Those who accuse peasants and other protestors as andolana jeevi, or even as anti-nationals, etc. should know that: there is a reason for the struggles of the workers and peasants who constitute the real nation. The reason is the anti-national attacks on their life and livelihood. The ruling class and its political representatives appear to be oblivious of the fact that: farm income, whether in the rubber cultivation or the cultivation of cereals or vegetables, is absolutely insufficient to meet the cost of production and household expenses, which is why more than 2000 farmers give up cultivation every day, and possibly a farmer commits suicide every half an hour or so (at least between 1995 and 2015).

Peasants, like workers, are not just a suffering mass. Like workers, they are a fighting mass. They make many immediate demands. For peasants to increase their success in getting these met, there must be a worker peasant alliance (WPA). The process of its formation has begun.

CAPITALISM AS THE BASIS FOR WORKER PEASANT ALLIANCE

And the basis for WPA must consciously be capitalism. Let me explain. India is dominantly a capitalist country in the sense of what Marx calls formal subsumption of labour, which is to say that capitalism exists where the following conditions exist: surplus is pumped out mainly via economic, and not extra-economic, coercion, from nominally free labour; the means of production and consumption are bought in the market (both by capital and labour) thus confront the worker as capital; no more labor time is used in production than is socially necessary, so there is competition to reduce the cost of production of commodities for sale; and an economic relation of supremacy and subordination exists at the point of production, as the worker is supervised by the capitalist (or their manager) (I discuss this in details in my book, Critical reflections on economy and politics in India). Indian capitalism is dominantly based on a regime of low wages and long hours, which is combined with elements of advanced capitalism (especially in the monopoly sector) and with remnants of pre-capitalist relations in specific localities. Peasants are a big part of Indian capitalism as are workers.

The main contradiction in Indian society is not between landlordism and the masses but between capitalism, including its many factions on the one hand and the masses – rural and urban proletarians/semi-proletarians and working peasantry, the masses who are also oppressed/exploited by remnants of semi-feudal relations in specific localities which capital will not eliminate because of its fear of the working class. Further, India’s capitalism has been working as a junior partner of imperialism which, through its financial and other institutions, adversely impacts both workers and peasants.

It is capitalism that is adversely affecting both workers and peasants. Capitalists engage in M-C-M′: investing money to buy commodities and hire labour to produce commodities for sale for money than invested, and their profit ultimately comes from them paying less than what workers produce in net terms. Capitalists’ involvement in this circuit – including their strategies of procuring money for investment and for buying, at a cheaper rate, means of production (including agro-raw materials, land, water, etc.) and labour power—affects both workers and peasants. In contrast, most peasants engage in M-C-M^– :  this means that: they invest money to produce farm products for sale for more money but end up making less money than invested (i.e. M^–). As Lenin has said: ‘Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed’.

Capitalism is impacting workers and peasants in many ways. These include: low wage and un- and under-employment in cities which hurt urban workers, a situation that stops many peasants from switching to urban labour; state-enforced acquisition of peasants’ land in corporates’ interests without their explicit consent; adverse terms of trade against peasant farming favoring urban capital; inflation caused by corporate price gouging; neoliberal austerity to increase corporate profit and discipline workers; tightening grip of corporates over agriculture via marketing, finance, contract farming, etc.; retrenchment of state employees; rural capitalism’s increasing control over peasants and rural labour by the expansion of their activities into non-farm spheres; unfree labour relations including bonded labour; collaboration between urban capital and a new class of rural rentiers who own dormitories for workers in new industrial towns; increasing control over Indian economy by foreign companies and institutions; and so on.

There are also political attacks on workers and peasants from the institutions of the capitalist state. There are increasing attacks on democratic rights and rights of minorities, and this impacts workers and peasants. Peasants and workers are also treated undemocratically by state officials who behave as kings/queens or landlords. There are increasing attacks on democratic rights and rights of minorities, and this impacts workers and peasants. On-going attacks on federalism are also attacks on workers and peasants because their organizations are strong in certain states where they influence, or run, the governments.

WHAT MUST WORKER-PEASANT ALLIANCE DEMAND?

If it is capitalism that is the dominant reason for workers’ and peasant’s suffering, then it follows that: the fight for concessions from capitalism (immediate demands including for land) must consciously be a part of the fight against the logic of capitalism as such, i.e. the fight for socialism on the basis of non-immediate demands or transitional demands, the demands that bridge the gap between current level of consciousness/action and socialist consciousness/action, the demands that will help workers and peasant to form their government.

