Neo-liberalism, Weakening State and Peasant Differentiation in Indian Agriculture: Survey Findings on Panel Data from West Bengal. 1993-94 – 2004-05 SUDIPTA BHATTACHARYYA Based on surveys conducted in 1993-94 and 2004-05 on same set of households, this study shows nature of the differentiated economy of West Bengal (WB) against the backdrop of neoliberal reform in India since 1991. The major findings of this study is that during the decade of neo-liberal reform, the interventionist economy eroded in rural West Bengal and peasant differentiation was going on. The analysis which follows examines the structure of investment and production taking place in West Bengal, the reference point being the debate between Marxism and populism about peasant differentiation. The process of socio-economic differentiation has been intensified during neo-liberal reform, but methodologically farm size alone fails to register its extent. The main claim advanced by populism - Chayanov’s argument concerning demographic differentiation, that rising consumer/worker ratios are accompanied by higher family labour input – was not applicable. The efficiency of small farms in the form of inverse relationship between farm size and productivity suggested by Sen has not been found. Among the effects of state intervention in the agrarian sector have been: a decline in the number of holdings above ten acres, in the extent of sharecropping contracts, and in the incidence of absolute landlessness. Though landlessness increased to limited extent during reform period. The institutional credit provision by the state eroded during neo-liberal reform and distress sales (in the form of product marketed) by poorer farmers are still evident. BACKGROUND West Bengal is one of the important Indian states that has been ruled by the Left Front Government over three and half decades (1977-2009) and makes a record as the longest staying democratic government in the world. After the Indian independence like other states the agrarian structure was dominated by retrogressive elements like landlords, moneylenders, and traders, all of whom had flourished under colonialism. Radical peasant movements Sudipta Bhattacharyya is the Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Politics, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal.
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Neoliberalism, Weakening State and Peasant Differentiation in Indian Agriculture: Survey Findings on Panel Data from West Bengal.
199394 – 200405
SUDIPTA BHATTACHARYYA
Based on surveys conducted in 199394 and 200405 on same set of households, this study shows nature of the differentiated economy of West Bengal (WB) against the backdrop of neoliberal reform in India since 1991. The major findings of this study is that during the decade of neoliberal reform, the interventionist economy eroded in rural West Bengal and peasant differentiation was going on. The analysis which follows examines the structure of investment and production taking place in West Bengal, the reference point being the debate between Marxism and populism about peasant differentiation. The process of socioeconomic differentiation has been intensified during neoliberal reform, but methodologically farm size alone fails to register its extent. The main claim advanced by populism Chayanov’s argument concerning demographic differentiation, that rising consumer/worker ratios are accompanied by higher family labour input – was not applicable. The efficiency of small farms in the form of inverse relationship between farm size and productivity suggested by Sen has not been found. Among the effects of state intervention in the agrarian sector have been: a decline in the number of holdings above ten acres, in the extent of sharecropping contracts, and in the incidence of absolute landlessness. Though landlessness increased to limited extent during reform period. The institutional credit provision by the state eroded during neoliberal reform and distress sales (in the form of product marketed) by poorer farmers are still evident.
BACKGROUND
West Bengal is one of the important Indian states that has been ruled by the Left Front
Government over three and half decades (19772009) and makes a record as the longest
staying democratic government in the world. After the Indian independence like other states
the agrarian structure was dominated by retrogressive elements like landlords, moneylenders,
and traders, all of whom had flourished under colonialism. Radical peasant movements
Sudipta Bhattacharyya is the Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Politics, VisvaBharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal.
mobilized by leftist organisations challenged the ruling Congress Party, which in turn
compromised with the vested interests in what was a de facto unreformed agriculture. As a
result, all land reform legislation passed by the state was shelved, and remained
unimplemented. Consequently the programme of capitalist development remained unfinished.
