Adivasis and the Indian State: Tribal groups particularly vulnerable to bonded labour, strict enforcement needed to prevent exploitation

Editor’s Note: In this eighteen-part series, we will attempt to address the tropes associated with the communities in question from an Adivasi perspective while also exploring the contemporary relationship of Adivasi citizens with the Indian government. *** This picture of Kasi taken last month during a bonded labour rescue operation in Tamil Nadu, jolted the nation’s conscience. This is a story that resounds in the lives of all bonded labourers; of all people from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes dependent on wage labour. In India, the overwhelming majority of bonded labour victims in agriculture, brick-making, mining and other sectors are from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.” A report of the Planning Commission on “Bonded Labour Rehabilitation Scheme from Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh” confirms that 83 percent of the rehabilitated bonded labourers belong to SC and ST communities. BLSA is a special criminal law emphasising upon release and rehabilitation of rescued bonded labourers, with the prosecution of the offence being not-so-significant a pursuit.