has had to take more loans in the past few years just to manage two meals of salted rice a day. "I don’t know how we will repay it all in one lifetime," Kanti said bitterly. The dusty lanes in the village, which falls under the Paliganj of Patna district, convey a palpable helplessness that often accompanies extreme impoverishment in Bihar. Most people are landless farmers, who work at non-negotiable terms and are only a trifle more fortunate than Manjhi and, as he says, "many more like me". State deputy CM and labour minister Sushil Kumar Modi told TOI, "We have no information of any bonded labourer in Bihar."
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