Only the chains : bonded labour in India

Human Bondage: Tracing its Roots in India is an in-depth study of bonded labour with special focus on how the system exists in India.

The book provides us with a detailed analysis of the historical, social and cultural context in which bondage has developed. The author discusses the socio-economic characteristics that accompany bondage: caste, illiteracy, landlessness and land tenure issues, alienation of land, lack of skills, poor employment and wage conditions, indebtedness, migration, and globalization. Extreme forms of bondage, including child labour, trafficking in women and children, and social forms like devadasis and yoginis have also been covered. The book explores important factors like the legal framework, policy interventions, solutions and the role of the various stakeholders-media, government, trade unions and NGOs-in tackling this issue. The book is essentially about human freedom and dignity-the quintessence of human existence-and the forces that rob them, the dispossessed victims, consequences of dispossession, and ways and means of restoration.