Peasants in India

In India peasantry is under assault. There is a five-pronged attack on this class and the mighty Indian state is sometimes an active and sometimes a passive abettor. The first point of attack is from the corporate sector. The corporate sector is in a land grab mode. Though not justified, one could understand their urge to get land for industry and real estate purposes. Not that they are causing aggressive incursion into the agrarian sector per se. The reason is the chimerical idea of increasing efficiency in agriculture through modern methods of agronomy including genetically modified seeds. There is no firm figures about the agri-lands grabbed by the corporate sector. But a large number of States have modified their land ceiling laws to accommodate corporate incursion into the agrarian sector. In West Bengal the CPI-M Government has drafted an amendment to the WB Land Reforms Act to relax the ceiling provisions for the corporate sector. So much for land reforms in West Bengal.

The second route of invasion is through contract farming. Some of the agricultural economists are gaga about its beneficial impact. India witnessed the worst form of contract farming in its eastern parts from the middle of the 19th century till the second decade of the 20th through contract indigo cultivation. Such was the level of exploitation that farmers rose in insurrection several times during the later part of the 19th century and these were crushed through the use of force by the colonial government. Mahatma Gandhi’s first public action was against this “teen kathia” system in Champaran which ultimately led to its abolition. To reintroduce the hated “teen kathia” system of contract farming clothed in neo-liberal economic lingo will be the death of the peasantry. But unfortunately State after State is welcoming this system citing some phony beneficial effects in Punjab and Karnataka. The danger is that the corporate bodies would introduce genetically modified seeds to the contract farmers surrepti-tiously and this would endanger the traditional agriculture in the neighbourhood. Instead of resisting, many State governments are conniving at this invasion which might result in a major disaster in future.

The third route of offensive against the peasantry is the indebtedness among them. The NSSO’s Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of farmers in 2003 gives very disturbing figures. At the all-India level 48.60 per cent of peasants is indebted. There is wide variation among the States. The incidence of indebtedness was highest in Andhra Pradesh (82 per cent) followed by Tamil Nadu (74.50 per cent), Punjab (65.4 per cent), Kerala (61.60 per cent), Karnataka (61.40 per cent) and Maharastra (54.80 per cent). These figures clearly show a significant co-relationship in incidents of farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and the Vidharbha area of Maharastra. While the banking system as a whole financed 35.6 per cent of the loans, private money lenders accounted for 25.7 per cent of the loans advanced to farmers. It is a matter of grave concern that in spite of all the efforts of the state from the Gorwala Committee Report of 1951, institutional finance accounts for 57.7 per cent of the total loans and non-institutional sources like money lender vendors, traders etc. still account for 42.3 per cent of the total credit. The disquieting feature of this entire episode is the failure of the cooperative system in extending credits. Another distressing element is the emergence of vendors/traders of agricultural inputs, particularly chemical fertilisers and costly insecticides which they push-sell by extending credit. It is the collapse of the commercially neutral government agricultural extension service that led to the flourishing of the commercial extension service through suppliers and vendors to the utter detriment of farmers, particularly the small and marginal ones.

At this stage a short mention has to be made about farmers’ suicides. Figures differ but it is commonly believed that up to 2008 more than 11,000 farmers committed suicides in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and in the Vidharbha area of Maharastra. The establishment sought to show these incidents as the outcome of family discord, acute mental depression or some such inane reasons not connected with any issue of governance and macro-economic policy. A detailed study, undertaken by the Council for Social Development, Southern Centre, Hyderabad (book entitled Undeserved Death), clearly showed that these farmers were victims of neo-liberal economic policies sweeping the countryside. Certain stark phenomena came to light through this study. Among them were substitution of food crops by non-edible commercial crops tempted by the prospect of profit in the global market, increase in the costs of agricultural inputs whose prices were determined by the giant national and transnational corporations, secular fall in the price of primary produce in both the international and domestic markets, failure of the financial institutions in reaching the small and marginal farmers, exploitative and repressive role of the private money lenders, replacement of traditional home grown seeds by high-priced genetically modified seeds marketed by TNCs, and total lack of any social safety net. They fell victim to the cruel and pitiless market forces over which they had no influence, not to say any control. What was indeed shocking was the lack of any proper response from the state. What a Rajagopalachari in the Madras Presidency, a Fazlul Huq in the Bengal Presidency and a Chhotu Ram in Punjab could do in the thirties of the last century to mitigate the distress of indebted farmers, the Chief Ministers of the most affected States could not do in the first decade of the 21st century. The lesson from these heart-rending episodes was simple: one should not venture into the commercial crop market without adequate staying power either individual or institutional. But who would listen? The lure of quick money would perhaps again tempt the peasants, particularly the small and marginal ones, to the inevitable debt and death trap.

