Agrarian Relations in Two Rice Regions of Kerala

Joan P Mencher The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of agrarian relations in the two main rice regions of Kerala, Kuttanad (a low-lying area covering parts of Alleppey, Kottayam and Quilon Districts) and Palghat, in order to examine one, forces interfering with production and, secondly, the elms relations that serve to impede a more equitable distribution of food and other commodities. The paper describes some of the striking contradictions in each area, and offers some tentative predictions for their future development.
Introduction
T H E condition of the agricultural labourers in Kuttanad and Palghat, despite over 40 years of agitations, at present is far from good. Though hours of work have improved and the official wages has increased, their l i v i n g conlotions are still deplorable. As the thinks of the labouring force have swelled because of (1) population increase, (2) movement into agriculture of workers unable to make a living in other industries (such as coir), (3) dispossession of tenants and poor farmers, (4) the tendency of landowners to skimp on agricultural operations such as weeding to save labour costs, and (5) the gradually increasing use of mechanisation, there has been an inevitable decrease in days of employment. In a number of ways Kerala stands apart from other parts of India. To begin with Kerala had a traditional pattern of dispersed settlement, w i t h large Namboodiri or Nayar houses isolated in spacious dispersed compounds and surrounded by the houses of people of other communities who worked for the high-caste landowners, ts traditional socio-economic structure in many ways resembled that of feudal Europe. The area is known to have had a long history of maritime trade dating back to at least the first century A D. Even in the sixteenth century it was deficit in rice, the main foodgrain. "This part of India produces but little rice, which is a principal article of food in these parts, as wheat is w i t h us; but it procures abundance of that and all other kinds of provisions from other countries" (Castaneda, 1582:347), It is noted that the extensive exports more than paid for the imports of rice. There are three other important characteristics of Kerala which are relevant to this paper. First, it is well known that the level of literacy in Kerala is the highest of any Indian state, though this varies considerably from district to district (from approximately 44 per cent in rural Palghat District, to close to 71 per eent in rural Alleppey District). Second, Kerala has been highly politicised, at least since the 1930s. In connection with this political involvement and awareness, union activity has been pronounced in the southern regions since the 1930s, and in the central regions since the. Jate 1960s. Third as in the sixteenth century, it continues to be deficit in rice. While the rice shortage has been alleviated .slightly by the use of tapioca in the southern parts, and more recently in the central regions, tapioca has not been a completely unmixed blessing since it has brought about an increase in childhood diabetes among the poorest group of people.1 T i l l recently, the diet of the poor included some fish; but due to the increased availability of refrigeration plants, refrigeration trains, lorries and ships which can carry the fish out of the state for higher profits, fish has become too expensive for the poor, at least in areas not directly on the toast or backwaters. It is striking that among the agricultural labourers studied in our diet survey, only four out of 29 households consumed substantial quantities of tapioca. The eonsumption of tapioca is apparently more common among people living directly on the coast, such as fishermen, and the urban poor of South Kerala. Though rice is grown throughout the state, the two main rice regions provide for most of the rice which is consumed in the state (apart from import from elsewhere). 35 per cent of the total paddy area is in the districts of Palghat and Alleppey. whereas they account tor only 18 per cent of the total population, Furthermore, the three eastern taluks of Palghat are the main double (and sometimes triple) cropped arers. It is from these regions, in addition to imports from other states, that the urban population of the coastal towns gets its food. It was for this reason that we decided to concentrate our investigations in Palghat and Alleppey (the largest part of Kuttanad is in A l leppy), and also because that facilitated the obtaining of district-wise data from government sources.

Historical Background
Prior to the eighteenth century the socio-economic and political structure of most of Kerala was quite similar, though (here were a number of regional variations. Apart from checking the expansion of the Zamorin to the south, and interfering seriously with the Arab control of coastal shipping, the arrival of the Portuguese and later the Dutch did not seriously disturb the traditional socio-economic system. This system consisted of a many-tired hierarchy of land rights, similar to those of medieval Europe. The highest level was occupied by a jenmi (the hereditary 'owner' of the land, who traditionally could not sell it) usually belonging to one of the very wealthy Namboodiri Brahman [Hams, or one of tho ruling families, or some special categories of Nayars. Temples were also jenmis holding large estates. Under the jenmi there might be a variety of tenants, under whom there were sub-tenants, sub-subtenants, etc. A given parcel of land might consist of only one layer a jenmi and a number of bonded agricultura. labourers or it might have up to five layers. This was especially true it Palghat where sub-infeudation was a common practice. Perhaps the majority of land was held in a three-layered structure, w i t h a jenmi, a Nayar kanamdar (holder of higher-level tenancy rights), and an Izhava verumpattam (lower-level) tenant, the actual cultivation being done by untouchable agricultural labourers who were agrestic slaves. This was certainly the case in Palghat and the evidence for Travancore prior to Marthanda Varma seems to indicate a similar pattern, though it is less well-described in the literature, since it changed rapidly beginning in