These transitional or radical demands of WPA must include: nationalization of big corporations, plantations and other major enterprises, especially those in heavy industry, transportation and communication, food and medicine, construction and energy; effective, not nominal, control over credit; expansion of public sector and of peasants- and workers-run cooperative sector, including in agri-production, fishery and agro-processing; saying no to austerity imposed in part by imperialism; government take-over of enterprises which were hitherto in the public sector; cancellation of debts owed to foreign institutions; right to work with inflation-adjusted wages; remunerative price to farmers to be multiple times the price currently received; farmers and workers’ access to high-quality food, shelter, healthcare, education, energy, transportation, etc. in adequate quantities; price control by committees of workers and peasants; democratization of the state, including the active participation of workers and peasants in administration; progressive taxation; immediate cessation of secretive corporate funding for parties; immediate stop to extravagant beautification and monument-building policies and excessive military spending that do not benefit workers and peasants; significant climate mitigation strategies without any compromise with polluting corporates; and so on. Needless to say, while making these demands, workers and peasants must remain independent of all bourgeois parties.

The peasantry’s class position is a barrier to the WPA’s fight for socialism, however. While peasants are dominantly exploited by capitalism, peasants qua peasants, unlike workers, generally do not have socialist instinct because of their proprietorship.

Therefore their socialist education would be vital. Indeed: it is the task of socialist political economy, says Lenin (in 1908), ‘to demonstrate to the small producer the impossibility of [their] holding [their] own under capitalism, the hopelessness of peasant farming under capitalism, and the necessity for the peasant to adopt the standpoint of the proletarian’.

It is true that ‘the fight for socialism [as] a fight against the rule of capital… is being carried on first and foremost by the wage-workers’ (Lenin in 1905). But there are no absolutely insurmountable barrier to millions of working peasants, if not all, being their socialist ally: ‘As for the small farmers, some of them own capital themselves, and often themselves exploit workers. Hence not all small peasants join the ranks of fighters for socialism’ (Lenin, 1905). But some can and do join the fight for socialism: ‘only those do so who resolutely and consciously side with the workers against capital, with public property against private property (ibid; italics). As peasants experience proletarianization, objective conditions will be created for their adoption of the proletarian socialist attitude.

That socialist tendency will be stronger if peasants are educated about the fact that socialism is not a threat to their control over land. Socialists do not need to expropriate small peasantry. Whether they remain individual peasants or become members of peasant coops, they will receive not only land and credit but also machines and fertilizers, etc. at an affordable price. And, because of the attacks on capitalist property, and especially, large-scale capitalist enterprises by the worker peasant government, wages will rise drastically (say by 3 times) and state welfare will expand massively, and workplace alienation will be reduced enormously, and when this happens, many middle peasants and those who hire some labour may voluntarily switch to (peasants-operated) cooperative production or to socialist labour.

In a socialist society, Lenin writes in a 1917 article titled ‘Alliance Between the Workers and Exploited Peasants’: ‘there is no radical divergence of interests between the wage-workers and the working and exploited peasants. Socialism is fully able to meet the interests of both. Only socialism can meet their interests. Hence the possibility and necessity for an “honest coalition” between the proletarians and the working and exploited peasantry’.

Lenin’s words about the need for WPA to be socialist and explicitly anti-capitalist have contemporary relevance. Just as the Russian peasants fought for freedom from illiberalism and for land, so must peasants in India and other countries of belated capitalist development, as a part of their uninterrupted fight for socialism. After all, as Lenin said in 1921 in his ‘Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution’: ‘reforms are a by-product of the revolutionary class struggle’ i.e. ‘a ‘by-product’ of our main and genuinely proletarian-revolutionary, socialist activities’. It is the fire of the socialist imagination that will increase three aspects of the peasant and workers movement and of WPA: extensity (geographical spread); intensity (the extent to which their movement forces governments to concede to their demands or loses legitimacy) and velocity (speed of action).

CONCLUSION

If the main class process that is impacting peasants is capitalism, then it is wrong to say that the slogan of a socialist nature vis-a-vis agriculture, if raised now, will hinder the task of winning over the peasantry. The idea that workers and peasants will achieve some kind of egalitarian democratic capitalism first and will then engage in a socialist struggle at some future date, is a restrictive vision that can wrongly determine the allies. The idea that the conditions for socialist movement are not ripe now is based on the idea that capitalist relations, better managed by a popular-democratic government, can further the development of productive forces: such a view forgets that capital – as a social relation — has become a barrier to itself. To say that the completion of the democratic task of the revolution is the most urgent task because it will help clear all the pre-capitalist relations and institutions is to overestimate pre-capitalism’s impact on peasants and underestimating capitalism’s impacts, including its promotion of illiberalism.

