Centre’s Urgent Call to Arms: States Urged to Craft Policies Eradicating Forced Labour’s Shadow in India’s Heartland
New Delhi, India – October 19, 2025
(Vagabond News Labour Lines) – In a nation where the Constitution’s ink still gleams against exploitation, the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment has fired a clarion shot across state bows: Frame bespoke policies pronto to harness a central scheme aimed at shattering the chains of forced labour and stemming the tide of human trafficking. The missive, dispatched September 25 to chief secretaries nationwide, underscores a grim federal push to rehabilitate over 10 million bonded souls by 2030 – a vision that demands every state roll up sleeves, lest India’s unwanted crown as the world’s modern slavery epicenter endures. With 11 million ensnared in debt bondage and worse, per Walk Free’s 2023 Global Slavery Index, this isn’t mere paperwork; it’s a battle cry for the forgotten flanks of farms, kilns, and quarries.
The directive, penned under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 – that long-standing bulwark against coerced toil – places the onus squarely on states to identify, liberate, and uplift victims, funneling funds from the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourers. “States must devise comprehensive action plans and overriding policy documents to operationalize the Act,” the letter mandates, echoing calls from activists for model templates from the Centre to sidestep patchwork pitfalls. At stake? A rehabilitation blueprint offering up to ₹3 lakh per survivor for skills training, housing, and micro-credit – tools to break cycles where debts balloon like unchecked monsoons, trapping generations in unpaid drudgery.
The Human Toll: SCs at the Mercy of Systemic Snare
No corner of India’s vast labour mosaic escapes this scourge, but the Scheduled Castes (SCs) – the bedrock of the social pyramid’s underbelly – bear the brunt, research reveals. Forced into wage-less grind in agriculture, mining, textiles, and construction, they embody Article 23’s violated vow: “Traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited.” Yet, enforcement lags like a bullock cart in mud – surveys sporadic, rescues reactive, and rehab funds mired in bureaucracy.
India’s 2030 pledge to eradicate bonded labour? A 98% shortfall looms, with just 200,000 rehabilitated against a 10-million target, per IndiaSpend’s stark audit. “Raids, rescue, repatriation – that’s the tired script,” critiques openDemocracy, urging survivor-led strategies over top-down raids that often boomerang victims to vulnerability. Distress migration, agrarian collapse, and climate woes amplify the peril, funneling the rural desperate into urban shadows where “contracts” cloak coercion.
The Centre’s nudge aligns with broader ILO covenants India ratified – from the 1930 Forced Labour Convention to 1998’s abolition pacts – yet implementation whispers of Gandhi’s unheeded 1939 liberation dreams. Free the Slaves spotlights hotspots like Uttar Pradesh’s brick belts and Tamil Nadu’s quarries, where projects like FFACT track recruitment fees that morph into bondage bait.
Policy Pivot: From Concurrent List to Coordinated Crusade
Labour’s Concurrent List perch empowers states to tailor-fit, but the Centre’s letter – amid stalled notifications of the four Labour Codes – prods uniformity. States like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have hiked thresholds for contract labour regs, easing business but risking worker safeguards; now, this forces a flip to anti-exploitation gears. Experts demand a national database for aid tracking, ditching jurisdictional silos, alongside awareness blitzes and evaluatory drills to unearth hidden hordes.
Human Rights Watch’s echoes from yesteryears ring true: Without vigilant inspectors and swift prosecutions, laws like the 1976 Act remain paper tigers. The Hindu’s lens on COVID-era dilutions – states gutting protections for “ease of business” – warns against repeating such constitutional sleights.
Image: Freed bonded labourers in a skills training session – a glimmer of the Centre’s 2030 rehab vision taking root. (Credit: Free the Slaves)
As Diwali lamps flicker against deepening shadows, this federal fiat arrives not a day too soon. For the vagabonds of India’s underbelly – those itinerant souls bartered like chattel – the real festival awaits in policies that don’t just promise, but deliver dignity. Will states heed the call, or let the chains clank on? The hourglass of 2030 ticks unforgiving.
Vagabond News: Footloose on the frontiers of freedom and fetters.