This was the background to the peasant movements which emerged in postindependence
West Bengal, and played a pivotal role behind the formation of a LeftCentrist Coalition in
1967 and 1969 and ultimately the Left Front government in 1977. In the period since then,
the state in West Bengal has, within the legislative limits imposed by the constitution,
adopted a propoor stance in terms of agricultural policy. However, this propoor
interventionist legacy started to get disturbed since early nineties, when Government of India
adopted IMF styled neoliberalism in 1991 and as a result food, fertilizer and credit subsidies
were largely eliminated in agriculture. Public investment in agriculture was also largely
reduced with the good hope that the private investment would crowd out the public
investment. There was a deregulation of the market, the agricultural trade was also
liberalized. Last but not the least a large area was converted from food crops to export
oriented commercial crops. There was a move from untargeted to targeted PDS and rural
poor was largely eliminated by type 2 error as they could not prove themselves as poor
overcoming government red tapism. The new market oriented contract farming, corporate
retail chain, agribusiness and microfinance institution supposed to replace partly or wholly
the public distribution system, government cooperatives, nationalized rural credit institutions
and government mandis. But the expectation was largely belied. Because these newly
emerged neoliberal institutions could not spread much. As Barbara HsarrissWhite noted
down deregulated markets becomes far more imperfect than regulated market (REF). The
2
impact of market reform in agriculture was disastrous. Private investment did not crowd out
public investment rather opposite happened following the fact that both are complementary in
India. The spread of corporate retail chain and agribusiness was utterly limited in India.
Where they succeeded e.g. Madhya Pradesh they turned out as extremely antipoor (Mehta
2005). In some places there were organized and violent protest against such institutions. On
the other hand microfinance institution in India has become largely a government body which
are refinanced and controlled by commercial bank and NABARD. As a result of there is a
breakdown of old institutions and the new institutions becomes nonfunctional. On the other
hand the cost of production enhanced to a large extent but the selling price remains low. As a
result for the producers investment in agriculture becomes a nonprofit phenomenon. On the
other hand a large proportion of consumers has lost its purchasing power. Most strikingly the
agricultural growth rate (1.66%) had declined below the population growth rate (1.85%)
during liberalization period. The inequality and poverty also significant during this period.
THE PROBLEM.
The analysis which follows examines the changing structure of investment and
production taking place over a decade of neoliberal policy regime of the Government of
India in West Bengal where Left Front Government did not have any choice. The process of
socioeconomic differentiation has been intensified during one decade of neoliberal policy
regime. The main claim advanced by populism Chayanov’s argument concerning
demographic differentiation, that rising consumer/worker ratios are accompanied by higher
family labour input – was not applicable. Of particular interest is the role during the last thirty
two years of the Left Front government in the process of agrarian transformation, and the
3
extent to which its propoor policy interventions have stabilized smallholding peasant
production. Among the effects of state intervention during eighties in the agrarian sector had
been: a decline in the number of holdings above ten acres, in the extent of sharecropping
contracts, and in the incidence of absolute landlessness. However, during the nineties this
process had been halted. Particularly landlessness both in absolute and relative terms
increased. The institutional credit provisions by the state eroded during neoliberal reform
and distress sales (in the form of product marketed) by poorer farmers are still evident.
This analysis is carried out against the backdrop of the debate between Marxism and
populism. The principal Marxist contributions to this debate came from Kautsky [1988] and
more importantly from Lenin [1977]. In his seminal text, ‘The Development of Capitalism
in Russia’ first published in 1899, Lenin outlined his thesis about the socioeconomic
differentiation of the peasantry, and how an emergent capitalism depended on this process.
Challenging the Russian populists (or Narodniks), who maintained that the peasantry was an
homogeneous entity not affected fundamentally by differentiation, Lenin maintained that
capitalist development required creation of a home market, both for labourpower and the
product of labour, each of which would be furnished by different components of what had
hitherto been a selfsufficient (or middle) peasantry.