The fourth element of destabilisation of the Indian peasantry is the fifth-column route of genetically modified seeds. Good crop husbandry requires frequent replacement of seeds to maintain and augment production and productivity. According to SAS, 30 per cent of peasants change seeds every year, 32 per cent in alternate years, 21 per cent after three years and the rest 17 per cent after four years. Fortyeight per cent of peasants depend on purchased seeds and 52 per cent on their own farm sowed seeds including five per cent of exchange. Almost half of the peasantry is market dependent on seeds. This is the route the mighty TNCs have chosen to control Indian agriculture by promoting annually replaceable, including terminator, seeds. They have very strong friends inside the establishment.

They almost succeeded in getting clearance for BT brinjal through the good offices of some of the members of the Central Council of Ministers. Their financial clout is tremendous. Less than half-a-dozen TNCs produce and market over 80 per cent of GM seeds in the world. There are notable inter-State variations. In Andhra Pradesh 81 per cent of peasant households depend on purchased seeds followed by Rajasthan 73 per cent. It is interesting to note that 82 per cent of farmers in Andhra Pradesh are indebted. To buy highly priced seeds they take heavy loans. And when the yield and returns are not favourable, many of them in AP commit suicide only to validate the Shakespearan dictum: “He that dies pays all debt.”

The fifth and the most potent external factor affecting the Indian peasantry is compulsory and involuntary displacement from the agricultural land and homestead because of development “terrorism” and “SEZ invasion”. There is no official database of persons displaced and affected by these “development” processes. But a study by Dr Walter Fernandes shows that approximately 60 million persons were forcibly evicted from their land, livelihood and habitat during the period from 1947 to 2004. It involved 25 million hectares of land, including seven million hectares of forests and six million hectares of Common Property Resources (CPR). Thus around 12 million hectares of farmland were lost to development projects. The social impact is horrendous. Where the tribals constitute 8.08 per cent of the country’s population, they are 40 per cent of the displaced/affected persons. According to official figures, 28 per cent of the displaced tribal population have been rehabilitated. Assuming the figure to be correct, what happened to the remaining 72 per cent of the displaced tribals numbering nearly 1.5 crores? They are truly the victims of “development terrorism”. Disillusioned and disgruntled, resentful and angry, they constituted the “water” of Mao Zedong’s terminology in which the militant Maoist fish roamed about freely without any fear of being betrayed and caught. This is, of course, a different issue and a separate story into which we refrain from going into at this stage.

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The macro-economic reforms were heralded with a great deal of fanfare for accelerating allround growth. In the post-reform era, the agriculture sector, instead of showing any buoyancy, actually registered significant deceleration. “The growth rate of agricultural GDP decelerated from 3.08 per cent p.a. during 1980-81 and 1990-91 to 2.38 per cent during 1992-93 to 2003-04 and the growth rate of crop output decelerated from 3.19 per cent p.a. during the 80s to only 1.18 per cent p.a. during the latter period. Similarly the growth rate of foodgrains output decelerated to an all-period low of 1.16 per cent and this growth rate was even lower than the growth of population of 1.95 per cent p.a. Consequently, there took place a decline in the per capita availability of foodgrains during the post reform period.” (Bhalla, G.S., Indian Agriculture Since Independence, NBT, New Delhi, 2007, p. 67) Shorn of any jargon it means that food security at the family level of the lower peasantry has been severely imperilled and that more number of children and men and women go to bed every night with moderate to acute hunger now as compared to the pre-reform period.

The peasantry segment of the rural population shows two disturbing trends. According to the 2001 population census, the proportion of agricultural labourer to agricultural workers increased from 37.8 per cent in 1971 to 45.6 per cent by 2001. In the meantime (1971-2001) the number of agricultural labourers (in absolute terms) increased from 47.5 million to 106.8 million thereby recording an annual compound growth rate of 2.74 per cent p.a. compared with the a growth rate of 2.079 per cent p.a. for the total agricultural workers. (Ibid., pp. 308-309) Over time an increasing proportion of rural households is becoming labour households and most of them are engaged in agriculture. In 1999-00 nearly 40 per cent of the rural households were rural labour households compared to 30 per cent in 1977-78. In the meantime, the proportion of agricultural household to total rural households had increased from 25.3 per cent to 32.2 per cent. This rapid growth of agricultural labourers is mainly because the increasing workforce in India is unable to find employment in non-agricultural occupation in rural or urban areas. These facts clearly explode the development paradigm myth of surplus labour in agriculture would be absorbed gainfully in the expanding industrial and tertiary sectors with the higher rate of growth of the GDP. In fact employment in the organised sector increased very slowly from 24 million in 1983 to 28 million in 1999-2000. It meant an annual incremental employment of a little over only two lakhs which was insignificant compared to the annual growth of the rural labour force. Thus the organised sector’s share in the absorption of the addition to the labour force would remain insignificant in the years to come. In addition, lack of education and lack of skill of the agricultural workers act as serious impediments to their upward mobility in the labour market.

