Every year, especially around February and March, as labourers slowly start their return migration journey, activists receive numerous rescue calls. Nandurbar district – under the Fifth Schedule – sees an alarming number of both intra- and interstate migration every year. These labourers, who travel over 700 kilometres to the sugarcane belt in western Maharashtra, are invariably exploited, held captive, paid meagre wages, or even denied wages, and only somehow manage to return to their hometowns.
Sometime in February, while scrolling through his social media feed, rights activist Vijay Valvi came across a video. This short but compelling clip called for immediate intervention in rescuing over 100 labourers. The voiceover said that more than 100 men and women, along with several infants, were confined in a small room near Jejuri in Pune. The labourers belonged to the same Bhil tribe that Valvi comes from and were from villages near his own home in the Dhadgaon Taluka of Nandurbar.
Soon, a team of local activists was dispatched, and Paschim Bharat Majdur Adhikar Manch, a collective working for labour rights, was alerted. With the help of Jejuri police, the team managed to release over 92 labourers on March 3. A few others had escaped from captivity. Upon reaching the location, Valvi says, the team discovered that a few more were still held hostage. They were later rescued on March 7.
None of the rescued labourers got paid for the six months of the hard labour work they were subjected to, Valvi says.
15/03/2025