The
Statesman, Calcutta
March 21, 1994
Militant
action against bonded labour : Agnivesh
By Alok Banerjee
Agnivesh
says it is impossible for the judiciary to act as a forum for
redress for the hapless bonded labourers.
TAKING
the cue from the Naxalites' line of agitation, the Bonded Labour
Liberation Front, led by Swami Agnivesh, has decided to launch
a militant struggle and take the law into its own hands to liberate
the bonded labourers of the country.
The
front has also decided to strive towards forming a broad based
alliance of both the mainstream Left and Naxalite parties to build
a struggle against what it calls exploitation of the multinationals
and the IMF.
Swami
Agnivesh, who is in the city to attend Monday's rally of the AIPRF,
an umbrella organisation of four underground Naxalite outfits,
told The Statesman on Sunday that his organisation would hold
joint agitational programmes with the Naxalites to eradicate the
problem of bonded labour in the country.
He
said that there were about 50 lakh bonded labourers in the country
at present and about 5.5 crores of children working in conditions
of virtual slavery. The maximum concentration of bonded labourers
is in Bihar and Orissa followed by Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh,
he said. The children working in the carpet, glass, match box
and the fireworks industries are also working as virtual slaves,
Swami Agnivesh said.
"These
labourers can not seek jobs elsewhere as they have been trapped
in a bondage of debt to their employers and have to work under
inhuman conditions and extremely poor wages", Agnivesh said,
Neither the States nor those at the Centre were genuinely interested
in eradicating the problem, he alleged.
"We
have explored all the legal avenues for the last 15 years and
are convinced that it is impossible for the judiciary to act as
a redressal forum for these hapless people", Swami Agnivesh said
and added: "The desperate situation has left us to a situation
where we have no alternative but to defy law and take militant
action.
Agnivesh
said that implementation of the dominant development model, as
proposed by the IMF, the World Bank and GATT, was perpetuating
the problem of bonded labour in the country. The development
model, as pursued by the Centre as well as State Governments,
is based on the theory of using cheap labour which encourages
the system of bonded labour, he said.
He
added that the BLLF did not wish to propagate the cult of violence
but the situation demanded a movement out of the purview of peaceful
methods. He, however, refused to elaborate on the exact course
of action that the BLLF was planning to undertake and said that
it would depend on the situation.
Commenting
on the role of the mainstream Left, including the CPI and the
CPI(M), in eradicating social evils such as the system of bonded
labour, Agnivesh said that these parties had strayed away from
the promises they had made earlier and the leadership of the movement
must be provided by the Naxalites, inspite of some of their adventurist
trends.
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