Time is running out. Climate breakdown. Fascistic forces knocking on the door. Militarism. Workers and peasants experiencing avoidable death and illness. Imperialism after workers’ and peasants’ blood and sweat. So, socialism must not be talked about in future tense. In the Indian context, problems such as divisive politics of hate, massive immiserization, collapse of government-provided education and healthcare, unemployment and low wages, agrarian distress, climate change, and so on can only be fought by a politics of worker-peasant alliance.

A crisis-ridden capitalism-in-decline leaves no space for a more democratic, more egalitarian, less corporates-dominated, and more pro-peasants or pro-worker capitalism. The choice for workers and peasants today is socialist democracy or suffocating suffering.

Raju J Das is a professor at York University, Toronto. His recent books include Critical reflections on economy and politics in India, and Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and Limits to the State: Theoretical Considerations. For more details, visit: https://rajudas.info.yorku.ca/

A version of this text was presented on September 7, 2023 at the National Seminar on the Crisis of the Natural Rubber Sector in India, organized by Public Policy Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

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The rally began and Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, and made its way to Parliament Street. As per CPI(M), this was “the biggest rally of the working people that Delhi has seen in decades,” with the complete kilometre-long stretch from the Parliament street police station to outer circle of Connaught circus being awash in red flags.

Those participating in the Mazdoor Kisan Rally had several demands of the government, including:
 

1. Curb price increases
2. Universalise the Public Distribution System 
3. Ban forward trading in essential commodities
4. Concrete measures for generation of decent employment
5. A minimum wage of not less than Rs. 18,000 per month for all workers
6. An end to anti-worker labour law amendments
7. Remunerative price for peasants as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee 
8. Ensuring public procurement
9. Debt waivers for poor peasants and agricultural workers
10. Comprehensive legislation for agricultural workers
11. Implementation of MGNREGA in all rural areas, and an amendment to the Act to cover urban areas
12. Food security, health, education, and housing for all
13. Universal social security
14. Equal pay for equal work for men and women
15. No contractorisation
16. Redistributive land reforms
17. An end to forcible land acquisition
18. Relief and rehabilitation for victims of natural disasters
19. A reversal of neoliberal policies

“This is a historic union. For the first time, workers and farmers have marched together in such numbers to protest the government policies,” said Tapan Sen, general secretary of the CITU, The Hindu reported. Per The Hindu, S. Thirunavaukkarasu, who heads the AIAWU, noted, “This year, rural agricultural workers got only 27-days of work through MGNREGA,” and questioned, “What has happened to ‘acche din‘ promised by the Modi government? It was only acche din for corporates, not for people like us.” CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury also spoke at the rally, pledging to “take the struggle to every district”.

This rally came just months after the Kisan Long March that made its way from Nashik to Mumbai earlier this year, in March. There are plans for another ‘long march’ to be held in Delhi in November. Vijoo Krishnan, joint secretary of the AIKS, said, “From November 28 to 30, we will hold a ‘Long March of the Dispossessed’. It will not just be farmers, but also the landless, Adivasis, Dalits, workers who will come to surround the four corners of Delhi,” per The Hindu. The CITU’s Tapan Sen announced that CITU workers would also participate in the November march, according to the CPI(M).

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New Delhi: In a bid to overthrow the Modi-govt in 2019 general elections, lakhs of workers, peasants and agricultural workers from across the country are gearing up to make the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally in Delhi on September 5 a historic success. It is being held under the joint leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU).
 
A reception committee with eminent economist Prof Prabhat Patnaik as chairman has been constituted. Camps are being constructed at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and in Ghaziabad. The mammoth procession will start from Ramlila Maidan on September 5 at 9 am and will reach Parliament Street, where leaders of CITU, AIKS and AIAWU will address the public meeting.
 
The Delhi Rally will also condemn the repression let loose on the people and particularly on the Left by the BJP government in Tripura and the TMC government in West Bengal. It will express solidarity with the people of Kerala who are bravely fighting the flood aftermath.      
 
ISSUES AND DEMANDS
It will be the first-ever joint demonstration in the national capital of the three important sections of society that play a major role in producing the wealth of the country. This unprecedented rally is being held to oppose the neoliberal policies, the communal agenda and the authoritarian attacks of the BJP-led government at the Centre.
 
