Those having the roots in rural India
know it well – the brick kiln workers. What drew my attention to them was an
International Labour Organization report on profits earned by the industries
exploiting the poverty of the people forced to work in out of their financial
misery.
The report identifies some
sectors including the brick kilns as such industries earning profits from the ‘bonded
labour’.
The other industries that it
mentions are carpet weaving, rice and sugar cane industries.
Brick kilns are a regular feature
throughout the India
dotting the country’s landscape. Cities and towns have them on outskirts. And
for villages, these are regulars, employing the folks from the lowest strata,
the unskilled labourers.
In my childhood, I used to marvel
at the efficiency of carving a simple-designed brick from the mud and heating the
soil to make it a solid red-coloured block. Some of my family’s land was
contracted to a brick kiln owner and I had some chances to visit there.
I used to question others why
they were paid so less and why they used to live like that – soaked in dirt
with no moments to take rest. And the condition has not changed much since my childhood.
It was a small operation and
there was nothing like bonded labour as much as I could gather then. Yes,
people working there were living in abject poverty and were ready to grab
whatever earning opportunity they could have had through their physical labour.
But as I grew up and started getting
the real sense of the social vulnerabilities of India ’s societal formations through
my associations and collaborations with some NGOs, I could gauge how deep the
problem was.
Standalone or small brick kiln
operations do not operate on bonded labour in economically backward regions as
the labour is available but the condition is different for the larger players
operating a number of kilns over a large geographical area or for brick kilns
operating in areas with short supply of manpower to do this labour intensive
work that badly affects the health of the workers.
Workers are still paid shamelessly
low and the large operators need constant supply of cheap manpower to maintain
their business on a consistent running mode.
And to ensure that, keeping the
labour ‘bonded’ somehow is the ‘safest’ option for them. And given the poverty
of the brick kiln workers, they get it done easily. And these mercenaries do
not care if the worker is an adult or a child. The forced migration of the
labour helps them in keeping a tight tab on their workforce that they never
care for.
Being a ‘worker’ demands the
conditions on ‘labour laws’ to be met but they are never treated as the ‘workers’.
They are taken in as faceless identities and they remain so as long as they
remain there, with no exit options to exercise.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