Annual Number February 1978 the late eighteenth century. In the Travancore area, Syrian Christians often were both kanamdars and verumpattam tenants. Many important changes took place in the land tenure system of each of the three regions, Travancore, Cochin and British Malabar, in the years preceding the formation of the State of Kerala in 1956. According to Varghese (1970). by the end of the nineteenth century, Travancore had almost shifted over to a region of peasant proprietors (that is, the state had control directly or indirectly of 80 per cent of the cultivated lands, and almost all the arable and uncultivated waste). Cochin, on the other hand, was a tract w i t h a little under half of its lands officially categorised as peasant proprietorship, and the remainder w i t h nan-cultivating or absentee landlords (jenmis) under the complex traditional system of subinfeudation. (One should note that the term 'peasant proprietorship', as used by nost writers, is rather misleading, since it includes not only people with two acres of land on which they work themselves along with hired help, but also people w i t h several hundred acres, all worked by hired wage labour.) the state asserted its sovereignty by converting almost all of their land to state or sircar land. As a result, the state became the biggest jenmi; by 1812, it owned 2/3 of the lands. This accounts for many of the differences between the two areas. lineal household, and by Namboodiri Brahmans for the right to partition their land. Once the law was passed giving fixity of tenure and regularising the amount that had to be paid, the agitation to give some sort of security to all tenants started. This agitation at first did not aim to change the jenmi system, b u t rather to give some sort of security to various groups of tenants. Most of this agitation was led by the educated middle-class Nayars and a small section of middle-class Izhavas. It was clear that the middle-sized kanamdars and verumpattadars were the ones who would benefit most from this sort of agitation. W h a t made the situation most complex was that in Malabar and Cochin, even the same household might have held land under a number of different types of tenure, and might have in addition rented it out to others on different types . tenure. In the early 1970s, the Kerala land reform bill was finally passed and as a result of several Supreme Court decisions, not only permanency of tenure but actual ownership rights were given to the lowest rung of tenants in the former hierarchy. What the agricultural labourers ended up w i t h was at most 5-10 cents of land in and around their small house-sites, on which perhaps one or t w o trees might be planted. Most of the former landlords lost all their land, apart from that which they had managed to get back from tenants during the 20-odd years preceding the land reform b i l l . In many instances it did not matter, since the former jenmis or their sons were highly educated, and had alternative sources of employment. However, this also impoverished many formerly well-to-do families. Among the new landlords'the former tenants there are basically three groups. The first consists of those who had worked on small pieces of tenanted land. Though large in number, their holdings only account for a small amount of the land being cultivated. The second group consists of those who held portions of 5-10 acres of paddy land and w h o now, after the land reforms, are doing quite w e l l . (Five to ten acres of double-dropped paddy land in the Palghat region can provide a household w i t h means for a very comfortable standard of living, including many of the attributes of modern life such as electricity, proper bathrooms, children in college, private doctors, etc.) In addition, a new class of well-to-do farmers have emerged

It is interesting that capitalist penetration of agriculture started earlier in Travancore than in Malabar. There are a number of reasons for this. The usual explanations that have been given are (1) that land could be taken directly from the state of Travancore, whereas in Malabar it would have had to be rental from traditional jenmis; (2) the better development of transport and communications in Travancore, though w i t h this explanation begs the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Another explanation is that capitalists found it easier to invest in areas of indirect rule than in areas where the British were ruling directly. Not only did they invest in the highlands (in tea estates), they also stimulated the Kerala Christians in their land reclamation efforts in the lowlands (see below). Interestingly, the British seem to have kept the Nilgiris as a kind of preserve for their recreation, By the mid-1950s, according to a and did not stimulate investment in estates in the higher parts of survey by Varghese (1970:161-2), about tea Malabar (Brockway 1977).2 40 per cent of the households in Kuttanad were landless, 20 per cent were owner-cultivators, 33 per cent were tenPalghat ants, and about 7 per cent were rentPalghat District, along w i t h the rest receiving households. According to the of the former Malabar District and the 1951 census for Palghat tract of Malabar northern part of the former Cochin District (which included most of the State, was much more affected by the irrigated part of the present Palghat land reforms of the twentieth century district), 58 per cent of the people than the Kuttanad region. In the early belonged to agricultural labourer house- years of this century the main focus holds, 25 per cent belonged to tenant of rural agitation in Palghat was for households, 8 per cent were owner- tenancy reform. Though much of the cultivators and another 8 per cent were agitation was led by the Nayar kanamrent-receiving households. Varghese's durs, who held land primarily from the figures for Malabar show a much lower temples or from big Namboodiri famipercentage of agricultural labourer lies or high-ranking Nayars, they were households and higher percentage of helped in their agitations by the lesser tenant households, but this may have tenants. Under the British these konam been a feature of his research design, tenants had been denied the security Mnee he was primarily interested in which they had held under traditional studying land tenure relations, and not practice. The result of these agitaagricultural labour, and thus d i d not tions was that permanent tenancy was given legal sanction, first in Travanfocus on the irrigated tracts. However, there is no question that core, next in Cochin in 1914, and in In Malabar, there was a difference between the the 1930s in Malabar. two areas. Malabar was clearly an area permanency of tenure came late, and w i t h a complex tenancy pattern. This involved more agitation because of the had existed in Travancore as well, but stand of the British. This land legishad been eliminated at the end of the lation was also involved w i t h agitations eighteenth century. When Marthanda among the Nayars themselves for the Varma annexed the territories of all right to partition their landhoidings the Nayar chieftains in his domain, held by the formerly indivisible matri350

