Book contents
- Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India
- Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Labour as Codified in the Annals of the State
- 1 The Country Liberated
- 2 An End to Servitude?
- Part II Destitute in Bondage
- Part III The Political Economy of Boundless Dispossession
- Part IV Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - An End to Servitude?
from Part I - Labour as Codified in the Annals of the State
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2019
- Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India
- Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Labour as Codified in the Annals of the State
- 1 The Country Liberated
- 2 An End to Servitude?
- Part II Destitute in Bondage
- Part III The Political Economy of Boundless Dispossession
- Part IV Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
At the time of my first round of research in the early 1960s a sizeable contingent of the tribal castes in my research locales already took off for faraway destinations after the monsoon to work for the next five to six months in salt-pans or brick-kilns. The growing labour mobility seemed at variance with the system of bondage that I found still lingering on, but later in this chapter I shall elaborate on their interdependence. First, however, comes the question why the pace of labour migration went on increasing from the 1970s onwards. In the villages of my fieldwork, the departure of these land-poor and landless households was matched by an influx of migrants during the peak seasons in agriculture from the tribal belt on both sides along the eastern border of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. I decided to call this kind of labour mobility circulation rather than migration. Migration is conventionally understood as leaving one’s place of origin and settling down in a new destination, but the movement I documented was short-term, lasting no longer than the duration of the dry season – at the end of which the wokers who had gone off came back instead of staying on in the usually rural locations to which they had travelled. They did not establish a foothold wherever they went and in whatever they did.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India , pp. 2 - 60Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019