Paper short abstract:

Examines changing relations of indebtedness and caste dependency in two villages in Tamil Nadu. Illustrates diverse rural livelihood trajectories, how small-scale industrialists mobilise relations of unfree labour, and the impacts of debt bondage on relations of caste, power and dependency.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in two villages in the Tiruppur garment hub this paper explores radically different rural developments within one region of Tamil Nadu. It examines the diversity of rural livelihood trajectories, how small-scale industrialists mobilise relations of unfree labour to their capitalist ventures, and the impacts of debt bondage and bonded labour on relations of caste, power and dependency.

In Allapuram, rural livelihoods had, since the 1990s, become dependent on town-based garment work. Dalits had weakened their ties and dependency on higher-caste Gounder landowners, thus transforming relations which had previously been marked by unfree labour and debt bondage in agriculture. However, in the last 10 years, as garment units mushroomed in village itself, Dalits have entered new relations of indebtedness with their garment employers and unfree labour relations are being reintroduced.

In Mannapalayam labour relations showed the opposite trajectory: in 2008-9 Dalit employment in the village powerloom industry was marked by high levels of indebtedness as cash “advances" created bonded labourers. These ties of bondage were carried over from agriculture into the rural powerloom sector and Dalits’ relations with Gounders remained highly antagonistic. Here, however, recent changes in powerloom technology and the labour recruitment regime (interstate migrant workers) have reduced Gounders’ reliance on local Dalit workers, who themselves increasingly seek to escape powerloom work with its associated relations of indebtedness, bondage and discrimination. As a result, here Dalits are becoming less indebted to Gounder powerloom workers and their lives have become less intertwined than before.