17 years a slave: How TN, AP officials rescued, reunited bonded labourer with kin

CHENNAI: Sitting on a ‘charpai’ outside the house, almost identical to the other houses in the picturesque tribal village of Munakayavalasa along the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border, 60-year-old Appa Rao sips into a glass of ragi porridge to beat the summer heat of early May, while playfully teasing his youngest grandson, who is about four years old. He seems to savour every moment of his life at home, something that he had missed for nearly 17 years.

Life had not been the same for Rao, who is known as Kondagorri Sukka, in the peaceful hamlet of 50-odd families, until a team of officials spotted him grazing a herd of sheep nearly 1,000 km away in Tamil Nadu four months ago. That was a turning point in his life.

A weak and frail Rao, by then had lost track of time, and was holding on to fading memories of his life and family.

A serendipitous find

Working as a bonded labourer for 17 years in Sivaganga district Rao returned home to his only daughter, Dambudora Sayamma, in what could be called an extensive exercise carried out by officials of two States – Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

In 42 days after he was rescued, the teams went on to script a happy episode in the lives of Rao and his daughter as well as in their own.

On January 31, four months prior to her retirement, a task force led by I Muthu, Assistant Commissioner of Labour (ACL) of Sivaganga, cast around the interior village in Kalaiyarkovil block as part of their anti-bonded labour day campaign. But this time, it was different. In their words, spotting Rao shepherding a herd of goats on the outskirts of Kadampangulam village ended up as an “experience of a lifetime”.

It was during this routine, when the team was inspecting brick kilns and poultry farms, a member struck a conversation with Rao that unfolded the sorry tale of the man.

Clad in a faded T-shirt and seemingly lost in his own world, the man began speaking in monosyllables with a mix of Tamil and Telugu words. Though the team struggled to fully comprehend, they understood that he had been compelled to work for years without being paid a single rupee.

To put it plainly, he was in bondage, without even realising it, and his employer had exploited his ignorance and submissive nature from early 2009. His life revolved around the herd and his sole contact was his employer, V Annadurai, and his family.

“He spoke incoherently and mixed Tamil and Telugu words. But he made it clear that he had been grazing goats for several years and the owner hadn’t paid him a single penny nor gave him money to return to his village,” said Muthu, recalling her first conversation with Rao.

Sensing clear signs of bonded labour, the officials rescued him and initiated legal proceedings against Annadurai. With nowhere to go, he was placed in an old age home.

Within a day, the Revenue Department issued a release certificate and extended other relief measures, including a deposit of ₹30,000 as the first instalment of the rehabilitation programme into his newly opened bank account.

“Whenever I asked my owner for money, he gave the same reply —that he would bring it from the bank — and asked me to wait a little longer. This happened every single time I asked for money to return home,” recalled Rao.

A rare case

Though identifying and rescuing bonded labourers is routine for the Labour department, what sets Rao’s case apart is that he was a lone bonded labourer (usually families end up as bonded labour after receiving an advance amount) with his language barrier, incoherent speech and memory turning into a setback for them.

The missing piece of the puzzle did not come easy as he could provide only limited information – the names of his wife, Seethamma, and their daughter, Sayamma. He could not provide any useful details to help the officials trace his family.

“He told me that his daughter had a son, who was just a few months old when he left the village,” said Muthu.

Rao couldn’t even recall the name of his village, other than vaguely mentioning that he was from Pithapuram in Kakinada in AP that sent the officials on a wild search to trace his origin.

After several futile attempts to locate his family, Muthu returned to the old age home a week later to verify the initial information. This time, the interaction proved more fruitful —Rao now mentioned Parvathipuram. “He asked us for money to reach Parvathipuram, saying he could find his village from there. But we weren’t sure and asked him to wait a few more days. He was growing impatient,” said Muthu.

Searching the internet, the officials began piecing together the fragments of information. They built the case brick by brick, but it felt like searching for a needle in a haystack—there are nearly 1,000 villages in Parvathipuram Manyam district, and what made the case more challenging is that the name Rao was quite common among men in AP.

Inter-state efforts

When her own efforts to reach out to a counterpart in Parvathipuram didn’t yield much, Muthu informed Sivaganga Collector Asha Ajith that resulted in a coordinated inter-state effort to reunite the sexagenarian with his family.

“I contacted my batchmate M Krishna Teja, a Kerala cadre officer on deputation in AP,” said the 2015-IAS officer, noting that Teja, in turn, stepped in and contacted Parvathipuram Collector Shyam Prasad, who showed equal interest and determination in finding Rao’s family. She also wrote to Parvathipuram Collector on March 11, requesting for any information about the family members, point of contact from AP side, to reunite the released bonded labour with his family.

Prasad issued a statement with details about Rao, including a photograph taken during his rescue. He explained that Rao had been freed from the clutches of bonded labour after nearly 20 years, and had lost contact with his family during that time. Local media and news channels published the story alongside his picture.

Simultaneously, the Parvathipuram Collector issued an order directing the Revenue and Labour Departments to mobilise resources at the block and village levels within their respective jurisdictions to help locate Rao’s family. However, after at least two weeks of efforts yielded no desired outcome, doubts began to arise as to whether the elderly man had mistakenly assumed Parvathipuram Manyam was his native district. This led to a second round of unsuccessful attempts.