The Delhi Rally is being held on a 15-point Charter of Demands, which include the following:
 
Curb price rise and universalise the public distribution system;
Concrete measures for generation of decent employment;
Minimum wage of not less than Rs. 18000 per month for all workers;
Stop anti-worker labour law amendments;
Remunerative price for all agricultural produce at one and a half times the cost of production along with public procurement;
Loan waiver for peasants and agricultural workers;
Comprehensive legislation for agricultural workers;
Implementation of MGNREGA in all rural areas and extending it to urban areas;
Food security, health, education, housing and social security for all;
No contractorisation;
Redistributive land reforms and implementation of the Forest Rights Act;
Stop forcible land acquisition;
Relief and rehabilitation for the victims of natural calamities; and
Reversal of neoliberal policies.
 
The Delhi Rally will also hit out strongly at the communal agenda and authoritarian drive of the Modi regime. It will condemn the serial mob lynching and moral policing and the killing of progressive intellectuals in which the Hindutva terrorist outfit Sanatan Sanstha is on the mat. September 5 is, in fact, the first anniversary of the martyrdom of Gauri Lankesh. The Delhi rally will also denounce the arbitrary arrests of human rights activists by the Modi regime.

A massive campaign has been led throughout the country over the last few months for the success of this Delhi Rally. Crores of leaflets have been distributed, thousands of meetings have been held, hundreds of jathas have been organised in all states, despite the rains. There has been a tremendous participation of the working people everywhere.
 
BACKGROUND OF MASSIVE STRUGGLES
The Delhi Rally comes in the background of a series of massive struggles of the working class and the peasantry over the last four years. On August 9, 2018, well over five lakh peasants and workers under the joint leadership of AIKS, CITU and AIAWU courted arrest at over 610 centres in 407 districts in 23 states across the country on August 9, 2018. This was by far the largest and most effective nationwide Jail Bharo struggle in the country in recent times.
 
August 9, 1942 is a historic date in our freedom struggle, the day on which Mahatma Gandhi served notice on the British imperialist government to ‘Quit India’. 76 years later, on August 9, 2018, the peasants and workers raised the central slogan “Modi Sarkar, Chale Jaao!”  This was in recognition of the fact that the BJP-RSS government headed by Narendra Modi is, without a doubt, the most anti-peasant, anti-worker and anti-people regime in the last 71 years of Independent India. It is also the most pro-corporate, communal and casteist.
 
A joint platform called the Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan (BAA) was formed in 2015 during the successful struggle against the hated Land Acquisition Ordinance. After state level agitations and Delhi Rallies against the Ordinance and with intervention by the Left and other opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, it had to be withdrawn in August 2015. The BAA has since been fighting on issues like the killing of farmers by gau rakshaks, and against forced land acquisition for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train, the Salem-Chennai green corridor and the various Industrial Corridors and Freight Corridors proposals.    
 
The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a broad platform now comprising nearly 200 organisations, was formed after the Mandsaur firing in June 2017 by the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, which killed six farmers. The two main issues taken up by this platform were farm loan waivers and remunerative prices for farm produce at one and a half times the cost of production as per the Swaminathan Commission recommendations. The AIKS is an important constituent of both the BAA and the AIKSCC.
 
The AIKSCC held a Kisan Sansad and a Mahila Kisan Sansad in Delhi in November 2017 in which tens of thousands of farmers from all over the country participated. Two bills for liberation from farm debt and for just remunerative prices were finalised. These bills were supported by 21 opposition parties in a special convention. They were introduced in Parliament in its just-concluded monsoon session by AIKS Joint Secretary K K Ragesh in the Rajya Sabha and by Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader Raju Shetty in the Lok Sabha.
 
The formation of Jan Ekta Jan Adhikar Andolan (JEJAA) – a platform of class, mass and social organisations – in September 2017 resulted in the May 23, 2018 ‘Pol Khol Halla Bol’ actions all over the country, in which tens of thousands condemned four years of the Modi regime.  
 
The AIKS took the independent initiative of organising four nationwide jathas, culminating in an AIKS Delhi Rally of several thousand peasants on their burning demands in November 2016. A large Delhi Rally was also subsequently held by the AIAWU.
 
The struggles spearheaded by the Maharashtra and Rajasthan units of the AIKS in the recent past contributed greatly to building up the resistance of the peasantry at the All India level. The remarkable Kisan Long March organised under the banner of the Maharashtra unit of the AIKS became a source of encouragement for the entire democratic movement in the country. The struggles in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and elsewhere succeeded in wresting concessions from the BJP and Congress-led governments in these states.
 