Annual These include the few former fermis who were cultivating their own land, but the majority are former Izhava tenants who held a considerable amount of land, often from more than what was held by the old-time landlords, and often under a variety of types of tenancy. Most of these new rich were also politically astute, and had on paper partitioned their land in such a way as to avoid land ceiling limits. In a few cases, husbands and wives, even when not divorced, had separate houses, so that they would be considered as belonging to different households. This pattern is particularly prevalent in the irrigated parts of Palghat, Alathur, and Chittoor taluks. These new rich also include former jenmis who had managed to hold on to sizeable pieces of land by taking it back for self-cultivation in the late 1950s or early 1960s, pid some medium-size cultivating households that belong to the former jenmi class, mostly Nayars and Namboodiris. A third group of people in the ranks of the middle-sized and large 'new fanner" class consists of Nayars who made money from professional activities in Kerala or elsewhere (including Malaysia and Burma) to buy new lands, or to buy back former jenmi lands in their ancestral village or that of their wives. On the whole they align themselves with the other new landlords politically and economically. Tables 1 and 2 give the basic breakdown of socio-economic groupings in Palghat as well as in Alleppey. Because of the differences between the two regions specifically, the feudal-type relations which persisted until quite recently in the Palghat region wages had remained quite low there until the last 10-15 years. Not only wages, but the general position of the agricultural labourers has been one of extreme exploitation. Though a considerable percentage of labourers had supported the Communist Party from the 1930s, it was only after the state's reorganisation that the Communist Party started slowly organising the agricultural labourers into unions, and it was really only after the second United Front ministry came into power in the m i d 1960A that the unions began to be something of a force in the district. Despite this, it has been a continuous uphill fight to raise the wages of the agricultural labourers, and to eliminate some of the extreme excesses to which they had been subject and which still continue in some pockets even today. Because of the slow but persistent activity of the unions, the daily wage rates as well as the harvest wage rate increased significantly in the period from 1965 until 1976. Until 1975 the main unions in the Palghat area were led by the CPI (M), though there were a few small CPI unions as well. In 1975, the Congress also started organising the labourers, especially in the area near the border of Trichur Dist r i c t of the former Cochin State. In October 1975, the new minimum wage law was passed It singled out Palghat, and provided special wages for the labourers there. Since the minimum wage was higher than anything being paid, it gave the labourers something to work for. Furthermore, though strikes had been outlawed under the Emergency in June 1975, the new Act provided for registering permanent workers in the panchayat It also provided for there the setting up (though the date was not specified) of some sort of a provident fund for these permanent labourers. In Palghat, permanent labourers get more days of work per season than casual labourers. For this reason, from the labourers' point of view, there are many advantages to being registered w i t h the panchayat as a particular landowner's permanent labourer. In addition, there was the hope that they could also ultimately take advantage of the provident fund. On the other hand, the landowners have not been at all happy about the new agricultural wages Act. There is a provision in the Act exempting house holds owning less than one hectare of land. What is striking is that many small landowning households and even large landowners partitioned their lands even further in 1975, in many cases showing it against the names of minor children. Still other devices have been resorted to by some landowners to evade the Act. According to one union organiser; There is a provision in the Act that a farmer can dismiss a labourer if he brings loss to the farmer. But there is no definition of loss in the Act. So, if a labourer slips on a bund in the rain and some of the paddy in the bundle he is carrying gets separated from the hay due to the fall, the farmer can say he brought a loss of one or two measures and dismiss h i m . We have had so many cases like that There are a number of other ways to create a case against particular labourers to get them dismissed if the land-

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lords are determined to do so. They have not always been successful because of the unions. What was striking to us, working in this region in the autumn of 1975 and the winter of 1976, was the extent of Marxist and other union activity. While strikes were illegal during the Emergency, in this area, at least during the first year, there had been, if anything, an increase in the pace of agricultural union membership drives and attempts to educate the labourers. Furthermore, while strikes were illegal, work stoppages were not. In those pockets where the labourers were really well-organised, they were able to take advantage of the permanent labour system to pressure the landowners to pay the minimum wage according to the wages Act. Elsewhere, there continued to be considerable variation in what was actually being paid to labourers. On the basis of informal interviewing in the district, we concluded that the crucial variable was and still continues to be labour organising. Not only were the Marxists left relatively free to organise the labourers, but the other unions (the small C P I unions and the growing but still small Congress unions) have been vying w i t h one another to see how many people they can get registered in each panchayat as permanent labourers. On the whole, one had the feeling of people fighting and moving forward in the Palghat area in a way that was missing in Kuttanad. And despite the extent of antagonism between landlord and labourer, there was much less sharp polarisation one-and-a-half years ago between the landless and the small landowners than in Kuttanad, though the larger land-owners in Palghat certainly saw the labourers as their main problem. In our interviews in a number of villages, the bigger landlords almost uniformly complained about the cost of labour, and the fact that the labourers were not so obedient nowadays. It was only as an after thought that they would then complain about the high price of fertilisers or pesticides. These tensions between the landlords have increased markedly in the past two years, and have come to include at least some of the smaller landowners. This is discussed below. An additional factor perhaps complicating the picture in Palghat (and I would suspect also in the area around Trichur) is that at least some of the former jenmis who lost their land as a result of land reform have become quite

