Abuses, thrashes: A routine reward for TN tribal workers in Karnataka canefields

VELLORE: Gayatri (20) had to run back whenever her newborn baby wails in the thatched hut leaving behind half-cut cane in the sugarcane fields of Channarayapatna, Hassan in Karnataka.

Just a month after going through the ordeal of giving birth to a baby, her body would ache heavily, at times, when she piles up the cane stems after cutting them.

The body would crave for some rest but the fear of facing the verbal abuse from a foul-mouthed supervisor would drive her to go on with the day’s work until the target is achieved.

“They will not allow us even to take enough rest. They will continue to spur us to cut the cane. Even if there is a moment of halt, we will get verbally abused with filthy words,” narrates Gayatri.

She is part of a group of 22 bonded labourers toiling for a paltry sum at the sugarcane fields in Channarayapatna.

The treatment to men workers is no better. “After cutting the cane, they would force us to load them onto trucks. If we show reluctance, they would thrash us,” says Chinnarasu, a tribal worker from Periauvanai village, Anaicut Taluk in Vellore district.

Following an alert from the Released Bonded Labourers Association (RBLA), Vellore district collector A Shanmuga Sundaram intervened to get these poor workers emancipated from the cruel exploitation.

They got back to Vellore on Friday.

The wages were not given to the poor workers as promised while engaging them.

“They promised to give us handsome wages but did not do so. We were given only Rs 450 per week,” rues another labourer.

The tribal families migrated to the sugarcane fields of Channarayapatna after they could not find employment in the vicinity owing to the adverse impact of the pandemic.

Eight of the rescued labourers are from Periauvanai in Anaicut Taluk, 12 are from R Patti in Madhanur (Tirupathur district) and 2 are from Serkkadu in Katpadi. Ten of them are children.