Running parallel to these peasant struggles were the series of working-class struggles led by the CITU and other trade unions throughout the country. They included the two massive All India Strikes on September 2 in 2015 and 2016 and culminated in the huge three-day sit-in struggle of lakhs of workers at Parliament Street in Delhi in November 2017.
 
The September 5 Delhi Rally will be another major step forward towards worker-peasant unity and will give a further call for the struggle. It will also be another blow under the leadership of the Red Flag that is aimed at the BJP-RSS-led central government.
 
–Dr Ashok Dhawale, President, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)
 
(Letter slightly edited for narrative flow)

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Manipur, India. Jake Guild/Flickr. CC (by)

We, the undersigned activists and academics, work on various forms of extreme exploitation in India. Endorsing the commitment of the Government of India to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 8 on Decent Work and SDG 8.7 on Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, the undersigned hereby submit the following 25 points for consideration.

~ 1 ~
We believe that the problems of forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking which are sought to be addressed by SDG 8.7 must be tackled comprehensively. In other words, SDG 8 in general, and SDG 8.7 in particular, can only be achieved by interlinking with efforts to achieve other SDGs, especially SDGs 1 (against poverty), 2 (against hunger), 3 (health and well-being), 5 (gender equality), 10 (reduced inequalities) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Further, a multi-pronged strategy that responds to the needs of all affected constituencies, including bonded labourers, contract workers, domestic workers, intra and inter-state as well as international migrant workers, and sex workers is necessary in order to achieve SDG 8.7.

~ 2 ~
We believe that dominant international discourses on modern slavery do not adequately reflect the extreme exploitation and precarious nature of employment in India today. Instead, we believe that an undue emphasis on sensationalist accounts of modern slavery deny the widespread prevalence of economic exploitation – even now based on social customs, cultural traditions and hereditary obligations – and obfuscate the continuum between extreme and ‘everyday’ forms of such exploitation.

~ 3 ~
We believe that the criminal law, which advocates very stringent punishment of offenders, is neither the best way to address exploitation nor to achieve SDG 8.7 as it often ends up hurting the very poor and vulnerable sections of society that it is meant to protect. Correspondingly, proposing a special anti-trafficking law that addresses trafficking as defined in Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is not sufficient.

Instead, the problem of trafficking can only be addressed through a multi-faceted legal and economic strategy that strengthens the implementation of labour protections such as those guaranteed by the constitution, and laws such as the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979.

Such a strategy would necessarily move the focus away from criminalisation and toward decent work. It would necessarily mandate a universal social protection floor, as well as the implementation of anti-discrimination provisions related to caste, gender, age, income level, ethnicity, disability, education and origin. It would also entail the reform of relevant laws including the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986.

~ 4 ~
The most effective and durable way to prevent all forms of extreme exploitation lies in the self-organisation of workers.

The most effective and durable way to prevent all forms of extreme exploitation lies in the self-organisation of workers and in their efforts at collective bargaining, especially through trade unions and workers’ collectives. Accordingly, we call on the government and all political actors to affirm and ensure freedom of association, safe self-organisation, self-determination and collective bargaining for workers including by ratifying the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

~ 5 ~
A more robust labour governance system in the form of increased inspections and better resources for the labour inspectorate is essential for the realisation of SDG 8.7. The present labour administrative structure in India, by and large, in practice, is restricted to the organised sector. There should be a dedicated labour administrative structure only to monitor the implementation of minimum wages and other labour laws in the unorganised sector.

~ 6 ~
The government must reverse the erosion of workers’ rights and ensure the enforcement of labour laws relating to minimum and equal wages, the right to work, working conditions (such as the Factories Act, 1948), and other core labour laws.

The understanding of and the criteria to arrive at minimum wages must be broadened so as to make it a living wage.

The government should ensure that contract workers who perform the same or similar kind of work as permanent workers in an establishment be paid the same wages.

There is a need for the strict and effective implementation of labour and criminal laws so as to prevent forced overtime, wage theft, the use by employers of violence through bouncers and security guards, attacks on freedom of association, sexual harassment, and sexual violence.

~ 7 ~
We believe that SDG 8.7 must also be realised by protecting the rights of all migrants to safe, dignified and productive migration as well as ensuring the realisation of their rights as citizens and residents.

~ 8 ~
We believe there is a direct relationship between distress migration and vulnerability to trafficking, forced labour and slavery. We oppose policies that aggravate this vulnerability caused by the agrarian and environmental crisis, the displacement of tribals, the commercialisation and mechanisation of agriculture, the militarisation of entire regions in the country, pauperisation and immiseration of the rural population, the informalisation of the employment relationship, and the effects of globalisation, privatisation, and contractualisation on the urban workforce.

