We hire the chakars on Akkha Teej

THE RED scarf that hangs around Sana Basava’s neck loudly proclaims his identity. He is a chakar — technically a contractual farmhand but, for all practical purposes, a bonded labourer in vibrant Gujarat.

A resident of Puniyad village of Sinor block in Vadodara district, Sana goes to a nearby village to till his employer’s field.

The terms of his assignment are spelt out in black and white. Long working hours — when fields need to be irrigated, he has to put in a 24x7 effort — an annual average payment of ` 18,000, a fixed amount being docked from this measly salary every time he takes leave and the money to be handed over to him only at the end of the year.

For generations, Sana and other members of the tribal community have been slaving away for the affluent farmers of rural Gujarat under the tradition of Chakar Pratha . On Akshay Tritiya ( Akkha Teej in local parlance), an auspicious day when the rest of the country celebrates by splurging on gold and silver, the fate of the state’s Sanas gets decided for the next one year.

“ We hire the chakars on Akkha Teej ,” Thakur Patel, a farmer from Shimli village in Karjan block of Vadodara, says. “ This year the rate is around ` 20,000 for a year. We have to hire them on a yearly basis, because the daily rate of about ` 100 turns out to be too expensive,” Thakur adds.

It is another matter that the chakars often do not even know how much money they will get at the end of their gruelling 365- day term. Sitting in his motley hut in Shimli, Chandu Desai says: “ I got ` 15,000 last year, but this time they have not informed us about the sum we will be given.” Gujarat’s brand of ‘ bonded labour’ isn’t confined to men.

“ Women are also hired on an annual basis for domestic work and are called panihari ,” reveals Ramesh Vasava, a tribal activist from the area. Sexual abuse is not uncommon for paniharis . Gender discrimination is also evident in the wages for women.

Champa Vasava makes ` 1,200 a year and gets the leftovers of meals from her employer’s house, which she shares with her children and husband Dadu Vasava. Dadu was crippled owing to alleged police torture after he was accused of stealing a couple of years ago. At that time, he was working as a chakar at a farm.

For the exploited tribals, it is not just about abysmally low wages.

There is a debt angle as well. “ The ill- paid tribals often borrow from the Patels and are then forced to slog it out in their fields to repay the debt,” Ramesh says. “ In effect, the chakars end up with very little money at the end of the year, pushing them into a debt trap.” “ Chakars do borrow money from us. We don’t have a problem if a labourer wants to work with some other farmer, but before that he has to clear his debts in cash or by working in the farm,” Viral Patel, a Shimli farmer, says.

Vadodara’s labour officer M. S. Patel categorically denied the existence of bonded labour. “ Chakar pratha was prevalent in the days of the British, but now there is no such practice in the state,” Patel says. “ These people are not bonded labourers. They go home at night and work during the day.

In fact, the government has fixed their wages at ` 100 per day.” Noted writer- activist Indukumar Jani says: “ The system is common in areas such as Vadodara or Jambusar in Bharuch. We have time and again raised the issue, but no government — be it the Congress or BJP — has ever officially acknowledged it.” Back in Shimli, Magan Vasava got only ` 12,000 last year. His son’s marriage is due in a few months and the estimated expenses are ` 50,000. He will borrow again, then roll up his sleeves and brace for payback time on the fields.

FREEDOM & BONDAGE GETBLURRED

EMINENTeconomist and former vice- chancellor of Bhavnagar University, Prof. Vidyut Joshi says that labourers under the Chakar Pratha officially do not forfeit their right to change their employer, which helps the government not to acknowledge them as bonded labourers.

“ All the other conditions of bonded labourer are fulfilled as there are meagre advance given to them apart from loans, which bind them to their employers,” Joshi said, adding that every time a labourer wants to change his employer, he is asked to pay off his debts.

“ But that is more often than not beyond his capacity, and thus he remains vulnerable to exploitation.”