Overview

Labor bondage is discussed as a major feature of the peasant economies which have dominated the subcontinent of South Asia from an unrecorded precolonial past until the postcolonial present. Discussing when, why and how servitude originated on the tribal-peasant frontier in West India, the research undertaken moved on from a historical perspective to investigating the collapse of bondageby engagement in anthropological fieldwork from the 1960s onwards. Thecapitalist economy which has taken shape does not allow for the transition tofree labour. Because of lack of employment and income the workforce at thebottom of the pile remains stuck in neo-bondage.

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Over the past six decades, Breman has continued to revisit his field to follow the life trajectories of the labouring poor of south Gujarat. The core argument that he presents is that though older forms of bondage and servitude have waned, they did not bring about a substantive sense of freedom. . . Freedom for the labouring poor, thus, remains elusive. -- Surinder S Jodhkar * The Tribune * [Jan Breman’s] shows how the old pre-colonial and colonial period practice of patronage and servitude in rural agriculture has given way to a new form of ‘neo-bondage’ in which the landless labourers are nominally free, but continue to be trapped in exploitative, insecure work. . . Breman powerfully visualises the widening inequality between the lives of landowners, who kept becoming better off, and the landless poor -- Uma Mahadevan * The Hindu *

Author Information

Jan Breman is Professor Emeritus at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam and Honorary Fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

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