“We made every effort,” said Hemalatha, the District Revenue Officer of Parvathipuram Manyam district. Meanwhile, there was a lot of official communication between the two state officials.

“It was very difficult for us due to the limited information he had about his family, and he remained sceptical too,” added Asha, who continued to stay in contact with her counterpart in AP amid their demanding schedules.

Family comes calling

Just as hope was waning among those involved in Rao’s case, a couple approached the district administration in Parvathipuram. The woman introduced herself as Sayamma, accompanied by her husband, Dambudora Chandu, from Munakayavalasa, one of the villages in Parvathipuram Manyam.

She claimed that Rao was her father, who had gone missing 17 years ago. However, she was unable to provide any proof of their relationship — not even a photograph or an official ID.

“Our Collector requested local reporters and government officials to conduct an enquiry in the village to verify her claims,” said the DRO, noting that her statement was found to be true, as confirmed by the villagers.

The Parvathipuram Collector alerted the Sivaganga Collector, and swift action followed. A WhatsApp group was created including all key stakeholders from both TN and AP involved in identifying Rao’s family.

Shyam Prasad, deputed Assistant Labour Officer Ch Venkateswara Rao, Deputy Tahsildar P Kireethi, and police constable E Appa Rao to accompany Sayamma and Chandu. The district administration also arranged transport for them.

“We kept our Collector updated — from the moment we left the Collectorate to reaching Sivaganga, meeting Rao, and finally returning to Parvathipuram,” said Venkateswara Rao.

However, this information was not disclosed to Rao until the final moment, when labour officials brought him to the Sivaganga Collector’s chamber to meet his family on May 14. “It was an emotional moment — an unforgettable experience — when Rao met his daughter for the first time since he left home many years ago. It was a joyous family reunion,” said Asha Ajith, adding that it had been an “eye-opener” for her to learn how a person was kept under bondage for 17 years and exploited by his employer. It also left a positive impact among the officials and the district administration mandated frequent field inspections to identify bonded labourers and rescue them.

She also applauded the efforts of the Parvathipuram Collector and his team for their commitment in tracing Rao’s family and reuniting them. The episode also sent a strong message about the effectiveness of government machinery when aligned towards a common goal.

A cup of tea…

All this started with a cup of tea. Rao, who had gone to Puducherry with some villagers for work, was returning home in a train when he alighted at a railway station for a cup of tea. It was this otherwise normal moment that derailed his life for the next 17 years.

Rao had boarded a wrong train and eventually ended up as a bonded labourer in Sivaganga district. For years, he grazed goats from dawn to dusk, while his exploitative employer neither paid him a penny nor allowed him to leave the village.

Now reunited with his family and enjoying time among his loved ones, Rao deeply regrets stepping off that train for a cup of tea.

He had left home without informing his wife, Seethamma, who was away attending a family function in a neighbouring village. At the time, his first grandson — now in college — was less than a year old.

Being a small, close-knit family, Rao, his wife, and daughter shared a strong emotional bond. His sudden disappearance came as a profound shock, particularly to Seethamma. Nearly two weeks later, the family learned from villagers that he had travelled to Puducherry with a friend from a nearby village for work.

Rao’s son-in-law, Chandu, confronted the men and demanded to know what had happened. “They said he had got down at one of the stations in Tamil Nadu on their way back home, but they didn’t know how he went missing,” said Chandu. He, along with relatives, began a search for Rao.

They scoured Chennai, Tirupati, and several other places, but all efforts ended in vain. “We searched many places in Chennai and also went to Tirupati. Once we exhausted the money we had, we returned home. Believing he had died, we performed the final rites as per our tradition,” said Chandu, recalling those painful days.

It was Chandu who eventually came across a YouTube video reporting on Rao. Though unsure if it was his father-in-law, he showed the clip to his wife after returning home. “She was speechless and said, ‘That’s my father.’ After struggling for a couple of days to figure out how to reach him, we finally went to the Collectorate,” said Chandu, who also expressed deep gratitude to officials from both states for reuniting the family and ending their long years of sorrow.

‘Can I go to work?’

Sayamma, Rao’s daughter, recalled the impact her father’s disappearance had on her mother. “My mother stopped speaking to relatives and even refused to eat properly after he went missing. She kept crying, and her health deteriorated as days passed. She died within a few months. It was devastating for me — I lost my mother and remained clueless of what happened to my father until my husband showed his video,” said Sayamma.

She added that the first thing her father asked as soon as they met was about Seethamma and how she was. However, the family chose not to reveal Seethamma’s death until they reached home. “We told him about her passing only after we arrived. He was inconsolable — and understandably so,” Sayamma.

After years of being a bonded labourer, penniless, with goats as company in an unknown land, Rao, who stepped into his home on March 16, does not want anything more. “This is all that I want”, he said, holding on to his youngest grandson. He had only one question, and got a “No” for an answer from Sayamma and Chandu. “He asked us if he can go to work,” Chandu said with a chuckle.

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