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From field to factory: tracing transformations in bonded labour in the Tiruppur region, Tamil Nadu

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 42; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03085147.2013.772757

1469-5766

Grace Carswell, Geert De Neve,

Social and Economic Development in India

Abstract Taking a historical perspective, this paper explores the phasing out of 'bonded' labour in agriculture and its reappearance in the village-based power-loom industry in the Tiruppur region of Tamil Nadu, India. Focusing on a village outside Tiruppur, we trace the gradual transformation and ultimate disappearance of forms of labour bondage in agriculture. In this region bondedness in agriculture changed in a number of significant ways, before giving way by about the 1970s to primarily casual and contract-based labour arrangements. Around the same time, small-scale power-loom workshops, which are highly labour intensive and increasingly dependent on migrant labour, began to mushroom in the village, leading to the reintroduction of bonded labour, but this time in the context of rural industrial employment. We explore how debt bondage was introduced and how it affects the working lives of both migrants and non-migrants. The paper examines the differences and similarities between past agricultural and current industrial labour bondage, and how it is experienced and talked about by both employers and workers. Keywords: unfree labourdebt bondageIndiaTamil Naduagriculturepower looms Acknowledgements Twelve months' field research was carried out from July 2008 to July 2009 in Tiruppur District, Tamil Nadu, funded by a DFID-ESRC Research Award (RES-167-25-0296). The research would not have been possible without the assistance of our research assistants – most especially Gayathri, Arul, Muthu and Priya. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Manchester and at the 2010 ECMSAS in Bonn. We thank the participants in these meetings for valuable comments and are particularly grateful to Jan Breman, Judith Heyer, Jens Lerche, Jonathan Pattenden, Nicola Phillips, Alpa Shah, Ravi Srivastava, Karen Sykes and three anonymous referees for their input. Notes 1. Data from Tiruppur Exporters Association and Apparel Export Promotion Council. 2. These, and all other names, are pseudonyms. 3. Palladam is a smaller town located about 16 km to the south of Tiruppur. 4. Fieldwork conducted in 1979. 5. Here, Subbatha refers to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) that provides rural families with 100 days of work per year, paid at a daily rate of Rs 80 in 2009. 6. The Adi Dravidas or Paraiyars are another Dalit community in the region, but they rank higher than the Matharis, are politically better organized and larger numbers of them have enjoyed education and non-agricultural employment. 7. This excludes those who work their own looms. 8. The group with the highest percentage of advances are Gounder migrants (92 per cent) and Dalit migrants (90 per cent). Since they are at opposite ends of the caste hierarchy it is clear that it is their migratory status that is particularly important here. 9. The PCR Act is the 'Protection of Civil Rights Act' dating from 1976, which was enacted in order to make the 1955 Anti-Untouchability Act more effective. In 1989 the government enacted a further Act, the 'Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act' in order to prevent atrocities against members of SC/ST communities, and it is this latter Act that is used in practice. However, everyone in the region refers to this legislation as the PCR Act. 10. As we have shown elsewhere (De Neve & Carswell, Citation2012) few of these cases reach court, let alone rule in favour of the Dalit victims. However, being accused under the PCR Act is seen by Gounders as being expensive and time-consuming and something they want to avoid if at all possible. The threat of bringing a PCR case against someone is, therefore, one of the few 'weapons' that Dalits have. 11. Thanks to Karen Sykes for her helpful ideas on debt.