The appalling conditions in which bonded labourers live, not as humans but as serfs, recall to the mind the following lines from "Man with the Hoe" which almost seem to have been written with reference to this neglected and forlorn species of Indian humanity: "Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground The emptiness of ages on his face, And on his back the burden of the world, They are non beings, exiles of civilization, living a life worst than that of animals, for the animals are at least free to roam about as they like and they can plunder or grab food whenever they are hungry but these out castes of society are held in bondage, robbed of their freedom and they are consigned to an existence where they have to live either in hovels or under the open sky and be satisfied with whatever little unwholesome food they can manage to get inadequate though it be to fill their hungry stomachs.