During the 1960s the populist ideas of the Russian Narodniks reemerged, mainly as a result
of the reengagement by development studies with the economic ideas of A. V. Chayanov
[1966; 1991]. The latter’s newlytranslated work reinstated the concept of an homogenous
Third World peasantry, whereby economically selfsufficient smallholders were recast as a
4
different mode of production; instead of economic differentiation, determined by exogenous
variables (rent, labour and land markets), peasants were subject to an endogenous and
distinctly noneconomic dynamic, a process of cyclicallydetermined demographic
differentiation. This nonMarxist interpretation was taken up with enthusiasm by many in the
field of development studies: for example, Lipton [1977], GeorgescuRoegen [1960] and
Amartya Sen [1966] all extended the interpretation of an homogenous peasantry, in the
process giving it a dynamic character by arguing that family labour farms (nondifferentiated
petty producers) were more ‘efficient’ than capitalist farms which hired labour at the going
wage rate. On the other hand Bhaduri [1993] developed a model of the agrarian economy
where differentiation was linked to peasant indebtedness, with some households escaping
debt via increased thrift and other falling more deeply into debt and becoming poor. Such an
approach to socioeconomic differentiation does not have any immediate relation to the
development of capitalism in agriculture; much rather, its focus is on a process of
differentiation as this occurs in an environment of precapitalist relations. This was in
keeping with his previous work, where Bhaduri [1973] had examined conflict involving a
typical landlord and a typical peasant in a context structured by economically backwards
semifeudal relations. In a similar vein, Easwaran and Kotwal [1989] posited the existence of
classes defined by unequal access to credit on the part of peasant households, without,
however, specifying the basis for this inequality of access. Such an approach is not so very
different from a typical neoclassical model based on the utility maximizing behaviour of the
principal and the agent [Stiglitz, 1987]. Ranajit Guha [1988] also divided the entire rural
population into two communities elite and subaltern. Since class is replaced by
5
‘community’, peasant differentiation arising from unequal possession of assets is thereby
overlooked.
The common thread in each of the above texts is that they have all neglected the role of
ownership of the means of production as the basis on which class differentiation in the rural
economy takes place. In my opinion the classical Marxist analysis, as embodied in the work
of Lenin, is much more nuanced than any of these theoretically simplistic positions, since it
recognises both the existence and at the same time the theoretical complexity of the different
modes of production which combine in any given transitional social formation.
In spite of having a successful experiment of a limited land reform and propoor state
intervention, the agrarian economy of West Bengal had been class differentiated even during
the pick period of state intervention in eighties. The neoliberal reform in 1990s has made this
differentiation more intensified. . A consequence has been a greater ownership concentration
in the upper echelons of the rural class structure, combined with an equally pronounced
tendency towards proletarianization and a loss of ownership of the means of production
affecting those at the lower ends of the same hierarchy. It is important to note, however, that
West Bengal constitutes an unusual case, in that class differentiation has been accompanied
by propoor state intervention particularly during 1980s. By moderating the effects of the
market, the limited agrarian reform in West Bengal has had a positive impact on the
economic condition of the rural poor. Simply put, propoor intervention has helped to
stabilize petty commodity production by smallholding peasants.1 It has also helped to stop the
marketled process of immiseration2, and has made differentiation itself more broad based
giving an upward impetus to more people.3 But even during 1980s these positive changes had
6
not been sufficiently strong to stop the process of differentiation altogether, or to alter the
concentration of means of production in the hands of a few. Since the early 1990s along with
other Indian states West Bengal too was exposed with market reform that dampened the
positive impact of interventionist regime to a great extent. Since the early 1990s agricultural
production, yield, consumption of fertilizer, proportion of HYV area, cropping intensity and
institutional credit experienced a negative trend break (Bhattacharyya and Bhattacharyya
2007). As the neoliberal reforms involved withdrawal of state from propoor interventionist
policies one can expect, therefore, to encounter a familiar and consistent pattern of
Note: Pd1 = Period 1, i .e . 199394; Pd2 = Period 2, i.e . 200405. FL = Family Labour, HI = Hired In, HO = Hired O ut.