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take it out on arc the labourers. The following quotes from individuals interviewed during our Palghat study will perhaps illustrate the human i m plications of the preceding discussion. First, a few quotes from 1975-76: A well-to-do cultivator: For the past so m a n y years we were cultivators. Previously, we did not have as much as we have now. We came here 32 years ago. At that time the jenmi of this land told us that he could look alter that land better, so we should move and look after this land. We have 30 acres here, and 10 in M and another 5 we are not cultivating because it is waste land. We have about 25 permanent labourers here and 15 in M. This year I am doing less of the hybrid seeds because when you take into account the costs of fertilisers, etc and the extra labour, it is not w o r t h it even if the yield is better. If we sell the paddy for less than Rs 1,000 per cartload it is difficult to manage, and this year it is seven or eight hundred rupees. Last year it was Rs 1,250. The government has introduced a new wages bill. I f they insist that we should pay at such a high rate then they must keep the price of paddy up. It is true that we get more and more yield, but prices are higher than ever and most of the fanners are in debt. My children are all educated and working. We also partitioned the land way hack in 1962. The government wants to take one acre of land and give it to a poor person and form a society. But it won't work. Nobody is responsible in co-operative farming. So. it won't work. Simply go and write report in the night, that is all. A landowner who is also a Marxist worker: This year we are giving 5 and 6 measures. According to the new Act it is 6 and 7, but i t is possible to give only this much. Four years back it was 4 and 5. That next house, he is having trouble w i t h the labourers. For 3 years, he is the trouble maker. Of course because I am a sympathiser w i t h the party I w i l l say that. In everything tie is like that. After the land reform, he is not giving anything to the landlord. He has 25-30 acres of good double corp land. See, what you require is good behaviour w i t h the labourers. Even it1 you pay less than what is prescribed, they won't mind. If you behave harshly with then), even if von give more it is not enough. In the beginning I was paving more because I am an active worker. We were, the first to give 1: 10 when the rate was 1: 16. We must not be harsh w i t h the workers, and if they do something wrong, we must instruct nicely. We give them for the full day's work even if there is only half day needed. A former jenmi who still has 10 acres ; It is true that the tenants got the land from us. But it is not benefiting the labourers in any way, Even the good that we were doing

bitter, and though they have not joined the CPI(M), give strong support to the ''Congress left". As one man put it: Look at us, we have lost everything. Ami now we are starving. Yet look at Y, he was my tenant before. Now he has a new car and lives like a king. He has also built a new house w i t h all facilities. And the labourers what have they got? Now their wage is more, but they are not paying. Those former tenants know how to extract work from the labourers. Not like us. We used to give them presents for many occasions, and help w i t h so many things. They call this socialism, making us poor and the former tenants rich. This is not socialism. Somehow, it would have been easier to take even if we were poor, if they had helped the poor and not simply created a new class of rich. If they want socialism, let it be real socialism. People habouring such sentiments clearly w i l l not go out to fight for the labourers, but they w i l l not oppose them either. Tine perception of the labourers of the changes in agrarian relations are not consistent, and depend in many ways on the particular local situation. In the two villages where we collected detailed materials, we found certain striking differences. In the first village, where today there are no very large landowners and only a handful of

medium size ones and where previously the jenmis were especially powerful we find that of those labourers answering the question about differences in the behaviour of the landlords, the majority claimed that the new jenmis behaved better than the old landlords, though even here close to a third claimed that previously the relationship between the landlord and the labourers was more cordial. In the second village, where the former jenmis had been mostly absentee landlords, and where there are quite a few households of former tenants with large holdings, only a few labourers claimed that the old landlords were worse. The majority either claimed that the previous landlord-labourer relationship was more cordial, or else commented on new improvements in their conditions such as the reduction in hours of work brought about by union activity. For their part, the new landowners, especially those who have experienced a major improvement in their life style, tend to see the labourers as the enemy, as wanting to take everything away from them. They fear that their newfound prosperity may be short-lived. Having experienced such prosperity, they are resentful of the government's unwillingness to provide price supports, or subsidise the cost of pesticides and fertilisers. Yet, the only ones they can

