Modern Slavery? Hundreds With Mental Illnesses Forced to Work in Punjab's Farms

About 500 persons with mental illnesses allegedly work in dairy farms and agricultural fields in Bachiwind village.

A barefoot man wearing tattered clothes, his shirt unbuttoned, is being forced to act like a bull to pull a bullock cart loaded with cattle fodder in a village near India-Pakistan’s Attari-Wagah border. It is his daily routine to bring fodder on a bullock cart from the fields to the farmer’s house.

“See! This is how they treat the poor,” says a man in a video recorded by the organisation Tera Aasra Sewa Society Vallah (TASSV) as he points to the labourer pulling the cart. The labourer, speaking in Hindi, says that his name is Rinku and he hails from Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad district.

Rinku is neither a farmer nor a typical farmhand. Rinku, who has a mental illness, informs that he was brought to the Bachiwind village from Amritsar railway station and then forced to work in the fields. The farmer gave Rinku only food in return for his work.

Hundreds Subjected to Forced Labour

Rinku is not the only person with a mental illness in Bachiwind and nearby villages working for farmers without any remuneration.

According to Sukhdev Singh, a panchayat member, at least 500 persons with mental illnesses from other states work in the dairy farms and fields of farmers in the Bachiwind village alone. Some are even beaten up and chained, he claimed.

Harpreet Singh of the TASSV freed Rinku and two others in August 2022. Later, Harpreet also reached a settlement with the farmers to pay the labourers Rs 18,000 each as three months' dues.

Bachiwind panchayat member Sukhdev has two persons with mental illnesses working for him. One of them is mute while the other cannot speak clearly. When we visited Sukhdev, he made one of the workers get into freshly stitched clothes.

Sukhdev hugged the labourer and said, "He used to be with another farmer who used to beat him. I brought him here, made him rest and later he started working.”  

He hugged the worker twice within a span of 10 minutes and said, ”I hugged him; other farmers don't do this. They do not care about the hygiene of labourers, do not make them take bath or provide quality food.” He says that he has provided for the labourer like his own son. The labourer later speaks in incomprehensible Hindi and says, ”Bahar jayenge. Jahaj (Will go abroad. Plane). Sukhdev interjects, "My own son is abroad so he is talking about him.”

Sukhdev’s neighbour said that the labourer even drinks alcohol; you can make him drink even now. Sukhdev then asks the labourers whether they want to leave his home – one of the workers shook his head refusing to leave while the other said that he does want to leave. 

Sukhdev said, "It is true that we bring mentally ill people from railway stations. We bring such people to our homes, get them treated and then make them work in our fields.”

Defending the practice, he said, "It is a 20-25 years old practice. Some people get in better health but do not remember the details of families and their residence.”

Singh adds, "There are farmers in the village who tie labourers with iron chains during the night. It happens not only in our village but also in neighbouring villages. We are against it but can’t say anything as people will start opposing.” 

After meeting Sukhdev, I took a round of the village. Wherever we went, there were labourers from other states working in the fields.

We met a woman who had a labourer with mental illnesses working for her. However, she refuted the claims. But when we were returning, a group of villagers allege that an enslaved man is working in her fields.

A man who refused to be named said, ”They make him wake up at 4 am, then he cleans up the cattle dung, cuts fodder and later goes to work in the fields. His hand is chopped off and he gets beaten up by the farmer.”

As we were recording a video of him from a distance, a scooter came from the other side of the fields and took him away. Later, the same woman came on a bike and started quarrelling with the villagers, asking them what they were telling the reporter.

Farmers' Unions Silent on the Issue

In the nearby village of Dalla, sarpanch Gurmeet Singh has two persons with mental illnesses staying with him. He refused to come on record fearing backlash from other farmers but claimed that there are at least 20-22 persons with mental illnesses working in his village.

Gurmeet showed me a video in which one of the family members was serving cake to the labourers on someone's birthday. He neither told us the names of the labourers nor allowed us to meet them. According to him, most people have given them names themselves as labourers do not know their names. 

Singh is associated with Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, which was active in the farmers' protests and is one of the biggest farm unions in the Majha region of Punjab.

In early 2021, when the farmers' protests were going on, the Ministry of Home Affairs had written a letter to the Punjab government on the basis of a Border Security Force report asking the state government to act against the farmers who had allegedly enslaved people. At that time, the farm unions had denied the MHA's allegations, labelling them as an attempt to defame the farmers. But the reality is different.

Forced Labourers Usually Hail From Other States

According to Harpreet Singh, a social activist who has freed more than 100 people from the clutches of the farmers, there are 5,000-7,000 persons with mental illnesses from Hindi-speaking states who are being forced to work in the border villages of Amritsar, Ferozpur, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran districts.

Singh made a sensational claim that human traffickers pick persons with mental illnesses from Amritsar railway station and sell them to the farmers. We were unable to independently verify this claim.