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LAND AND OTHER MEANS OF PRODUCTION
Data on land tenure owned/operated, as well as that leased in and leased out by economic
class and farm size are presented in Table 6. Nearly three quarters of all rural households in
the two regions compared own/operate holdings under 2.5 acres, which account for only 28
per cent of total land; by contrast, only two percent of households own/operate land of ten
acres and above, holdings which account for some 17 percent of total land. This element of
inequality is more pronounced in the advanced region, where labourpurchasing households
comprise 39 per cent of households owning/controlling 82 per cent of the total area.
Table 6: Distribution of ownership, operated and irrigated land by Ec. Class & size group Per holding Per holding % of Leased % of Leased Per holding % of irrigated
Economic Class owned area operatedin to operated
out to area to total ope
& Acreage Group (acre) area (acre) area owned area irrigated rated area
There was a decline in per holding owned (from 2.86 acres to 2.01 acres) and operated area
(from 2.5 acres to 1.83 acres) over decade of neoliberal reform. The decline was sharp in the
backward region and also prominent in the advanced region. There was a decline of land
holding in all classes but the same was sharp for the higher classes as revealed by the lower
value of Gini Coefficient for ownership and operated area.
Taking both regions together, the extent of leasing in and leasing out is small: only seven to
four per cent of operated area is leased in and five to seven per cent of owned area is leased
out. The single digit low percentage figure for leasing in / out have suggested that share
tenancy is on the decline following the impementation of Operation Barga in West Bengal
(Dasgupta 1984).9 In the advanced region, however, there was decline in operated area leased
23
in from 13% to 7% though there was a marginal increase in owned area is leased out from
15% to 17%. The latter was primarily based on seasonal leave for boro cultivation and not
true sense of the classical tenancy. The backward regionhas low incidence of tenancy than the
advanced region even where the percentage of leased in land declined from 3.19% to 2.54%.
The classspecific patterns of leasingin and leasingout reveal that the rural poor enter
sharecropping arrangements to augment the meagre income from their own holdings.
Although rich peasants lease in some amount of land, they do so for different reasons: the
lure of higher profits from extending cultivation. It remains the case, however, that in the
wake of Operation Barga, no new tenancy contracts have been signed and after the
liberalization the incidence of tenancy declined.
Turning to a consideration of productive assets other than land, these consist of
machinery, irrigation, livestock, storage and transportation. As a much earlier study by Sen
and Sengupta [1969] of three villages in Burdwan district carried out over a five year period
(1957/58 to 61/62) showed, access to irrigation has for a long time been an important factor
in the productive capacity of holdings in the five acre category. Significantly, that same study
confirmed that, even at this earlier conjuncture, all farmers of 46 acre holdings employed
hired labour for cultivation. In our study we have seen that both in the advanced and in the
backward region the irrigated area per holding and percentage of irrigated total area declined
during the decade of liberalization.
The data presented in Tables 7 indicate that, across both regions, about two thirds
(199394) and over 60% (200405) of total nonland assets and owned/controlled by rich
peasants and landlords. Categorized in terms of farm size, however, no consistent pattern of
24
nonland assets emerges. Thus ownership/control of machinery and irrigation is concentrated
in farms belonging to the 510 acre category, which account for 35% (199394) and 46%
(200405) of these particular means of production; by contrast, holdings below five acres and
above ten account for a much smaller amount of such productive assets. Much the same is
true of livestock, ownership of which is concentrated both among the landless, marginal
(0.012.5 acres) and also among holdings in excess of fifteen acres. The reason why farm size
cannot explain the way means of production are distributed is that the majority among the
total holdings in the 510 acre category, of which two (199394) and five (200405) holdings
belong to rich peasants and nine (199394) and five (200405) to landlords, are cultivated
intensively (see Table 2). No other farm size group contains such a high proportion of
capitalist farms purchasing labourpower.
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Table 7: Distribution of Majoar Assets by Economic Classes and Acreage Groups Mechanical & Irrigational Storage & Transport Livestock TotalPer Acre (Rs) P.Holding[Rs]\ Percentage PerAcre(Rs) P.Holding[Rs] Percentage Per Acre (Rs) P.Holding[Rs]\ Percentage Per Acre (Rs) P. Holding [Rs] Percentage
Note: Note:The percentages of different assets do not add upto total,as we exclude`other'asset here.
