BOND LABOUR SYSTEM (ABOLITION) ACT 1976

INTRODUCTION:

• Bonded labour (or debt bondage) occurs when a person’s labour is demanded in return
for a loan. The person is then tricked into working for little or no pay.

• The value of their work is usually greater than the original loan.

• Sometimes --- these loans passes from generation to generations.

• Bonded labour system --- vast, pernicious, social evil.

• It is a generic term which applies to virtually all contemporary forms of slavery.

• Bonded labour is a form of laboring class which is always subjected to endless

exploitation by ruthless masters.

• 20 million people --- bonded labourer.

• A person becomes a bonded laborer when his labor is demanded in terms of repayment of
a loan. A person who becomes a bonded laborer is then trapped into performing manual
labour for very little or no pay.

• Sec. 2(a):- ‘advance’ means something in cash or in kind, or partly in cash or partly in
kind, made by one person (creditor) to another (debtor).

• Sec. 2 (b):- “agreement” --- written or oral, or partly written and partly oral , between a
debtor and creditor.

• Sec. 2 (d):- “bonded debt” ---- an advance obtained or presumed to be obtained by a

bonded labourer.

• Sec. 2(e):- “bonded labour”---- any labour or service rendered under the bonded labour
system.

• Sec. 2 (g):- “bonded labour system” ---- system of forced or partly forced labour under
which a debtor enters, or has, or is presumed to have entered, into an agreement with the
creditor”.

• Domination exists --- of a few socially and economically powerful people over the large
number of socially and economically illiterate and poor people. Eg- tribal labourers,
agricultural migrants.
 • Not allowed to other employment or other means of livelihood during the period of
bondage.

• Wages ---- too low that the labourer finds it difficult to feed himself.

• Relationship between a creditor and the debtor exists, which is a life long problem.

• Infringement of the basic human rights and destruction of the dignity of human labour.

• Justice Bhagawati, “bonded labour are non-beings, exiles of civilization living a life
worse than that of animals, for the animals are at least free to roam about as they like and
they can plunder or grab food whenever they are hungry, but these out-caste of society
are held in bondage, robbed of their freedom and they are consigned to an existence
where they have to live either in hovels or under the open sky and be satisfied with
whatever little unwholesome food they can manage to fill their hungry stomach.”

• Oxford English dictionary, “bonded means thing restraining bodily freedom It is a bond
together through agreement or deed entered in to by the parties concerned.”

• As per ILO report on stopping forced labour (2001), the term bonded labour refers to a
worker who rendered service under condition of bondage arising from economic
consideration, notably indebtedness through a loan or an advance.

ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF INDIA’S BONDED LABOR PROBLEMS:

• Discrimination on the basis of caste and status.

• Vast poverty and inequality.

• Inefficient system of education.

• Unreasonable social relations.

• Cultural reasons for the prevalence of child labour in India.

• Migration of families to overpopulated cities.

• Grinding poverty, natural calamity, illiteracy, accident, cheating and loan.

• Design by money lender.

• crisis and death in the family

• Unemployment
 • sudden loss of employment,

• Non-sustainable expenses on wedding, other social functions, etc.

• It is a system of exploitation of man by man. In this system a person is fully under the
grip of his/her master.

• Property of their masters and --- can not dare to say no to anything of their masters which
they are ordered. If they disobey their masters, they are bound to face dire consequences .

• Third degree treatment.

• Webster's Dictionary “forced means enforced or compulsory, thus forced labour means
enforced or compulsory labour.”

• According to the Royal Commission on Labour in India “the labourer borrows money
from the land lord under a contract to work until the debt is repaid. The debt tends to
increase rather than to diminish.”

• Social and economic exploitation.

• As per National Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2006-2007, bonded

labour includes :-

a. Denial of the freedom of movement from one part of the territory of India to
another.
b. Denial of the right to receive minimum wages or market wages, wherever
minimum wages have not been fixed.
c. Denial of the freedom of choice of employment or other means of livelihood.
d. Denial of the right to sell one’s labour or the product of one’s labour at market
value.

CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK:

• Article 23(1) - It imposes a positive obligation on the State to take steps to abolish evils
of “traffic in human beings and ‘begar’ and other similar forms of forced labour.

Article applies - both citizens and non-citizens.

• Article 21 of the Indian Constitution- This is the most important and foremost
safeguard against any exploitation of human lives and their liberty. It is part of the Basic
Structure of the Constitution and cannot be amended. It secures the right to life and
right to live with human dignity to every person in India.

• Article 39 of the Constitution (DPSP):- It directs the State to secure the right to an
adequate livelihood.
• Article 42 of the Constitution – This is also a DPSP which states “The State shall make
provision for securing just and humane conditions of work”.

• Article 43 of the Constitution – It directs the State to secure conditions for work
ensuring a decent standard of life.

• Prohibition of Employment of Children as Bonded Laborers’ (Article 24)

• In People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (Asiad case), SC - For the
first time read the provisions of labour laws into Fundamental Rights to realize the socio-
economic justice to the deprived sections of the society. The Court has given a new
dimension to several areas such as minimum wage, employment of children, enforcement
of labour laws and public interest litigation.

• In Rampal v. Maishi Lai Raj Kumar and Others- It was held that people working as
bonded laborers’ in brick kilns is totally prohibited under Art. (23) Of COI.

• In Sanjit Roy v. State of Rajasthan – held that if persons are employed in doing useful
work, there can be no justification for the State not to pay them minimum wage.

• In Labourers working on Salal Hydro-electric Project v. State of Jammu and

Kashmir, held - Laborers’ cannot be exploited by the contractors a any cost.

