ndia’s economy is the 10th largest in the world, but millions of the country’s workers are thought to be held in conditions little better than slavery. One man’s story – which some may find disturbing – illustrates the extreme violence that some labourers are subjected to.

Dialu Nial’s life changed forever when he was held down by his neck in a forest and one of his kidnappers raised an axe to strike.

He was asked if he wanted to lose his life, a leg or a hand.

Six days earlier, Nial had been among 12 young men being taken against their will to make bricks on the outskirts of one of India’s biggest cities, Hyderabad.

During the journey, they got a chance to escape and ran for it – but Nial and a friend were caught and this was their punishment.

Both chose to lose their right hands. Nial had to watch while the other man’s hand was cut first.

“They put his arm on a rock. One held his neck and two held his arm. Another brought down the axe and severed his hand just like a chicken’s head. Then they cut mine.

…

Now free, and his injury healing, he is back home deep in the countryside of Orissa. There is no electricity or sanitation. Many of the villagers are illiterate.

“I didn’t go to school. When I was a child I tended cattle and harvested rice,” Nial says, sitting on the earth outside the cluster of huts which are his family’s home.

It is from communities like this that people are liable to be drawn into a system known as bonded labour. Typically a broker finds someone a job and charges a fee that they will repay by working – but their wages are so low that it takes years, or even a whole lifetime. Meanwhile, violence keeps them in line.

Activists and academics estimate that some 10 million bonded labourers are working in India’s key industries, indirectly contributing to the profits of global Indian brands and multinationals that operate in the country and have helped to transform India into an economic powerhouse.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450