The other worrying phenomenon is the increasing marginalisation of the peasant community. The NSSO’s size-class surveys show that the percentage of marginal households among the cultivators increased from 66.64 per cent in 1982 to 79.60 per cent in 2003.

The lower segment of the peasantry is being pushed back to the wall because of the concerted assault mounted on them, covertly or overtly, by the corporate sector often aided and abetted by the state. Through globalisation and opening up of the markets Indian agriculture is gradually getting hooked up with the roller-coaster vagaries of the global market prices. With non-existent to very low sustaining power, the lower segment of the peasantry is fighting for sheer survival. In this scenario what is the way out? Is there any?

A major problem in the agrarian sector is the existence of large scale clandestine tenancy. Despite legal restriction on land leasing, people lease out and lease in agricultural land on purely informal basis through oral contract. The 60th Round of the NSS (2003) showed that only seven per cent of the operated area was leased in by 11.5 per cent of the rural households. But it is generally believed by many scholars that the NSS figure is a gross underestimate. Various micro-studies have indicated informal tenancies vary between 15 to 35 of the operated area. A point that agronomists always ignore when talking about measures to augment agricultural production and productivity is the deleterious effect of agrarian relations on this issue. If, say, 30 per cent of the arable land is cultivated indifferently and sub-optimally because of the informal and extortionist tenancy system, no bio-chemical inputs or mechanical appliances would be of any help. In such a system the actual tiller, the informal tenant, has no incentive to augment production because at least half, if not more, of the incremental production would be taken away by the owner without making any effort. And the owner is satisfied with his rack renting. He is always in search of another victim who would agree to give him more. This informal tenancy system is a big impediment to increase in agricultural production. Experts ignore it at their own peril. Just think of the alternative scenario where this 30 per cent land is being cultivated optimally. Economic Survey 2009-10 shows a negative growth rate of foodgrains in 2009-10 against that of 2008-09. Of course, the Survey puts the blame on the standard villain of Indian agriculture: failure of the monsoon. In the whole discourse there is no mention that even in the best of conditions, production in 30 per cent of the arable land tilled by the informal tenants, production would always be less than optimal. The ‘Operation Barga’ in West Bengal gave a fillip to agricultural production in the State by at least increasing production in 25 to 30 per cent of the land to the extent labour could substitute capital. That currently that momentum is lost is another story. Notwithstanding all other constraints, legalising informal tenancy, recording their names in the record of rights, fixing fair rent (75:25 in West Bengal) and the hereditary right to cultivation, without altering the ownership of land, would immediately give a spurt to the languishing agricultural growth rate.

Land ceiling as a redistributive programme is of as much relevance today as it was at the time when K.C. Kumarappa submitted his report in 1948. With all the land ceiling legislation, including the second wave of laws in 1972, the land owning pattern still remains very skewed. The NSS Report 2003 states that 80.40 per cent of the farming community comprising the small and marginal categories own 43.50 per cent of the land area, whereas the medium and large farmers, who constitute 3.5 per cent, own 37.72 per cent of the total land.

So far only 2.7 million hectares have been declared surplus of which 2.3 million hectares were taken possession of and 1.9 million hectares have been distributed to 5.5 million households. Since the mid-seventies (emergency period) there had been hardly any progress in this regard. On the basis of the existing state legislation the LBSNAA estimated the potential of ceiling surplus land at 21 million hectares. Thus the land actually vested is only 12 per cent of the estimated potential. If one compares this area with the net sown area of India of 140.88 million hectares (46.1 per cent of the total geographical area) the figure would come to 1.86 per cent of the total cultivated land. This indicates the colossal failure of the programme and grave dereliction of duty of the Indian state towards its own rural poor.

