DPU Working Paper - No. 102

Authors: Sundar Burra 

Publication Date: 1999

Jagjeevan Ram Nagar is a slum located in Mir Alam Mandi in the Char Minar area or old city area of Hyderabad, the capital of the Southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. The origins of the slum can be traced back to 1935 and lives of two bonded labourers called Mysiah and Chinnabaliah from the Mehboobnagar district in Telengana, a poor, under-developed region in Andhra Pradesh.

Semi-feudal and dry agriculture saw some of the Scheduled Castes of the area living in utter poverty and working for virtually no remuneration for the landlords of the area. One of the features of bonded-labour, which despite being made illegal in the mid-1970s can still be found in India today, is the continuation of bondage between sets of landlords and sets of labourers over generations. Without telling their employers, Mysiah and Chinnabaliah ran away to Hyderabad to escape their bondage in 1935. 

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