Bipin Adhikari

[Ed. note: This article was originally published in the Independent Weekly, Kathmandu, July 26-August 1, 2000 Vol X No 23, Wednesday. Bipin Adhikari is a lawyer in Nepal. It is also available at http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishweekly/independent/11-06/index.htm]

The question-are Kamaiyas or bonded laborers no more bonded?-is a difficult one due to a number of other unanswered questions. No social system can be conceived as independent of culture, context or shared understandings. In fact, Kamaiyas owe their origin both to our feudal culture and lack of human rights consciousness down through the years. It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability that authoritarian governments resist democratic reforms based on human rights. That must precisely have been the reason for the continuity of the Kamaiya system in Nepal.

The recent declaration of the govern-ment that the bonded laborers are emancipated is a welcome move. But it is not enough. In the first place, the Kamaiya system relates with exploitation of one class of people by another. A single stroke of governmental declaration cannot put an end to it. It merely highlights the government's intention to give effect to the constitutional pledge made by the1990 Constitution in response to the protest movement recently organized in western Nepal. At its heart, there is no sense of empower-ment and inner fulfillment. As such, there is a deep sense of unease about the future.

The Kamaiya system refers to an inhuman modus operandi whereby adults and children work for the landlords in conditions of servitude to pay off a debt -usually incurred by a person's relatives or guardians. The debt is rarely if ever paid off due to high interest rates charged by the lender. Moreover, the servitude engendered by the debt can be passed from one generation to the next within the same family. Additionally, the system may contain features of slavery where landlords are allowed by the local custom to acquire or dispose of a Kamaiya with a view to selling or exchanging him. While this is the general formulation, the system also has subsystems, peculiar to each geographical region of western Nepal.

The Kamaiya system found in Kailali may be different from the system found in Dang in their minute details. Similarly, there are a lot of agricultural wage earners, also known as Kamaiyas, who work in the land of others on a prenegotiated basis for the whole year starting from the Nepali month of Magh. It is a contract labor system, mutually decided between the landlord and the laborer, and the parties to the contract are free whether to renew the contract or not for another period. This arrangement is definitely different from what has been referred to above. But even this form of contract labor may assume the character of bonded labor when the laborer borrows money from the landlord for any reason and cannot pay on the due date. In the process, the contract acquires the nature of a bonded labor contract. It happens frequently because the wage the Kamaiyas receive (whether the legal minimum wage or otherwise) is not enough to meet their requirements and they then need loans from the landlord.

It is also necessary to understand that there were plenty of cases where bonded labor did not involve debt at all. They were chosen by the laborers on a consensual basis, or on the basis of lucrative offers made by the landlords. Many laborers preferred to be a bonded laborer than an ordinary laborer. An ordinary laborer was not entitled to get additional support, love and care that a bonded laborer would deserve. It was the responsibility of the landlord to ensure a proper level of housing, clothing and food for the bonded laborers. The landlord also used to be under a duty to provide medical care, marriage expenses, cash or crop payments for death and birth rituals and other contingencies. It is still not unlikely to find many bonded laborers in western Nepal whose alcohol or tobacco needs are borne by the bonded landlord. The concept of minimum wage did not work there.

Even where debtor-creditor relations were involved, the bonded laborers enjoyed benefits unknown to others in the labor market. An ordinary agricultural labor

is not entitled to these claims. He is entitled to the minimum wage (at least in principle), and the landlord does not have any social or economic responsibility towards him. His life is in greater danger because he is without subsistence lands, without alternative economic security, and the state support system never existed in Nepal. Even now, the change is very marginal. As such, the bonded labor system, founded on a feudal setting, had developed as an institution in the course of many years. traditional morality protected it, and the religious traditions of the landlords prevented them from doing injustice and excesses.

The law needs to be supplemented by social engineering to reach its social goals. The system of bonded labor in its present form must be understood in the overall declining economic context of Nepal which creates not only slavery and a slave-like situation but also trafficking in girls, debt bondage, the aggravated daijo system in the Terai region, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, the practice of untouchability, and governmental lawlessness and declining social sanctions.

Apparently, the move of the government seems to be a populist one, and its effect might be dangerous to the agriculture sector. The Kamaiyas said to be released need food, shelter and a job to be emancipated from their existing bondage. The human rights workers in the country are also curious about how the government is creating alternative employment for them. There must be an alternative support system. It is strange that there is neither immediate relief measures nor assurances from the government to provide them a life of dignity. They now do not have the protection of the landlords (no matter how feeble it was) or of the government.

The present euphoria on the emancipation of bonded laborers is thus going to be rather short-lived.