26
CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND CREDIT
One of the big impacts of neoliberal reform was to remove fertilizer subsidies and as a result
we have witnessed unprecedented increase in fertilizer price. At the same time there was
increased prevalence of monetization and market dependence. As a result purchased input as
a percentage of total cost increased from 26% to 72% for all classesduring the decades of
neoliberal reform (Table 8). The increase was phenomenal in the backward region from
8.84% to 70% in comparison to the advanced (from 33% to 73%), which marks the increased
dependence on market in the backward region. The interesting aspect is that in spite of this
steep increase in the purchased inputs, the total inputs declined drastically both in per holding
and per acre terms in the backward region. The decline in total cost in the backward region is
a reflection of decline in total capital investment as a result of growing market dependence
and enhanced cost of purchased inputs. Particularly, there was a drastic decline of livestock
maintenance cost from 81% to 30% during the decade of neoliberal reform in the backward
region. During the decade of neoliberal reform the backward region witnessed the trend
towards more capistalist development side by side the advanced region. The most important
feature was that all classes uniformly performed in the increase in purchased inputs and a
decline in the livestock maintenance. The farmsize criterion again failed to register the
unequal extent of inputs purchased by the different categories of peasant.
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Table 8: Distribution of Purchased and Total Cost by Economic Classes and Acreage Groups Percentage of Total Cost Chemical Livestock Purchased Purchased Inputs Total Inputs Fertilizer Maintenance Input Per Hold. Per Acre Per Hold. Per AcreClass/Group Pd1 Pd2 Pd1 Pd2 Pd1 Pd2 Pd1 Pd2 Pd1 Pd2 Pd1 Pd2 Pd1ALL REGION Landless 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Table 9: Distribution of Institutional and Noninstitutional Credit by Economic Classes and Acreage Groups Total Institutional Total Noninstitutional Total Inst + Noninst
acres, large: 25 and above. However, according to NSSO 48th round there is no holdings
above 10 acres in West Bengal since 1991. We have also seen a huge concentration of
households in 0.012.5 acres. However, this does not indicate a halt of differentiation. Land
under ownership or operation is no more an indicator of household’s economic strength in
West Bengal. NSSO data showed that inequality in the basic means of production in West
Bengal shifted from land to nonland asset. We need a second criterion for classification side
by side acreage groups. Patnaik’s Ecriteria is helpful here. Marxian class criteria defined as
(a) resource endowment, (b) nature of labour use, (c ) Production of a retained surplus. The
vector of all three criteria is impossible to measure empirically. We use second one as the
empirical approximation.
This study gets important findings regarding household structure and participation. Landness
increased and distress selling of land has happened. After losing job the households are
compelled to move to nonremunerative non farm jobs; the phenomena which is called
37
disguised proletarianization (Murray 2006, Kay 2008). Though the tendency is not
widespread. Households belong to 02.5 acres increased from 138 to 153 during decade.
Partly due to land reform and partly due to inheritance rule. This is reflected in swelling of
landlord households from 15 to 27 and rich peasant from 12 to 16 during the decade. In spite
of land loss, these labour hiring classes maintained the erstwhile labour process.
This study made important findings on participation of households. In Chayanov, ascending
farm size is inversely related to well being. In contradiction to this in our study the ascending
class / size status is related to lower participation rate, and therefore, greater well being. It is
interesting to note that participation rate increased for upper classes during neoliberal
reforms. This means the well being of higher peasant classes have also been curbed during
neoliberal reforms. The poor classes / lower size groups are predominantly agricultural
labour reflected in lower hired in and higher hired out land and vice versa. The socalled
family labour farms do not belong to selfsufficient ‘peasant economy’.