~ 9 ~
Given that inequality is at the core of the caste system, the government must acknowledge that the historically exploited castes and disadvantaged communities, especially scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and landless backward castes, are more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. Toward this end, it needs to start supporting international mobilisations against caste discrimination, cooperate with global organisations working for Dalit rights, and welcome international fact-finding missions on the extent of caste discrimination in India.

~ 10 ~
It is vital to explore alternative paradigms for sustainable development – ones that create sustainable livelihoods rather than perpetuate precarious forms of labour.

~ 11 ~
A comprehensive redistribution of resources – especially through land reform, distribution of government lands, and schemes for acquisition of lands at market value to grant them to the vulnerable landless communities – is crucial to prevent trafficking and forced labour.

Decades of evidence shows that economic vulnerability – understood as lack of access to rights and entitlements – underpins all forms of exploitation. A fairer social settlement based on the redistribution of resources and an effective, efficient, universal social protection floor is essential.

In this context, the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 must be well-resourced. Dignified, secure jobs that pay living wages must be provided under the said act. In addition to the current occupations offered under the act, waged care work must also be an occupational choice funded by the act.

~ 12 ~
We note that sex workers’ groups that have experienced the harmful effects of anti-trafficking measures for decades believe that treating all sex workers as victims of trafficking in rescue, repatriation and/or rehabilitation efforts hurt sex workers more than they help them. The term ‘repatriation’ as used here describes the practice of, after raid and rescue, taking individuals back to their place of origin, whether in the same state, another state in the country or another country, without providing for any rehabilitation. Hence any efforts to respond to trafficking must avoid the indiscriminate rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation of women, men and transgender persons who are in sex work of their own volition.
The raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation policies of the Indian state in relation to sex work punish the very women they seek to protect.

Sex workers believe in the power of self-organisation and find decriminalisation of their work to be the most effective way of improving their ability to counter trafficking.

We believe that raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation policies of the Indian state in relation to sex work have been a failure, as they end up punishing the very women they seek to protect. This is because raids by the police violate the human rights of raided communities, and rescues are forced upon all indiscriminately. Rehabilitation is in corrective homes where women and girls are brought after a raid and rescue operation; these homes are at best inefficient and at worst violate the human rights of the women and girls confined in them.

This policy of raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation, however, forms the cornerstone of the proposed Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2016, and must not be pursued. Further, this ineffective policy of raids, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation must not be extended to other forms of precarious labour such as bonded labour, contract labour, and inter-state migrant work.

~ 13 ~
The widespread culture of denial of the existence of bonded labour amongst government officials in all branches of state apparatus is a major obstacle to the realisation of SDG 8.7.

The present tendency of ‘criminalising’ bonded labour by emphasising only the ‘criminal prosecution’ component of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act or having recourse just to S. 370 of IPC – which leads only to ‘criminal prosecution’ – must be totally discouraged. Resort to ‘criminal prosecution’ should only happen in cases of extreme violation of human rights. Offences in all other cases should be treated as labour law violations, especially the non-payment of minimum wages, and treated as such.

Survivors of trafficking and forced labour should play a central part of the government’s efforts to counter these phenomena. Hence, for example, bonded labourers should be a part of vigilance committees appointed under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and every mechanism set up to address forced labour and human trafficking.
The district and sub-divisional vigilance committees must be helped in carrying out their tasks extensively, effectively and speedily by allowing them to set up, under their direct supervision and monitoring, subordinate structures such as task forces at the levels of each taluk and gram panchayat. There is a greater scope for more bonded labourers to be represented in these bodies, and with their active participation, there is a greater possibility of proper and large-scale identification of bonded labourers. The comprehensive rehabilitation of trafficked, forced and bonded labourers encompassing social, psychological and economic integration is essential.
The present sketchy and non-comprehensive rules under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 must be thoroughly revised and comprehensive. Detailed rules must be notified to give specificity and scope for time-bound action for all the significant and powerful (but otherwise too general) provisions under the Bonded Labour system (Abolition) Act, 1976.

Each state and union territory in India must devise a comprehensive action plan to implement the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and an overriding policy document to guide these efforts. The central government should propose a model action plan and a model policy document.

~ 14 ~
With the increasing migration from rural to urban areas, state policies managing urbanisation must ensure that the city is accessible to those from rural areas and migrants, and that public services are made available to rural migrants.

