Abstract
This book examines the phenomena of labour bondage and provides an account of changes in the labour relations and, more particularly, of the changes in the labour bondage system in contemporary India. In this book, the author has considered the Hali community (landless tribes) as a case in the southern part of Gujarat to analyze the changes which took place over the last 75 years.
To begin with, Breman provides a critical reading of the official reports, conducted and published by the colonial and post-colonial governments on the issues of rural and urban labour. The author has also evaluated the impact on the lives of rural and urban proletariat in India as a consequence of the various measures such as land reforms, Minimum Wages Act and MGNREGA taken by both the Indian and Gujarat governments in the last seven decades. Thereafter, Breman has tested the validity of following three theories in the Indian context: (a) double freedom, (b) capitalism as dominant nature of mode of production and (c) Dispossession by accumulation in the Indian context. As per the double freedom theory, growth of capitalism generally led working people (peasants, artisans and rural proletariats) to become free in a double sense, that is as ‘free from means of production as well as free to sell their labour at the best possible price in the labour market’ (Page 218). Through the mode of production theory, Breman examines the mode of production or the prevailing production relations in Indian countryside in a contemporary context. Finally, he has also brought in Harvey’s concept of dispossession by accumulation in the context of people devoid of all forms of capital (economic, social, political and symbolic).
In Chapters 1 and 2 of the first section, Breman has investigated the erosion of master and servant relationships in India. In the second section, containing Chapters 3 to 5, he probes the existence of a pattern of employment which leads to replacement of labour attachment in the primary sector of the economy in southern Gujarat. In the third section, he has examined the changes that took place in the process of interaction between landowners and the landless workers. This research draws from colonial archives, various government reports and the author’s own field based empirical work to examine the changes in the pre-capitalist labour bondage practice of Halipartha in south Gujarat.
In the first section of the book, the author has laid out an account of the changes that took place in labour relations in India over the last 100 years. Chapter 1 examines the observed changes in labour bondage system due to (a) congress-led anti-colonial movement and (b) government and non-government institutions-based interventions on the issue of labour bondage. Breman argues that pre-capitalist labour relations like Halipartha did not wither away due to the measures taken by colonial and post-colonial government and other sociopolitical movements. It smothered mainly due to the merits of capitalism and commoditized relationship that developed in the countryside.
In Chapter 2, he has discussed the circumstances which led to the emergence of a new form of labour bondage system in post-colonial India. In the post Second World War era, the implementation of Keynesian measures brought significant improvement in lives of the working people (farmers and rural and urban labourers). However, landless rural labour, peasantry, and urban labour working in informal sector remained out of the ambit of the measures taken by the central and state government. The strengthening of capitalist relations did not bring any enhancement in demand for labour in the countryside. In the post-colonial era, landowners and capitalist farmers in agriculture preferred to hire cheaper migrant labourers over the local ones. Thus, devoid of an opportunity to create assets (economic, social and political), the local rural labourers were left with no options, but to migrate to other places. As a result, 1960s saw the emergence of migrant labour or ‘footloose labour’ in India. ‘These labour nomads wandering across the country are pushed out of their abode, driven to indebted dependency to work off the loan advanced to them at the moment of recruitments’ (page 32). As ‘this proletariats are made footloose but entangled in immobility, which I have labelled as neo bondage’ (page 33). During the 1970s, reconfiguration of global political economy on neoliberal institutional framework led to the process of withdrawal of the state from welfare and economic activities. As a consequence, India was also compelled to adopt neoliberal model for its development.
In the second section of this book, Breman elaborates the changes that took place in the conditions of Hali community of south Gujarat. An account of the circumstances leading to the emergence of the labour bondage system like Halipartha system in south Gujarat is given in Chapter 3. In pre-colonial era, since the landless tribal community of south Gujarat were deprived of means of production, they were forced to surrender their freedom to assume the role of a servant ‘as hunting and gathering with rudimentary agriculture is a vulnerable and risky way of life’ (page 65). The landless tribal community accepted the servitude role in Halipartha system as his master landlord promised him to ‘give a ration not only for days at work but also when they are out of work in the slack season or when they were ill or too old to work’ (page 65–66). The Halipartha system was marked ‘by both exploitation and patronage.’ However, neither the colonial nor the post-colonial governments took any measures to eliminate the Halipartha system from south Gujarat. It only withered away from the rural parts of south Gujarat as a consequence of the processes of commercialization, monetization and casualization of the agrarian economy.