Looking into land structure the average area declined during decade. Declining area with
rising cost gives a question on farm viability in India (Naryanmoorthy 2007). Tenancy as an
institution declined in West Bengal following Operation Barga (Bhattacharyya 2007). This
goes against the hypothesis that through oepration barga Left Front gave tenancy a permanent
status, which is a precapitalist institution. (Khasnabis 1981, Rudra 1981). A big decline of
irrigated area particularly in the backward region in WB owing to neoliberal policy of state
withdrawal may give birth to ‘ultra Left terrorism’. The households belong to selfemployed
declined, exploited classes remained same and that for exploiter increased. The control of
38
land by exploiter classes increased in liberalization period (from around 50 to 60 %). The
selfemployed are major land loser. The condition of exploited remains more or less
unchanged who continue to own around 11 12% of total land area. The percentage of
irrigated land increased for the exploiter increased from 60 to 70%. The same for other
classes declined. Let us look at the differentiated nonland asset market, market for capital
investment and credit. The exploiter classes hold 60% of asset while the exploited classes are
around 12%. The cost of production increased largely for the exploiter and selfemployed
classes, declined for exploited. For exploiter classes the access to institutional credit jumped
to a large extent from 40 to 62 % and the same declined for the rest.
The output and product marketed showed extreme kind of differentiation. Particularly the
product marketed showed a huge inequality, where the exploiter classes occupy 78% and the
exploited 4%. The pattern of inequality remains same between pre and post liberalization
which reminds us HarrissWhite’s note that deregulated markets may become more or less
imperfect than regulated market (HarrissWhite 1996). Left Front preoccupied with the
reforms in the structures of production, and nothing for market (HarrissWhite 2008). No
inverse relationship between farm size / economic class and productivity is found. This
thoroughly refutes populist proposition of Chayanov and Sen.
39
NOTES
1. West Bengal economy may be characterised as a small farm economy where average operated area is much less than that at the national level. This peasant economy experienced an overall rate of agricultural output growth of 1.74 per cent per annum during the period 19491980 that was below the rates of rural (2.31 per cent) and total population (2.42 per cent) increase in the same period [Boyce, 1984]. Using an index number series on aggregate agricultural production, Saha and Swaminathan [1994] claimed that ‘the exponential growth rate of all West Bengal for the period 198182 to 199091 was an impressive 6.4 per cent per annum. Though some doubt has been cast regarding the validity of official data [Dattaray, 1994] from which this conclusion was derived, no effective challenge was made against the findings about the high growth performance of West Bengal. Sen and Sengupta [1995], by contrast, used an alternative source of data (Comprehensive Cost of Production Studies by the Central Government, Ministry of Agriculture), and reaffirmed a significant trendbreak in the growth rate during the eighties.
2. When compared with all the other Indian states, the magnitude of the decline in the percentage of people living below the poverty line was largest in West Bengal. On the basis of the following indicators, it can be argued that the process of immiserisation has actually been stopped in West Bengal. (i) The percentage of male and female agricultural labour population to main workers marked an increase for India, but experienced a decline for West Bengal during 198191 (Census of India 1981 and 1991). (ii) casualisation of rural workers, which increased steadily for all India from 197273 to 1983, fell in West Bengal during 198788 [Chandrasekhar, 1993]. (iii) It is evident from NSSO Surveys that, between 1983 and 198788, unemployment rates of all kinds (Usual Status Unemployment Rate, Current Weekly Status Unemployment Rate and Current Daily Status Unemployment Rate, etc.) for male workers declined in West Bengal, while they rose on an AllIndia basis [Chandrasekhar, 1993]. (iv) Agricultural wages tripled in West Bengal from 197778 to 198788, and the real wage increase in West Bengal was also among the highest in India [Sen and Sengupta, 1995]. (v) The AllIndia percentage of agricultural labour households with land declined during 197778 to 1983, but increased in West Bengal over the same period [Government of India, Ministry of Labour, 1991].
3. It may be noted that a radical redistribution of land did take place immediately after the 1917 October Revolution. In Lenin’s analysis, however, this simply laid the basis for a democratic and widebased process of peasant class differentiation, rather than the narrowly based process of landlord oppression [Lenin, 1970: 9798].
