Agrarian Slavery and Serfdom of ‘Palerus’: Bonded ‘Farm Servants’ of Colonial Andhra

One of the striking features of the South Indian rural milieu is the large number of farm labourers who have served the same families of landowners, year after year. Quite often, they are bound to their masters by deep-rooted traditions of mutual obligations and responsibilities (GoI, Ministry of Labour 1952: 1). An agricultural labourer may be defined, in a broad sense, as a person who derives a large portion of his income from labour on farm land for maintenance of himself and his dependents (Sayanna 1949: 232). Agricultural labourers designated as such fall into two categories.