The Socialist Party objective is to have more of a shared
humanity and it can only be achieved when people everywhere understands and cares.
India’s Adivasis often work in conditions commonly described
as ‘modern-day slavery’, but they are not slaves. Their unfreedom is both the
fuel and product of modern Indian capitalism.
Who are India’s Adivasis? Put very simply, the term
Adivasi—which means original inhabitant—refers to a range of ethnic groups that
predominantly inhabit hilly and forested areas across rural India. They are
classified by the Indian constitution as belonging to the category of
'scheduled tribes', a designation which reflects the fact that Indian
authorities do not recognise Adivasis as being indigenous people, but rather
define them as ‘tribal’ according to a specific set of features. These include
their dependence on subsistence agriculture and their distinct ethnic and
cultural identity, which tends to position them beyond the pale of even the
‘lowest’ rungs of India’s caste system. Constituting roughly eight percent of
the country’s population, the Adivasis are vastly overrepresented among the
poor in India: according to recent data, almost half of all Adivasis—some 44.7
percent—live below a very meager poverty line of 816 Rupees (£8.32/$12.75) per
month for rural households…
… We must begin with poverty if we are to understand why
Adivasis so often work under conditions that Walk Free refers to as slavery.
Adivasis are overwhelmingly poor, a fact acknowledged in the Global Slavery
Index, and it is this poverty that compels Adivasis to turn to labour
migration. This is often the first step to working under varying degrees of
unfreedom. Let us ask then ask a very basic question: where does that poverty
come from?
Speaking broadly there are two causes that stand out: the
twin losses of livelihood and land. Firstly, Adivasi poverty stems from the
erosion of their agricultural livelihoods. Historically, the core of tribal
livelihoods is subsistence cultivation, which is now rarely capable of
sustaining a household for a full year. While some aspects of this situation
are specific to Adivasi livelihoods, this state of affairs is symptomatic of a
larger crisis of small and marginal agriculturalists in the context of
neoliberal reform in India. This crisis is most acutely manifest in the quarter
of a million farmers who committed suicide in India between 1995 and 2011, due
to severe economic distress.
In addition, many Adivasis who have turned to labour
migration have been dispossessed of their land due to the construction of the
large dams, industrial plants, and mines that are intended to bolster India’s
emergence as an economic superpower. Let’s recall the figures for a moment:
Adivasis constitute eight percent of India’s population. However, even
conservative estimates suggest they also constitute 40 to 50 percent of the 20
to 30 million people who have been dispossessed by large-scale infrastructure
and development projects since independence in 1947. Given that policies for
resettlement and rehabilitation have been woefully inadequate, the vast
majority of those who have been dispossessed have no other choice than labour
migration—and whatever work can be found within migration circuits—in order to
survive. In other words, the poverty that compels Adivasis to resort to forms
of labour that are profoundly unfree is produced by the fundamental workings of
Indian capitalism...
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