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From Tehelk a Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 51, Dated December 25, 2010 what your friends like.

CURRENT AFFAIRS TEHELKA IMPACT

The story of slavery that Jaipur can no longer deny Recent Activity

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The bonded labourers of Baran finally have hopes of freedom after TEHELKA highlighted their plight, says ANUMEHA YADAV to see what your friends are
doing.
LESS THAN 300 km from Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur, in
Baran district bordering Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of poor Tehelka - India's Independent
Sahariya tribals are bonded to rich landlords. These tribals Weekly News Magazine
have lost their traditional access to gum, tendu leaf and 1,993 people shared this.
timber in the forest and possess little or no land. When Mamta, a local
community worker, took 16 such families to Jaipur to participate in a dharna for Tehelka - India's Independent
Weekly News Magazine
minimum wages, officials distanced themselves, saying these families were
tribals from MP. “How did they reach Jaipur if they were bonded?” was the line 35 people shared this.
taken by the district administration.

TEHELKA travelled to Baran and reported from the ground (TEHELKA, 18

December, A Stone for Bhanwar Lal. Occupation: Slave) how rich landowners Facebook social plugin
from Punjab and Haryana have tricked hundreds of Sahariyas into loans with
interest rates of 36 to 70 percent, and are making them work on their farms
without wages. These people have been working like slaves for generations to
pay off the debt. The Baran district administration had denied the 30 families
interviewed by TEHELKA across six villages were in bondage. District Collector
Naveen Jain called them hali — a term for an agricultural labourer working in
return for a cash advance — even when the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1976
bans hali among 31 forms of bonded debt.

After the publication of the TEHELKA

Six families have come out in the report, the administration has changed
open asking to be freed from the its stance and acknowledged that
debt they are in Sahariyas are working as bonded
labour. “I have asked for Rs. 2 lakh from Inhuman bondage Om Prakash and his wife
the state government to do a survey of the district to identify families in bonded Geeta were among the first to make a bid for
debt. We are addressing village meetings to encourage families to report if they freedom
are in bonded debt so we can release and rehabilitate them,” says Jain. After
one such meeting in Khankara village, six Sahariya families came out in the PHOTO: DIJESHWAR SINGH
open and asked to be freed from the debt they have been slaving to pay off. Jain
says officers in Shahbad and Kishanganj blocks are investigating the conditions in which these Sahariyas were made to work
without wages, before the administration registers FIRs against their landlords.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also taken a cue from TEHELKA’s report and has called a meeting of all
district collectors in Jaipur on 23 December. “We plan to use TEHELKA’s findings to confront the Rajasthan government. It is a
peculiar government mindset to think that admitting labourers are in bondage will be a slur on their image. We must accept that we
have not been able to abolish bonded labour and poor families are vulnerable to fall into this trap,” said Laxmidhar Mishra, NHRC
Special Rapporteur, emphasising the need for regular surveys and formation of district-level vigilance committees as prescribed by
the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, 1976.

anumeha@tehelka.com

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