4. Topographically the district forms an intermediate tract lying between rice producing alluvial plains of Bengal to the east and Chotanagpur plateau on the West. Compared to other districts in West Bengal, it represents a very high degree of regional variation. The entire subdivision of Bishnupur and also some of the eastern thanas of Sadar subdivision, are agriculturally productive, and not materially different from the flat plains in the adjoining districts of Burdwan and Hoogly. But the west and north west of the district are part of the agriculturally nonfertile Chotanagpur plateau, where the terrain consists of undulating lateritic ridges covered with sparse forest. There is also a variation in the distribution of
40
population between the eastern and the western part of Bankura district: the population density is much higher in the eastern part than in the west. While the Bengali Hindu population is predominant in the eastern plain, the western thanas contain a large proportion of tribal (mainly Santal) population. Moreover, the literacy rate is much higher in the former than in the latter.
5. It is a common phenomenon that a district nearer to the state capital (particularly when the state capital is a metropolitan city) will have a higher level of economic development. Proximity to the state capital also draws the attention of the policy makers, so much so that instead of being located in distant, faroff districts the new branch offices of the Gramin Bank and the fresh inflow of agricultural credit therefrom, are actually disbursed in the districts closest to the cities. This implies that any survey conducted in districts nearer to a state capital may give a biased and overoptimistic view of the credit distribution in the state. On the other hand, Bankura is not a bordering district of West Bengal, like West Dinajpur, Murshidabad or Nadia. Generally there is alleged to be a continuous and illicit international flow of produce and labour in regions close to the border, as a result of which the survey population may also undergo constant change.
6. Two sample blocks were selected, on the basis of their levels of economic development. One block was Kotulpur, which seemed to be the most advanced and most prosperous in the district; the other was Khatra2, the most backward. The following developmental variables were used in order to identify blocks with high and low level of development: percentage of irrigated area to total cultivated area; percentage of villages having one or more educational institutions; percentage of rural population served by medical amenities; percentage of rural population served by a pukka road; percentage of rural population served by power supply; percentage of cultivated area to total area; and the percentage of rural population served by a local market or hat.
7. NSSO gives classification on the basis of acreage group. These are marginal peasant: 0.012.5 acres, small peasant: 2.55 acres, semimedium: 510 acres, medium: 1025 acres, large 25 acres and above. 8. The Bangopalpur Chatanibad Jouthakhamar is a large cooperative farm formed in 1984 with 84 poor households belonging to a scheduled tribe and/or a scheduled caste. This cooperative was formed after the acquisition by the state of an unfragmented 35 acres of ceiling surplus land from erstwhile zamindars. The cooperative farm has in its possession nine wells, one tractor, two pump sets, three oxen, poultry, 4 ponds used for fish production; about 27 acres of land have been brought under cultivation: foodcrops cultivated in 1993/94 amounted to 600 quintals. One of the main conditions governing cooperative production is that a quarter of all output has to be deposited in the community store on the farm, for use partly as seed and partly for contingencies like drought. A portion of what is produced by the cooperative is sold in order to purchase additional inputs for or enhance the capital base of the unit.
9. Before the Left Front Government came to power, all the tenancy contracts were verbal ones. It was consequently impossible for a poor peasant to establish his identity as a tenant,
41
let alone claim other legal rights that a tenant is supposed to have. In addition to such disadvantages, a poor peasant was unable to meet the legal expenses that would be incurred in the event of a dispute with the landlord. Given this background, the Left Front’s Operation Barga was revolutionary in two respects. First, every tenant now has a barga certificate, as a result of which he cannot be evicted, or deprived of legal rights guaranteed under the constitution. Second, in the event of a dispute with the owner, all legal costs of going to court are now borne by the landlord. In this way, Operation Barga has swung the balance of power where land is concerned firmly in the direction of tenants. Under the existing legislative situation, therefore, a landlord can expect to obtain from leased out land nothing more than a legally stipulated share; the only way to change this is through a lengthy and costly legal confrontation. This is the main reason why the owners of land in rural West Bengal have stopped leasing out land; furthermore, owners of sublet land frequently dispose of this at a nominal amount to the existing tenant. All these factors have led to descriptions of tenancy as a dying institution.