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Annual Number February 1978 for the labourers the new landlords are not doing. The old jenmis even in the middle of the night used to extend help to the labourers by way of cash if need be, but the present landlords are not like that. They w i l l say do your work and earn your wages. They w i l l not give loans. A n d if the labourers refuse to work, then the male and female members at their families [the new landowners families] w i l l enter the fields and work. In this village some landlords have had trouble w i t h labourers. After harvesting, before entering the field they would not talk of any fixed terms or anything. After the harvesting was over, when the bundles were on the bunds and may be it was raining or something, or even the owner was not in station, only his wife or son supervising, they would demand increased rate. This used to happen. It was the work of the political parties. They are extracting Its 3 from the labourers now for registering them w i t h the panchayat. They tell them that there are so many facilities and that they can have this and that, 'They are the ones who create; all sorts of problems in the agricultural field. The workers do not care about all of these facilities. W h a t they want is work all 365 days of the year. They do not even care ii they only get Rs 4 per day it they get work throughout. The government has to take steps to help the workers, not by increasing wages, but by setting up factories or cottage industries where they can get work when there is no work in the fields. In the old days I used to give 2-1/2 measures, now it is 5. But the volume of work they do is less. Even if the labourers are w i l l i n g , the unions w i l l not let them work as before. A landowner who manages 18 acres of double-cropped paddy land: [tie was a tenant formerly. Since 1970, he is not paying rent, though he gives small amounts to the former jenmis so that when he has to pay compensation he won't be paying too much.] Five years before, we did not have car, now I have that. No fridge before, now we have that. N o w I am constructing an overhead tank for household purpose. I also have added a new section to my house. Even the labourers are better off. Then they worked from morning to evening and only got 10 : 1. N o w they work less and get 6 : 1 . They get more paddy. 1 get along well w i t h labourers. I pay them well. So they themselves realise that the labourers of the neighbour house get less, so they keep quiet and do not bother me. [ N o mention of less days.] A landowner with 18 acres of paddy fields and a large rubber estate : See. there is no work now in my fields. The labourers are striking, so no work. I was prepared to give the prescribed wage b u t they work too slow. They know they w i l l get the 8 and 7 wages but they are not prepared to work. They say 8 hours of work; come at 7.30, go at 12.30, back at 1.30 and go at 4.30. But they are doing only the work of half that. Last year they transplanted in 30 cents in one day, this year only 10 cents. I have 23 permanent workers. If I call one, all the 23 want to work together. Usually these 23 people w i l l harvest 23 plots in a day. But this year all 23 wanted to work together. Thev d i d only 60 cents in all. [But don't they get a share for harvest?] Yes. but they want to get me. I started giving 6 : 1. They don't want to do it on time, so that I w i l l get some loss. [Later on we were told that . the workers are doing this because he is calling them only for transplanting and harvesting. He does not do any weeding, and uses the society for pesticides. . , So to spite him. they are following this go-slow tactic. This shows the lack of understanding. In another field nearby there was a 16-day strike. Finally the landlord had to take them back at their terms. Now they are cutting hack on the labour] Previously I had 19 women weeding. They would not p u l l the Weeds along w i t h the roots, but simply pull haphazardly and the roots would break and in no time the weed w i l l grow once again. If 1 need 5 women the first time I w i l l need 8 next time. So now, I supervise' the work carefully and have less weeds. A cultivator who is managing about 70 acres and Juts over 100 permanent labourers: In Palghat the fanners are downtrodden. In Kuttanad they can employ any number of labourers, but here we can only employ our permanent labourers. Even for harvest we can only use our permanent labourers. For one acre, it used to take 20 people one day, but w i t h new high-yielding varieties they only do 70 cents. N o w we are using tractor. We onbecause cattle for 3-4 acres where it is waterlogged or something out of every 20. Nowadays the men only come for ploughing at 8 in the morning; previously they used to come at 3 in the morning and to plough as if it was their own land. Previously they used to sing and work. Now, if they sing someone will tease them. A group of agricultural labourers in the presence of Congress labour union officials: I have no permanent work now. Whenever I am called I go. There are two permanent labourers there now. I was working for them for the last 3 years, but now I say I am not a permanent labourer. This year I went for his weeding work. Then I was doing his household, sweeping the compound, cleaning the cow-shed, carrying water from the river when there was no water in his well. W h e n I entered the field to do the weeding, it was not possible to p u l l out each weed. Then he called me saying I need not go there. The paddy plant was so tall it was difficult to weed. He started hurrying me to finish the work. I d i d not say anything. He paid me cash for weeding Rs 3.50. For transplanting also I get only Rs 3.50. [Several other workers came up and said they too were getting only Rs 3.50 for weeding or transplanting.] Discussion with a group of labourers in the second study village Here we are getting 6 : 1 pathambu (share) and 4 and 5 as wages. But at X (2 miles away) they are getting 6 and 7. They are permanent workers and they argue and get. Here, the cultivators are not making us permanent. When they heard this permanent system coming, they dismissed us. We have given our names to the panchayat, b u t still they tell us to go away. Here the union is not as strong. There must be unity among the workers. It is not here. In Ward I, that side they are getting more from last 3 years. Once the transplanting is done the agriculturists do not weed. They look the other side. In cases we have registered, they bring in false points and take case against those labourers who mentioned their names. Women Maixist Organiser, who is also an agricultural labourer: I am getting 6 measures during season, and 5 at other times. For harvest I am getting 0: 1. Seine workers have not joined the union because they are scared they w i l l lose their job, and the relationship w i l l worsen between them and their employers. If we ask for more money the culitvator gets angry. Otherwise, they are more friendly. My employer makes me do some work along w i t h prescribed work such as shopping, grinding, taking paddy to the m i l l , without giving anything extra. Even today I had to clean some rice and d i d not get anything for i t . In o l d time it was the same. First time we went for weeding he gave 5 measures, second time he gave 4. When 8 people go for harvesting one is kept in the house for housework. The other 7 have to give a shave to this 8th woman. [ W e ask if they didn't protest.] No, if they won't agree it won't work. They are afraid they w i l l lose. We must all stand together b u t some are afraid. Union Leader: The only way is to get them all to unite. Still, many labourers are afraid. If one person asks for i t , the other 5 must also stand by i t . If one woman asks for something and the other 7 women do not share their wages w i t h her. there w i l l be a change. If y o u are strict, he has to give her the wages. They are saying that when 4 of us unite, and ask for more, the others act as if they are not in the group So the cultivator w i l l say that Lakshmi is the troublemaker and get r i d of her. If everyone is as one, then it won't be like that. District Congress Committee Union Organiser and a Youth Congress Leader; We must organist the workers. It is we who pu