~ 15 ~
The government must focus on protecting the rights of migrant women from exploitation and ensure safe mobility. Measures to prevent exploitation must not restrict women’s mobility. The government must take steps to prevent the inter-state trafficking of women through fraudulent marriage practices.

~ 16 ~
Policy-makers must consider the unique problems of men, women, and children with a disability who are subject to trafficking and migration.

~ 17 ~
There is a critical need for implementing the rules under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (ISMWA), and the licensing authority must ensure that ISMWA rules are complied with. The definition of the ‘inter-state migrant worker’ must be changed to cover women and children; contractors must be registered by the appropriate authority, and registration of migrants must occur at the district level. An adequate number of labour inspectors must be hired to ensure compliance with the act; indeed, this is critical. Given the high number of internal migrants in India, there is a need to discuss extreme levels of exploitation in relation to internal migration.

The Indian government should facilitate MOUs between states in the country to protect the rights of migrant workers and their families. The government may look to the MOU between the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, whereby hostels for children of seasonal migrant workers have been provided. State governments should devise action plans on migration. Portability of rights particularly for workers registered in the Construction Workers Welfare Board and ways to enhance the access of migrant workers to PDS, ICDS, voting rights, and other welfare benefits for inter-state migrant workers should be explored.

~ 18 ~
The government of India needs to support the rights of Indian workers who migrate internationally. It should play an active role in international and regional initiatives on migration and migrant work, such as the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and Colombo Process, in regional mechanisms available within the SAARC, and in the debates surrounding the Global Compact to be agreed in 2018 (Global Compact on Safe and Ordinary Migration). India must ratify the relevant ILO conventions on migrant work.

MOUs and bilateral agreements entered into by the government of India must be urgently reviewed with a view to ensure that they represent the demands of migrant workers and do not further increase the vulnerability of migrant workers. The government should ensure that Indian embassies in the Middle East are accessible to workers, and that embassy staff are sensitive to the needs of migrant workers. There is a need for more effective grievance redressal.

An urgent review of the Emigration Act, 1983 is necessary.

The government must appoint labour attachés to countries, commensurate with the number of Indian migrants who work in a particular country.

There is an urgent need for the provision of shelters for Indian workers abroad who are in a precarious situation vis-à-vis their employers, notably those who leave their employer to avoid ongoing abuse.

~ 19 ~
The skills development programme of the government, which is a significant strategy for achieving SDG 8, must be pursued but not at the expense of providing educational opportunities. Skills imparted must also be transferrable so that workers can meet the challenges of the labour market.

~ 20 ~
The government must implement the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996. The provisions of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951 must be implemented by the government. Plantation workers should be paid a living wage and be treated as semi-skilled workers.

~ 21 ~
There is an urgent need for a national-level intervention on domestic work through the adoption of the National Draft Policy on Domestic Workers and a special legislation covering domestic work. Recognition of valuable yet economically undervalued labour such as domestic work will help increase the economic bargaining power of domestic workers. We urge the government to ratify the Domestic Workers Convention 2011 (No. 189).

The value of women’s care work must be adequately recognised in the GDP.

Resident Welfare Associations must be treated as establishments for the purposes of protective labour laws including the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

Resident Welfare Associations must be required to set up internal complaints committees as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 so as to address the problem of sexual harassment of domestic workers working in gated communities.

There is an urgent need to regulate placement agencies that place domestic workers with employers.

~ 22 ~
Industry-led initiatives on the private regulation of supply chains through the use of ethical certification and social auditing have generally been shown to be ineffective due to the selective auditing by companies of their supply chains (which often excludes contractors and subcontractors who are informal, unauthorised, where workers are home-based, or where logging and mining is undertaken in protected areas).

Efforts by businesses to stop the use of forced labour in their supply chains must include workers from the establishment concerned in the design and implementation of these initiatives.

The government must explore all legal mechanisms to ensure the accountability of corporations for decent working conditions of workers, including through corporate criminal law, tax laws, contract law, health and safety laws, and municipal laws.

Similarly, transparency and disclosure laws are inadequate; laws imposing extra-territorial liability and allowing for public sanctions are needed.

~ 23 ~
The demands of textile and garment workers for adequate wages, mobility, welfare benefits, and safety need to be addressed. In accordance with the Madras High Court’s orders, the Sumangali (Camp Labour System) scheme must be abolished; workers who continue to work in the scheme must be made regular. Government notifications of increased minimum wages for textile and garment work in the state of Karnataka must be implemented immediately and efforts made to raise them to living wages.