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APPENDIX 1PATNAIK’S ECRITERION
The Marxist concept of class differentiation is simply stated: under a regime of commodity production, rich peasants increasingly employ the labour of others, thereby appropriating surplus that contributes in turn to the accumulation process. The latter development is itself premised on the sale of labourpower by poor peasants who, required to work for others, are thereby increasingly subjected to exploitation. The selfemployed petty commodity producers, the middle peasants of Lenin, are in a vulnerable position. While a few of them succeed in transforming themselves into rich peasants, the majority are always under the constant threat of ‘depeasantization’, or being pushed down into the ranks of the semiproletariat. At the top end of the rural class structure, and more or less distinct from the peasantry, stands the landlord, defined by ‘possession of substantial means of production and noninvolvement in any manual labour, living entirely by appropriating surplus labour of others’. At the bottom end is the landless labourer who, since he posses no means of production, is obliged to live entirely by selling his labourpower.
The labourexploitation index seeks to give an empirical approximation to the analytical concept of the class status of the household. The latter is determined by the extent of the use of outside labour, or the degree to which the peasant family works for others, relative to selfemployment on its own holdings. Under certain simplifying assumptions, the labourexploitation index identifies the extent to which surplus labour is appropriated from the workers concerned. E = X/Y = {(HiHo) + (LoLi)}/F where Hi = Labourdays hired on the operational holding of the household Ho = Family labour days hired out to others
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Li = Labour days worked on leased in land (whether by family or hired labour) Lo = Labour days similarly worked on land leased out by the household F = Labour days worked by household workers on the operational holding.
In Patnaik’s [1988: 305] words: ‘The index is a ratio, or a pure number, which can have positive or negative values depending on whether the household is a net employer of outside labour or is itself on balance working for others (as labourer or tenant). The range of values of E is from plus infinity to minus infinity, for at the two poles of the rural class structure, there will be diametrically opposite types of households for whom F will be zero or near zero: first, the big landlords have such a large resource endowment that they perform no manual labour themselves, but rely entirely on employing others' labour; and the landless labourers, with zero resource endowment, hence zero selfemployment, who are entirely dependent on working for others’.
Within the ranks of the peasantry, class is identified in the following terms: the degree to which work is done for oneself (selfemployment on holdings owned/controlled) in relation to that undertaken for others (employed on holdings owned/controlled by others) or, conversely, that undertaken by others for oneself (the employment of others on one’s own holdings). For this purpose, certain limits are set upon the values of the Eratio, which are given in the following Table. All subsequent use of class categories in this paper refer to the definitions given in TableA1, based on Patnaik [1976, 1987].
TABLE – A.1
The following limits are specified to the value of E in order to classify households into a set of mutually exclusive and allexhaustive categories (subcategories not specified here are not ruled out).
Class Category Defining Characteristics Value ofE = X/ F
Reason
1. Landless labourers No selfemployment; working entirely for others
( E → − ∞ ) F = 0 X < 0 and large
2. Poor peasants (te Tenants and labourers
with smallholdings)
Working for others exceeds selfemployment
( E ≤ − 1)
F > 0 , X < 0, X ≥ F
3. Small peasants No employment of or working for others; self ( 0 ≥ E > − 1 )
F > 0 ,
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employment exceeds working for others
X ≤ 0 , X < F
4. Middle peasants Selfemployment predominates, combined with the employment of a small amount of others’ labour
( 1 > E > 0 ) F > 0 , X > 0 , X < F
5. Rich peasants Selfemployment equalled by the amount of labourpower purchased
( E ≥ 1 ) F > 0 , X > 0 , X ≥ F
6. Landlords No manual labour expended in the form of selfemployment; large amounts of outside labour employed