Pattisson’s visits have been devoted to documenting the
persistence of a dreadful pre-modern phenomenon: slavery. It is
rarely recognised as such, even by many slaves. But Pattisson
has an unarguable, no-nonsense definition of slavery. People are
slaves when they are not free to leave their place of work. By
that standard, millions of Indians—by the estimate of one
American NGO, perhaps 20m—are slaves. THE LONE SURVIVOR When he
was 13, Madam Rai came to Punjab to look for work, with six
friends. The others all died in farming accidents—breathing
lethal fertiliser fumes, or being bitten by snakes. Rai
survived, but was disabled trying to fix an electric fuse for
his landlord.