The political economy of bonded labour in the Pakistani Punjab

Abstract

This article examines economic and social relations in order to understand political assertion and mobilisation among rural bonded labourers in the Pakistan Punjab. Bonded labour, characterised by economic and extra–economic forms of compulsion together with vertical ties of patronage, remains widespread in the region. I propose that the perpetuation of these relations is largely explained by the capture of state institutions by a traditional landlord elite and its monopoly over the means of coercion coupled with a highly seasonal demand for labour. I examine how employment and indebtedness combine to restrict workers’ physical and economic mobility. I argue that labourers have not been able to unite politically as a class and challenge their employers because years of authoritarian rule in Pakistan have entrenched a highly factional style of politics dominated by the landed elites. My article contributes to the literature on agrarian change, class formation and the state in south Asia.