Book Review – Bonded Labour : Tackling the system of slavery in South Asia

Siddharth Kara, Bonded Labour: Tackling the system of slavery in South Asia, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012, xx+314 pages (Tables, figures, b&w photos), US$ 29.50.

Social scientists in the contemporary world often differentiate the working people in terms of the concepts of ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labour, a binary distinction that differentiates workers who are identified as proletariats from those who are not. The proletariats are labouring groups who possess no property of their own and perform manual services for eking their livelihood, and are for the most part believed to be people who have a choice over the sale of their labour. Possibly, this is in sharp contrast to the lived experiences of the labouring masses who are deemed to be unfree, because of their indebtedness arising out of familial misfortunes or due to certain catastrophic changes in their material life.