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through the wages bill, but i f the labourers do not come forward what can we do? We must organise them, to demand the new wage. Actually, ultimately the land must go to them at least one acre for each labouring household. You ask how that can be. We say by legislation. You need only add one clause to the present Act not allowing absentee landowners. A n d thenwill be enough land. We are fighting for that. Even we must fight the feudal and reactionary people in our own Party. But we will succeed in the next 10-15 years. It may be useful to add here a few quotes from interviews during the montoon season of 1977, in order to understand the changes that have occurred : A fairly large-owner, If everyone else gave the IRC wage, then I would give. But, generally no one is giving. It is not possible, because costs of cultivation are too much. All the ministers know we can't give and are not giving. [Only a few days earlier several Ministers had mad- statements that the TRC wage was being implemented.] The labourers are not demanding now because if they do, they will get no work, so they accept what they are given. We have to cut on operations, or work in order to try to bring labourers' wages within the limit we were giving previously. Previously, I used to weed one more time, now I am not doing. I used to hire women to cut grass on the bunds, but not any more. Like that, many small operations. Another large Landowner complained about the price of paddy, and said that even if cutting back on operations meant a somewhat lower yield, it was preferable; anyhow the cost of paddy was so low, so what was the use:' Among the labourers, the following were among the comments made to us during 1977: Some Marxist labourers : If we work we get the prescribed wage.-,, only they are giving less days of work. Those cultivators who do give weeding work do only one-ball. They say it is enough if I get onehalf yield. My landlord is now doing the straw work himself, simply not to give to us. before we got 1 or 2 days of work from that. He can. afford it . . . Some other labourers working for a Marxist landowner : We are getting 0 and 5 measures now. previously 7 and 6 But, some others are giving even less now . . . some give 5 and 4. For casual labour they give cash only. Some are giving
as little as Rs 2.50 or 3, SOME Rs 5.

hunger, so we, must w o r k . . . The union is not doing much If I don't come for work for lower wages, others w i l l come. So only my children w i l l starve. These passages illustrate perhaps more graphically than the words of any outside observer the flavour of the disagreements and tensions among the different contenders in the rural scene in Palghat. as well as some of the ways these have become more focused during the past two years. It is clear that some feudal-type features remain, and that there is a long distance to travel for those involved in organising the poor. Some sections of the labourers are becoming more and more militant, and are getting the support of not only the Marxists but all the Congress left, not an insignificant group in the party in Kerala. It should be noted that they, along with their ally the CPI. made a considerable dent in the Marxist stronghold of Palghat in the recent assembly elections, securing 7 out of 11 seats. On the other hand, it was quite striking (in July 1977) howorganised the landlords had become, and how strong they are in their determination to bring down wages. The falling price of paddy has partly sparked this, but also the influence of Kuttenad leaders could be noted. Even in 1976, one landowners' association leader had told us that they were having 'consultations' with Kuttanad agriculturists. The results of this consultation could clearly be discerned.

the years the scarcity, of land for habitation having prompted such transformations. It should be noted that on this 'habitable land' there is a i m putation density of well over 10,000 people per square mile, These lands have an elevation of only 3-4 feet above the main water level, and they are generally submerged during the monsoon floods. Large Nayar taravads were built about 0-8 feet from the ground. They could not, however, build rnultistoried buildings because they would have collapsed. Among the poor, houses tend to become islands in the monsoon, and in many cases people have to spend days or even weeks on their roof-tops. There are only two crops, rice and coconut. We shall only discuss rice cultivation, since this is the occupation that absorbs most of the population. There are three main types of land in Kuttanad. The largest area the karappadams are old reclamations, extending over an area of 102.000 acres. They vary from one to seven feet below the water level. The second type of area is known as the kayal, These are new land reclamations which lie at 10-20 feet below sea-level. This area is divided into contiguous blocks called padisekharams bounded by canals, rivers or other partitions. They vary from 10 to 2,500 acres. In some of these large padisekharams, especially the newer ones, there are no houses at all, the labourers having to come and go by boat each day. In some of the older ones, especially the one known as 'R block', there are numerous houses on the bunds and even on the so-called drier portions. The third kind of land is known as kari land. These are swampy areas with black peaty soil high acidity. About half of one of our sample villages consisted of kari land. The main system of cultivation is known as punja cultivation (Pillai and Paniker. 1965:28-31). A punja field is submerged under water during the larger part of the year. One of the features of punja cultivation is the bunding and baling out of the water before the fields are recovered for cultivation. Cultivation occurs after draining the fields, though one does occasionally see the start of ploughing on fields even before they have been fully drained. Thus, one may see the head and shoulders of a man and the heads of bullocks moving along in the water, and one knows they are ploughing. The basic system of cultivation is 357

