Meetings at night, schools at quarries: at Swami Agnivesh funeral, tales of rescue

Heera Devi with Agnivesh. A loan of Rs 20 kept her toiling at a quarry for years. (Express photo)

In 1980, Heera Devi took a loan of Rs 20 from a contractor at a stone quarry in Haryana where she worked, to send to her two young sons back at their village in Madhya Pradesh. Devi would spend years toiling at the quarry trying to repay the loan and the interest the contractor demanded.

“No matter how much she worked and how little she was paid, the contractor would always say she was yet to repay the full amount. It was only when Swami Agnivesh started fighting for bonded labourers did she even…