By LAURA BOBAK
Ottawa Sun
As the thin gray dawn breaks over the town of Phillaur, the heat and humidity are so extreme it is hard to tell if the water droplets streaming down people's necks are from sweat or the wetness in the air. Jai Singh, the town's roly-poly resident human rights activist, is already up, sitting in his sarong with a cup of sweet, milky chai, or tea. The ceiling fan installed over his front yard provides some temporary relief from the weather. Loud strains of holy music blare from a set of powerful speakers at the nearby Hindu temple. Drum beats fill the small courtyard.
Singh is not a lawyer, but a former labor activist and self-styled para- legal whose first priority is to his human rights group, Volunteers for Social Justice, founded in 1985. He and his core group of volunteers have dedicated themselves to freeing hundreds of children, their parents, and even a village from bonded debt labor. The work draws a steady current of people in crisis to his home every day, desperately looking for help.
On this day, his plan is to briefly reunite Geza Singh Dass, a bonded agricultural laborer, with his children, who are scattered around the countryside, laboring on their own.
Dass is currently on the run from a brutal boss, Muktiar Singh Mehtiana. Several years ago, Dass took out a 1,500-rupee advance (about $60) from Mehtiana, who then became master to the Dass family. Dass immediately recruited his wife and older children to work the man's land to pay the debt. They subsisted on his wages of 6,500 rupees per year (about $260), and whatever meagre food the master would give them.
Dass worked the agricultural machinery, helped irrigate the crops, cut fodder for the animals, and sprayed pesticides.
When he was sick or took a religious holiday, the boss deducted 100 rupees, or $4, per day from his pay.
Then Dass's wife became ill and he was forced to sell his son Manga into bonded labor to another farmer to pay for her treatment. But the treatment failed, and she died.
This tragedy meant there was one less person working to pay the debt, against which he was being charged 36% interest. Dass's 14-year-old daughter Pulvinder began working in his wife's place, and was often called up to the master's house to do domestic work. The visits became more and more frequent, and Dass says he soon began to fear she was being "insulted" -- that is, sexually abused. He married her off as quickly as possible.
Dass himself, meanwhile, was constantly subjected to physical abuse at the hands of his master. Twice, Mehtiana had his henchmen beat Dass so badly, he feared he would die.
"I was saved by God," Dass recalls, his wide, dark eyes dry and emotionless.
He says he paid the master 20,000 rupees, but was still declared in debt, even though he had gone so far as to sell off his humble dwelling for 7,500 rupees.
"I gave all the money to the boss, but I was still not free," he says.
The cruel system of bonded labor means the master has all the power, Jai Singh explains.
"Because people are illiterate," he says, "the master keeps the accounts. The master deducts money for food at outrageous rates, and makes the worker sign the bills. The employer never wants to recover his debt.
He always wants the worker to stay in debt, because number one, he never loses the worker, and number two, the worker loses his bargaining rights."
Finally, when Dass was denied a day off to return to his home village for a holiday, he realized the only way to free himself from slavery was to run away.
"I was to go to meet my daughter at Seham Village. The employer refused to allow it, so I went there without telling him, with my children."
The master's men came to the village to hunt him down, but Dass hid and they did not find him. The boss still claims he is owed 12,000 rupees, or about $340, and Dass doesn't want to return to the farm to collect his belongings.
"All my possessions are with the master. I can't go back to get them. I am afraid that if they catch me, they will beat me up, and take me back to work," he says.
He now lives in hiding, doing casual work in agriculture for 40 rupees per day -- equivalent to less than $2 and 15 rupees lower than the minimum wage in Punjab.
"I dream that I will be freed ... then I will be able to raise my children well and marry them off so they can live happily," he says in a tired voice devoid of passion.
"I would like to have some good bread and butter and work. One thinks a lot, but it doesn't come true."
[This message has been edited by KK (edited November 19, 1999).]
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