Kuttanad
As noted above, the major part of Kuttanad is in Alleppey district, with smaller parts in Kottayam and kulam districts. The Kuttanad area stands out in marked contrast to Palghat because of the early capitalisation of agriculture there. as well as the early development of labour unions. Agriculture in this area is vastly dif ferent from any other Part of Kerala, or for that matter any other part of South Asia. It is hard to document what it was like prior to the nineteenth century, but from the nineteenth century on, it assumed its special distinctive pattern, as vast areas of land below sea level were gradually drained and brought under cultivation. In the area known as Kuttanad, two-thirds of the total area is taken up with rice lands. Until fairly recently, there were practically no roads in the area, all communication being by boat. The dry graden lands in Kuttanad are of limited extent, as these lands have been raised in patches from the low wet lands over

But we must work or we w i l l starve. Some agricultural labourers working in pouring rain near the roadside : This Maharaja called for work today. We do not know what we are getting, but for past 4 days no work. Our children are crying from

the same in the karapaddams and koyal and kari land, hut pumping out is harder in the ease of kayal lands because they are so far below sealevel. Cultivation can start after the southwest monsoon subsides in October or so, though sometimes ploughing starts in late August or early September if the rains subside. The crop is usually harvested in March in order to avoid the incursion on of salinity from nearby lakes. Most of the padisekharams are fairty large. The reclamations were really quite remarkable, feats. For the most part they were carried out by entrepreneurs with the help of a large, pauperised agricultural labour class. The reclamations of the kayal lands in Vembanad Lake at the turn of the century, which we know more about, represented very risky investments: but because of the low cost of labour, if a man did succeed in reclaiming land from water, he could reap incredible rewards. The cost of reclaiming land, according to Pillai and Paniker (1965: 19). was much lower than the going price of rice fields, which was about Rs 500 to Rs 700. This new investment paid rich dividends, the entire initial investment could be reimbursed from the net income of one or two croppings, if all went well. Because of the nature of the land, it is necessary to earn- out cultivation operations differently. Thus, within any given padisekharam, it is necessary that all of the main operations be carried out at approximately the same time. Everyone owning land in a given field will have his lands ploughed, seedlings planted and transplanted and the crop harvested on the same days. Only the days of weeding may vary, and that too only by a very few days. Again, because of the peculiarities of Kuttanad agriculture, the majority of farmers owning land in the same field tend to use the same or a similar kind of seed, as opposed to most other rice regions of South India (including most of Kerala) where quite different varieties of seed have always been grown on adjacent fields. The result of this pattern of cultivation is that there maybe a huge demand for labour for a few days in a given locality, followed by no work for a long period of time. Apart from harvesting, where a share is given, labourers have been paid in cash for quite some time in Kuttanad, It is beyond the scone of this paper to go into the history of labour agitations and labour struggles in Kuttanad, but organised struggles date back to famous Punnapra-Vayalar police firing 358

of 1946. Serveral authors have dealt with the question of agricultural labour in Kerala. (Mencher 1973, Gopalan 1959. Oomanen 1971) Pillai and Paniker (1965:118) point out that reclamation-cum-farming in the Kuttanad developed against a predominantly feudal background. They note that "both demanded the services of large numbers of labourers. The landowners who in earlier days were mostly caste Hindus were loath to work in the fields and employed hired labour". Much of the new reclamations wore done by Christians. They had also been the former tenants who had become landowners as a result of land reforms, which occurred earlier in Travancore than elsewhere in Kerala. The divorce between ownership of land and work in the fields was as complete as in Palghat. From early days the labourers were drawn from a few untouchable castes (including, in more recent times, Christian converts from these same castes). The relationship between the attached labourers and the landed proprietors was feudal: the entire family of the worker was attached to the landowner. With the expansion of the cultivable land early in this century, there was a massive increase in the demand for labour, especially during the harvest season. Agricultural labourers from surrounding districts regularly migrate into the Kuttanad area for a period of four to six weeks, living as a floating population and participating in the harvest. To the ranks of these workershave been added, in the past few years, coir workers (the coir industry right now is in a bad shape and workers are often out of work or badly paid), am] fishermen, including their wives, who find that they can supplement their catch of fish by getting a few large measures of paddy from harvesting. The depression in the fishing industry cansed by large-scale motorised fishing, and the general modernisation of that industry w i t h a focus on exports, has hit the average fisherman badly. Panikar has noted that it was almost inevitable that in this area union activity would develop. He notes that agricultural labourers compare very unfavourably with other classes or labourers, having no regular employment, no fixed hours, no compensation in case of death, etc. According to Paniker, "Demands for wage increase among the agricultural labourers must be considered as a desperate effort to ensure a minimum annual income for their family where employment is so.