There are some captives from Punjab too. Just three days before India celebrated its 74th Republic Day in January this year, Pal Khroud, a social activist from Patiala, freed 45-years-old Jatinder Verma aka Bobby from the clutches of a farmer from the Jastarwal village in Amritsar.

Verma used to be chained and his head regularly bled from injuries. Unlike many others, he was not from outside Punjab nor suffering from a mental illness but hailed from a well-off family in Jalandhar's Aman Nagar and knew everything about his home and family. In 2014, his family had lodged a missing person’s complaint with the Punjab Police. 

Pal Khroud posted a video of Verma’s rescue operation on social media. After watching the moving visuals of her brother’s rescue, his sister Jyoti Verma connected with Khroud via WhatsApp. Jatinder Verma recognised his family within minutes of watching them on a video call. Later, Verma’s sister flew back from Germany to India to meet him and thanked Khroud for reuniting Verma with his family.

The allegations of enslaving persons with mental illnesses aren't limited to Amritsar. There have been similar allegations in Gurdaspur district as well.

When we knocked on the doors of 50-year-old farmer Ratan Singh, former sarpanch of Moolowali village in Gurdaspur, a man wearing kurta pajama and who looked like he hadn't taken bath in a long time, opened the gate. He turned out to be what we were looking for. His name was Bittu and he was in a feeble state of mind.

Initially, Bittu sat on the chair but Ratan Singh told him to go and sit away. He went and sat on a manger where buffaloes and cows are fed. He spoke in Hindi and said his name was Bittu. He held a pen and an old book, which was in Punjabi. 

Ratan said, ”This man who stays at our house does not know where he came to Punjab from. He keeps writing on paper.” 

He also claimed that his neighbours had contacted Bittu’s brother who runs factories and was the cause for their downfall.

Ratan accepted that there are other labourers like Bittu who are mentally ill and work for free for farmers. He bragged that he farms on 20 acres of land and one of his sons is abroad, another in Indian Army and the third one is involved in farming. 

There was a Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) flag at his house as his family supports Punjab’s largest farm union Ugrahan. Then he started showing pictures of how his family participated in the farmers' protests and showed his son’s pictures with the BKU (Ugrahan) leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan. Farmer-labourer unity was the main slogan of the farmers' protests.

Lakhwinder Singh, the president of BKU (Ugrahan) Gurdaspur, denies there being any element of force. He said, ”Farmers mostly take home people who are homeless and are in a bad shape, take care of their cleanliness, make them work and then feed them. That’s how this works.”

Lakhwinder denied that farmers forcibly keep them chained. He said, ”Most of these people who live with farmers, don't remember their family. That's the reason they can’t be sent back home.”

He accepted that this system exists in Gurdaspur but claimed that the magnitude has decreased due to farmers moving away from dairy farming. He also accepted that his farm union has never raised the matter of bonded labourers with the government or made farmers aware about this issue.

Pal Khroud told The Quint, "Jatinder Verma’s matter was settled in Rs 2.50 lakh. There are nearly 5,000 people like Jatinder who have mental illnesses and working without any pay.“

“We can provide information to the government about such people who have been enslaved by farmers,” Khroud added.

No Action by Government or Police Despite Stringent Laws

The Punjab government has taken no action to ensure the release of such people with mental illnesses from the clutches of the farmers. It is only activists who are making efforts to free them, and in most cases they settle matter with the enslavers out of court.

As most of the labourers who have been freed are from outside Punjab, their families do not take legal route as it is a lengthy process. Even if the victim is from Punjab, families usually settle the matter with the help of activists instead of following the legal process.

Section 13 of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 empowers the state government to constitute vigilance committees in each district and each sub-division, led by a district magistrate and a sub-divisional magistrate, respectively. Central scheme for rehabilitation of bonded labourers has provisions of Rs 1 lakh as assistance to the freed 'slave.' In special cases, the assistance can go up to Rs 3 lakh. It also calls for allotment of land for house and agriculture, provision of low-cost dwelling units, animal husbandry, wage employment and enforcement of minimum wages, supply of essential commodities under public distribution system, and education for children.

Mohnish Chawla, Inspector General of Police (Border Range) based in Amritsar, said that he was not aware of people with mental illnesses being enslaved by the farmers in the border region of Punjab. When asked about the panchayat member of Bachiwind claiming that there are 500 enslaved people in his village, Chawla said, ”If someone gives us a notice, we will take action.”

Baldev Singh, Assistant Sub-inspector at Bachiwind police station, too said that he will only take action if someone lodges a complaint. 

The Punjab Police’s statement shows is reflective of the larger official apathy towards the allegations that hundreds of people with mental illnesses are being subjected to forced labour. Despite activists providing video evidence, the authorities haven't taken any action so far.

(Edited by Tejas Harad)