New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- Thanga emerges from the tea bushes where she's been busy plucking leaves, stopping to yank a leech from between her toes. She is in her early 60s and although officially retired, likes to come to work to keep busy. Priyadarshini tea estate in Wayanad, Kerala, translates my questions to her. Are you happy working here? She laughs and I catch the word "happy" repeated a couple of times.

Priyadarshini was not started as a commercial tea estate but as one that would offer livelihood and restore dignity to hundreds of people from the Paniya community who had been released when India abolished the practice of bonded labour in 1975. In Wayanad, it had taken the form of a century-old custom that bound the indigenous tribal p...