• In Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of lndia -----In this case, the petitioner, an
organisation dedicated to the cause of release of bonded labourers in the country,
addressed a letter to Hon'ble Bhagwati, J. alleging:

1. that there were a large number of labourers from different parts of the country
who were working in some of the stone quarries situated in district Faridabad,
State of Haryana under “inhuman and intolerable conditions”;
2. that a large number of them were bonded labourers;
3. that the provisions of the Constitution and various social welfare laws passed for
the benefit of the said workmen were not being implemented in regard to these
laborers’. SC- held - cannot be infringement of fundamental rights ---- especially
people from weaker sections of the society.

• In Neeraja Chaudhary, Petitioner v. State of M.P, SC- held - it is not enough merely to
identify and release bonded laborers’ but it is equally, perhaps more, important that after
identification and release, they must be rehabilitated, because without rehabilitation, they
would be driven by poverty, helplessness and despair.

• In Mukesh Advani v. State of M.P, SC- held- workers employed in mines cannot be
treated as bonded laborers’- must be paid minimum wages.
 • In Upendra and Others v. State of M.P. and Another ---- SC---- held ---- it is no use
identifying and releasing bonded laborers’ unless provisions are also made for their
rehabilitation as otherwise we would be driving them to starvation.

• In Santhal Pargana Antyodaya Ashram v. State of Bihar and Others ----- held ---The
released bonded laborers’ must be rehabilitated by the State Government on a permanent
basis.

• In P. Sivaswamy v. State ofAndhr Pradesh ---- SC---- held ----- The Apex Court gave
directions to the States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Orissa to take immediate steps for
the rehabilitation of 1417 bonded laborers’.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

Ancient times:-

• Existence of slavery can be traced from the Harappa civilization.

• In the Smithies’' there is mention about different types of slavery practiced in ancient
times in India.

• According to Manu, slaves are of seven types, one who is made a captive of war, who
serves for his daily food, who is born in one’s house as a slave, one who is brought in a
sale, one who is given by another, one who is inherited from ancestors and one who is
enslaved in order to clear a debt.

• During the Chola period in south India, forced labour “vetti” was in practice.

• Devadasis were commonly found in most of the temples in Chola times.

Pre Independence:-

• Muslim period.

• Wherever the Muslims went, mostly as conquerors but also as traders, there developed a
system of slavery peculiar to the terrain and populace of the place.

• Slave were abducted or captured by marauders (subuktigin, Balban), they were sold by
jealous or needy relatives and they were purchase by slave-traders to be sold for profit.

• The Arabs captured and enslaved Indians in large numbers. Indeed from the days of
Mohammed Bin Qasim in the eight century to those of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the
eighteenth the enslavement, distribution, and sale of Hindu prisoners was systematically
practiced by Muslim invaders and rulers of India.
• Qutab-ud-din Aibak was a slave and one of the generals of Mohammad Ghori.

• After Ghori's death, he became the ruler of the Indian possession. He founded the slave
dynasty.

• Feroz Tughlak indulged in production for himself with the help of the slaves. He ordered
his commanders and officers to capture slaves whenever they were at war and to pick out
the best for the service of the Court. Forty thousand slaves were guards in royal palace.

• During Mughal period slavery practiced on a wide scale.

• Emperor Akbar --- abolish slavery.

• Agrestic slavery also practiced in medieval India, when the East India Company assumed
power in the 18th century.

• Portuguese--- slave trade in Bengal.

• During the great famine of 1770, the bondage of agrestic slave originated in Bengal.

• Zamindars who were influential people were ready to oppress the illiterate peasant. As a
result, a great portion of the agricultural labour force fell into debt and became slaves.

• Agrestic slavery also existed in Bihar where middle class people and big landlords used
to own agrestic slaves. In Deccan, the agrestic slaves were permanently attached to the
soil, their masters owned them along with the land to which they were attached.

• Burma, Australia, the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Swiss, the Danes and the Arabs
were all engaged in this organized traffic.

• Warren Hasting who was the Governor of Bengal in 1972, made enslavement a lawful
punishment.

• In 1789, Governor-General Lord Comwallis, greatly disturbed by the activities of the

Portuguese and other slave traders, himself wrote to the Court of directors on the subject
of abolishing slavery.

• On July 27, 1789 an ordinance was gazette prohibiting the exportation of natives of
British India as slaves.

• In 1806, British rule in India banned this age old practice of agrestic slave system and
passed Bengal Regulations Act of 1806 to restrict the slave system.

• The other important effort towards abolition of slavery was made by Slavery Abolition
Act 1843. The Act was extended to the states ruled by the native kinds.
 • The slaves were legally freed but in practice their bondage continued as they had to
depend upon their masters for the satisfaction of their basic requirements.

• The Act could not made dent into agrestic slavery deeply fortified by social and
economic customs practiced in the country.

Post - Independence:-

• The existence of forced labour among the agricultural communities and thereafter the
existence of such labour were also visible in our industries, where the harsh exploitation
of workers, their subjection to sub-human standard of work was very common.

• After Independence Zamindari was abolished in the country and the rent collected by
intermediaries were transformed into owner by showing themselves as self-cultivating
farmers. This transformation of Zamindari resulted in eviction of several thousands of
traditional tenants. The origin of bonded labour system therefore can be traced to our land
problem.

• Coalmines ---- forced labour existed.

• After the Independence, the founding Fathers of Indian constitution, realized the gravity
of the situation. They were very anxious to protect the human dignity and decency of
poor, underprivileged sections of society, to free them from curse of begar.

• The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Ordinance 1975 was later converted into Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.