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While we in India totally ignore both the philosophy and pragmatism of land reforms
as an instrument for social and economic development, on the international plane there had been some renewed interest on the subject. The World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in 1979 adopted a Peasants’ Charter. In this Charter it was clearly stated that “the rural poor must be given access to land and water resources, agricultural inputs and services, extension and research facilities; they must be permitted to participate in the design, implementation and evaluation of rural development programme... Growth is necessary but not sufficient, it must be buttressed by equity and above all, by people’s participation...” [FAO, 1981, (iii) quoted from “Whose Land?” published by IFAD, the Popular Coalition, UNSIRD] There were various summits in the 1990s on various crises—the environment, development, energy and food. Of the many conclusions, one of the most significant is that there are no separate crises. They are all one and the same. The single most important and common cause and effect is poverty resulting from unequal access and use of resources. If the protocols were blended into one international plan, the call would be for action on inequitable distribution of wealth, the lack of access by the poor to productive resources, insufficient participation by the poor in the decisions which affect their daily lives, and need for reform in macro-economic policies that adversely affect the rights of the poor. It is ironic that those who are the food producers, largely the farm labourers, are among those most vulnerable to food insecurity. For the rural poor secure access to land provides the most realistic opportunities to improve their livelihood and develop assets that can improve their resilience to shocks. The interlinkages among poverty, food security and resource rights is being increasingly appreciated resulting in re-focussing on the issue of agrarian reform and resource tenure for agricultural communities as well as for fisher folk and coastal communities, forest dwellers, pastroralists and other traditional resource users. (“Whose Land?”, pp. 2 and 5)

Resource reform is primarily about changing relationship. First, it aims to change access and tenure relationships. Second, it aims to change the culture of exclusion so that the poor gain access to credit, technology, market and other productive services. Third, it aims for the poor to be active participants in the development programmes affecting their communities and livelihood. (Ibid., p. 7) Joseph Stiglitz puts it pithily: “In a world in which we are constantly confronted with equity and efficiency trade off, land reform is one of those rare instances of a policy which simultaneously promotes both. Yet the issue has far too long been neglected—perhaps because the elites in many developing countries have done well by status quo.” (Posterman, et. al., One Billion Rising, Leiden University Press, 2009, p. 14)

Land reforms is essentially a political process as it involves intervention in local power relations. The landed elements, rich merchants, elites and agro-business interests deriving economic surplus through land and accompanied political domination would not want to relinquish anything in favour of the landless workers, small farmers and other marginalised agrarian groups unless they are obliged to do so. Accordingly, this means intense conflict between the landed groups and rural poor at least at the initial stages of redistributive land reforms. Are the political parties in India, including the “branded” Left, prepared for it? There is no point in entering into a polemical debate at this stage. But by and large the general perception is that the “branded” mainstream Left parties have now developed an ambiguous, if not antagonistic, relationship with the countryside. They have largely succumbed to the logic of capital, either to obtain state power or to retain state power after obtaining it through compromise. As a result a “third weave” of Left politics has emerged to fill up the neo-liberal political vacuum. It is very pronounced in Latin America. (Reclaiming the Land, pp. 42-43) In an earlier paragraph we made a mention about the Maoist movement in our country obliquely. We might as well clarify the position. The ultra-Left Naxal movement started in April 1967 in one State (West Bengal), in one district (Darjeeling) and in one police station area (Naxalbari). In November 2009, that is, 42 years after it began, the Union Home Minister stated that Naxalism (Maoism) had spread to 23 States, 250 districts and over 2000 police station areas. Are the ultra-Left filling up the vacuum left by the “branded” Left parties who have, overtly or covertly, accepted the logic of neo-liberal economic reforms and are pursuing them with vigour wherever they are in power? Let history give the answer! n

[Text of the paper presented by the author at a seminar on “Land, Livelihood, Habitat—Transformative Politics”, organised by the Centre for Policy Anslysis, New

Delhi, March 26, 2010]

References

1. Bhalla, G.S., Indian Agriculture Since Independence, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2007.

2. Bhalla, G.S., Condition of Indian Peasantry, Natrional Book Trust of India, New Delhi, 2006.

3. Posterman, Roy, et al., One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty, Leiden University Press, 2007.

4. Moyo Sam and Yeros Paris (ed.), Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Zen Books, London and New York, 2005.

5. Krishna B. Ghimire, “Whose Land?—Civil Society Perspectives” in Bruce Mor (ed.), Land Reforms and Rural Poverty Reduction, IFAD, The Popular Coalition, UNSIRD, Rome 2001.

6. Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development, Report of the Committee on State Agrarian Department of Land Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Resources, New Delhi-2009.

7. Government of India, Planning Commission, Development Challenges in the Extremist Affected Areas, New Delhi, 2008.

8. Government of Bihar, Report of the Bihar Land Reforms Commission (2006-2008), Patna,2008.

9. Government of India, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey 2009-10, February 2010.

10. Bandyopadhyay, D., “Sour Men of the Central Indian Wooded Uplands”, Mainstream, February 26, 2010.

The author, who has now retired from service, is a former Secretary, Revenue, and the erstwhile Secretary, Rural Development, Government of India. He was also the architect of ‘Operation Barga’ that left an indelible impress on the West Bengal countryside in the 1978-82 period when it was carried out under the leadership of the then Land and Land Revenue Minister, Benoy Chowdhury.