Publication : India’s Unfree Workforce

Of Bondage Old and New

This volume makes a distinction between agrarian bondage as it existed in the past and the contemporary practices of bondage in various branches of the economy. It suggests that the analysis for bonded labour cannot be disassociated from a broader analysis related to the whole landscape of labour. The emergence of neo-bondage is strongly connected to the reinforcement of the informalization of labour relationships as well as the intensification of circulation and labour migration. Neo-bondage is strongly connected to the increased monetization of commodity exchanges and of social relationships, as well as the development of mass consumption. The authors do not accept the proposition that labour bondage is likely to disappear when economic growth is sustained at its current rate.

ISBN:	9780195698466
Title:	India’s Unfree Workforce
Author:	Jan Breman, Isabelle Guérin, Aseem Prakash
Imprint:	Oxford University Press, USA
Physical Desc.:	392 p.
Year:	2009

Contents

Introduction

PART I. AGRARIAN BONDAGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

After Slavery : Unfree Rural Labour in Post-1842 Eastern India
Jacques Pouchepadass

Entrapped between Bondage and Freedom : Paraiyans and the Changing Fortunes of Agrestic Servitude in Colonial and Post-Colonial Tamil Nadu
Raj Sekhar Basu

Modern Bondage : Atiyaayma in Post-Abolition Malabar
K.T. Rammohan

From Contract to Status? Or How Law Shaped Labour Relations in Colonial India, 1780-1880
Prabhu P. Mohapatra

PART II. CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF BONDAGE

Conceptualizing Continuity and Change in Emerging Forms of Labour Bondage in India
Ravi S. Strivastava

Bondage in India : Representing the Past or the Present ? the Case of the Dhanbad Coal Belt during the 1980s
Djallal Heuzé

Corridors of Migration and Chains of Dependence : Brick Kiln Moulders in Tamil Nadu
Isabelle Guérin, in collaboration with G. Venkatasubramanian

How (Un)free are the Workers in the Labour Market ? A Case Study of Brick Kilns
Aseem Prakash

Neo-bondage, Seasonal Migration, and Job Brokers : Cane Cutters in Tamil Nadu
Isabelle Guérin, Augendra Bhukhut, Kamala Marius-Hnanou, and G. Venkatasubramanian

“Workers,, Trust  Us !” Labour Middlemen and the Rise of the Lower Castes in Andhra Pradesh
David Picherit

Bonded Labour in the Rice Mills : Fate or Opportunity ?
Marc Roesch, G. Venkatasubramanian, and Isabelle Guérin

Unfree Labour in the Plantation System
Sharit K. Bhowmik

PART III. THE URGENT NEED FOR LEGAL AND GLOBAL ACTION

Bonded Labour and the Courts
Kamala Sankaran

A Global Alliance against Forced Labour ? Unfree Labour, Neo-liberal Globalization, and the International Labour Organisation
Jens Lerche

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