In Chapters 4 and 5, Breman examines the impacts of political and social movements on the Halipartha system. In south Gujarat, neither the anti-colonial national political movement nor the Gandhian ideology-based social movements could impact the system as Congress leaders remained more sympathetic to the vested socioeconomic interests of the dominant classes like landlords and capitalist farmers. Therefore, when it came to practice, both political movement and government measures under the leadership of the Congress could not bring much improvement in the conditions of the lowest echelons of society. During the independence movement, it was the Kisan Sabha led militant–peasant movement which compelled the Congress to raise the issues of minimum wages and land reforms as part of the Indian national movement. In Gujarat, as various state apparatus and civil society remained firmly under the grasp of upper caste/class of society, various laws and policies which were meant for improvement of conditions of rural and urban labourers never reached its beneficiaries. Parallely, Gandhian ideology-based civil society organizations also did not make any contribution in weakening the Halipartha system.
In third section of this book, the author discusses the role of labour relations in reconfiguring the political economy. In Chapter 6, the author elaborates the processes which took place in colonial and post-colonial India that withered the pre-capitalist relations like Halipartha. However, development of capitalism did not bring relief for rural labour; but only brought a new form of bondage labour.
In Chapter 7, Breman argues that the withering of pre-capitalist’s labour bondage system gave way to a new form of labour system in post-colonial India. The urban labour working in the informal sector mainly came from lower caste/class as ‘their growing livelihood deficit in the villages makes them migration prone, but being illiterate and lacking social capital they mainly qualify for labour that is unskilled or at best skilled on the job when away from home’ (page 178). Like the pre-capitalist labour, bondage system also sees its origins in debt dependency. In present times as well, rural labour and labour nomads are not able to acquire goods and services for completing the task of social reproduction from their job. As a consequence, they are left with only one option, that is, to take advance money from recruiting agents to work in economic activity which is mostly seasonal in nature. This neo-bondage system is a combination of pre- and deferred wage settlements as the balance amount paid to workers comes after operations of harvesting of sugar cane, salts pans, mines and other activities are carried out.
In Chapter 8, the author explains the process of the phenomena of indebtedness which force the lowest echelons of society to become footloose. In case of India, neither economic development nor schemes like MGNREGA, land reforms and Minimum Wage Act could enhance the material conditions of the landless labourers or small and marginal peasantry who remain in perpetual poverty. Like in the colonial era, the post-colonial world too did not eliminate the circumstances which kept people in indebtedness and thereby perpetuating labour bondage system. Based on this, the author argues that contemporary mode of production can be surely characterized as capitalist in nature.
The author concludes that the development of capitalism did not result in freeing the proletariat, especially the agrarian labour, in an orthodox Marxist sense. In India, development of capitalism brought about the process of dispossession from means of production for peasantry as well as rural and urban proletariat, in contrast to the dominant section which saw increments in economic, social, and political capital. Consequently, it failed to bring majority of people out of poverty and perpetual indebtedness. However, the process of dispossession is an obvious process happening in the present world. Thus, concept of the double freedom is not valid for India, as development of capitalism did not wither the labour bondage system, but merely altered it. Rural India is witnessing the withering away of semi-feudal mode of production, where capitalism has become the dominant form of mode of production. At a time when social science is flooded with research conducted through adoption of post-modernist or neoliberal framework, this book becomes important for social science researchers who are working on the issues of caste/class oppression and exploitation, as it gives an understanding and explanation of the various social phenomena such as oppression and exploitation of labour force from political economy and historical materialistic framework.