~ 24 ~
The period of apprenticeship under the Apprentices Act, 1961 must be no longer than six months; the period of temporary work after such apprenticeship must be no longer than six months.

~ 25 ~
The current targets and indicators proposed by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation as of 8 March 2017 for the realisation of SDG 8.7 are wholly inadequate. In particular, the implementation of laws should be monitored (as indicators) rather than the mere ratification of international conventions or adoption of laws. Similarly, alongside measuring the number of prosecutions of traffickers, it is essential to monitor or report on the budgetary allocation and expenditure on assistance to exploited people (bonded labourers, trafficked persons, etc.). In order to draw up an appropriate baseline, the government of India is urged to take advantage of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2018 to set out relevant data about the way in which Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being respected in India.

Signatories:

1. Moushumi Basu, Jawaharlal Nehru University
2. Anannya Bhattacharjee, Garment and Allied Workers Union
3. Bharti Birla, Independent
4. Dithhi Bhattacharya, Center for Workers’ Management
5. Igor Bosc, Independent
6. Natalie Brinham, Queen Mary University of London
7. Umi Daniel, Aide et Action
8. Kiran Deshmukh, National Network of Sex Workers
9. Gopal V., Jeevika
10. Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan, Advocate
11. Basavaraj Hanchinamani, Jeevika
12. Neil Howard, Antwerp University
13. Prabha Kotiswaran, King’s College London
14. Chandan Kumar, Action Aid
15. Kusum, All India Network of Sex Workers
16. Sister Lissy, Domestic Workers’ Union
17. Rupsa Mallik, CREA
18. Mohan Mani, National Law School of India University
19. Sangita Manoji, Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP)
20. Babu Mathew, National Law School of India University
21. Aya Matsuura, Independent
22. Chandni Mehta, Jawaharlal Nehru University
23. Sneha Mishra, Aaina
24. Lalita Missal, NAWO
25. Nalini Nayak, Self-Employed Women’s Association
26. Neetha N., Independent
27. Aarthi Pai, Sangram
28. Gopinath K. Parakuni, CiviDep
29. Bandana Pattanaik, The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
30. Sony Pellissery, National Law School of India University
31. Kiran Kamal Prasad, Jeevika
32. S. M. Prithiviraj, Care T
33. R.K. Radhakrishnan, The Hindu
34. R. Meera, Women’s Initiatives (WINS)
35. Jawahar Raja, Advocate
36. Rajesh, Sangama
37. Ramaswamy M., Jeevika
38. Vani Saraswathi, Migrant-Rights.Org
39. Jayshree Satpute, Nazdeek
40. Meena Seshu, SANGRAM
41. AK Sharma, Jeevika
42. Rakesh Shukla, Advocate
43. Ramakrishna V., Jeevika
44. Ravi Srivastava, Jawaharlal Nehru University
45. Cameron Thibos, OpenDemocracy
46. Sarasu Esther Thomas, National Law School of India University
47. Vijayakumari M., Jeevika
48. Kimberly Walters, California State University

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On July 30, 2016, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj acknowledged the hunger facing laid-off Indian workers in Saudi Arabia.

   
Swaraj promised, through a series of tweets, “that no Indian worker rendered unemployed in Saudi Arabia will go without food”.
 

 

 
The complaints received from Indian workers include “non-payment/delayed payment or underpayment of salaries, long working hours, inadequate living conditions, physical harassment, non-renewal of visa and labour card on time, refusal to pay for medical treatment, denial of leave and air-ticket to home town on completion of contract period, forcible custody of passport and visa and refusal of leave or exit/re-entry permits”, the ministry said in its reply to the Parliament.
 
No specific complaint of sexual abuse were reported, the ministry added.
 
24% of Indians jailed aboard in Saudi prisons
 
Saudi Arabia has more Indians in prison than any other country: 1,697 of 7,213, according to another Lok Sabha reply on April 27, 2016.
 
Saudi Arabia is followed by United Arab Emirates (1,143). The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain—account for half of all Indians jailed abroad and 87% of mis-treatment complaints received from Indian workers.
 
The Indian mission in Saudi Arabia registered 1,676 complaints during the first half of 2016.

Source: LokSabha; *2016 figures upto June 2016.
 
Poor working conditions put an Indian living in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait at 10 times the risk of death compared to an Indian living in the US, IndiaSpend reported in August 2015.
 
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman and Kuwait report between 65 and 78 deaths per 100,000 Indian workers.
 
An average of 69 Indians die every year in the six Gulf countries. The corresponding figure for the rest of the world is 26.5, almost 60% lower.
 
(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: IndiaSpend.com

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