limited and uncertain. Union activity among the agricultural labourers developed earlier here than elsewhere, in large part, because of the proximity to Alleppey and development of labour unions in the coir industry as well as among the tea workers" (1972:37-8). The present author has discussed this in greater detail elsewhere (Mencher 1973.) Paniker also notes (1972:35) that there had been a steady decline in the real wages of agricultural labourers in Kuttanad from 1944-45 to 1967-68, despite increases in the money wages, duo to increases in the price of paddy. From 1907-68 on there was some increase in real wages, so that in 197071, the paddy equivalent of the daily money wage of a male agricultural labourer was just 8.7 per cent above the 1944-45 level. If anything, the labourers are earning less today than they did in 1970-71. despite the fact that the official wage in Kuttanad is higher than that stipulated by the Agricultural Wages Act of 1975. From the labourers' point of view, this is due more to the expansion of the work force than to inflation. Nowadays during the harvest season, the workers measure the amount of time employed in minutes, not in hours or days. Over and over again, women would talk about getting 45 minutes or one hour and 20 minutes in a day for harvesting a field. This would always be accompanied w i t h tales of the number of days they had spent wandering around looking for work, and the problems of there being too many workers. In some instances this has been partly countered by an additional crop being cultivated, but as is shown below, only a small proportion of the land available for cultivation during the second season (the season that corresponds to the first and main growing period in the rest of Kerala and in most of India) is actually being cultivated. The main reason being given for this situation is the poor price of paddy. The extreme development of capitalist fanning in Kuttanad and adjacent areas led to strong politically active agricultural labour unions from the 1930s to the 1960s, and even up to the early 1970s. Indeed, a plethora of unions, led by the Congress, the CPT, and the CPT(M) grew, though clearly the majority of unskilled workers belonged to the CPI(M) union. It also led, to the development of a totally new set of social relations of production, whereby there was very little attachment of individual labourers to any particular piece of lanil, or even

ECONOMIC A N D P O L I T I C A L W E E K L Y to any particular locality. Thus, one now finds vast hordes of labourers descending on an area at harvest time, and very little of personal ties existing with the land. In the period following the formation of labour unions, there was strong agitation for improving the quality of work (shorter hours, etc) and increasing the rate of wages, both in cash (for seasons other than harvest) and in kind (at harvest time). And clearly, through the long hard struggle, the rates of wages have gone up. But this process created strange bed-fellows. Thus, in 1976, it was not only the landowners who feared the loss of crops at harvest time (when literally thousands crowd into some of the larger fields at 8 am in order to begin the harvesting, which might be completed two hours later), but also the local labourers, who have seen their earnings diminish as the number of hours of harvesting dwindle due to the pressure of numbers of people. Both these groups seemed to approve the system of passes handed out by people who owned land in a given field and enforced by the police. Both landowners and labourers accepted the use of the police to supervise harvesting operations. There are other peculiarities of the. Kuttanad situation: (1) the small landowner with less than an acre of paddy land is as likely to see a vast army of people harvesting his land as the man with 30 acres. l i e cannot protest, though he might try to get all of his relatives from far and wide to climb down into his field when the siren sounds, so that at least people he knows can gel a share of the produce. (2) It is rare to find permanent labourers who work with a given landowner and really know all of the details of cultivation, budget, costs of production, etc as well as the landowner himself, such as one finds elsewhere. (3) When the Kerala Government, under pressure from the OPI(M), set up three state farms on land confiscated from the wealthiest large landowner-cum-businessman in Kuttanad. it was run the same way as before. 3,000 labourers were allotted one acre of land each, but the farms themselves were run by the Government, The 'owners' simply received their wages for each day of work. In fact, the wages paid were slightly lower than the prevailing wages, since they were considered to be working on their own land. This setting up of state farms was done without the kind of commitment that might have come from the labourers, had it been run as a co-operative with the labourers, and not government bureaucrats, in decision-making positions. Furthermore, political considerations dominated in choosing labourers for each of the state farms. Since they were being run as capitalist businesses, obviously their first consideration was profit. Thus, they decided not to plant a monsoon crop in 1976 because the Government felt that there would not be enough of a profit, even though it would have provided extra employment for the labourers. There was no protest from the labourers about this decision. In order to classify the parameters of the present situation in the Kuttauad area, I think it would be useful to quote from some of the protagonists in the situation: Some labourers in the sample village having half kari land : Now all are working in the fields. We must go to other places, otherwise? we cannot live. We go to the other side of the river, that is also this village. Then we also go to several other villages, not very far away. We normally get Rs 7 and Rs 10 as wages. Here we have to work six hours continuously, and really work hard. There w i l l be one among us who will act as a supervisor, and also the owner of the field will be there. . .. But nowadays, this 'six hours continuously', nobody gets. The number of labourers has increased so much, there w i l l be so many who enter the field. So we get work for two or three hours. or sometimes only one hour. They calculate at the rate of Rs 7 per day and give us accordingly. We have to work even in the rain for six hours. Here the landowners do not employ the same persons these next year also. They always change people, because then they are afraid that the labourers w i l l start fighting over their rights and all that. A landowner in the kaval region: The land here is a problem. 1 wanted only 10 women, but to select only ten from the local area is a problem. So I had to select 20. They work for three hours and go. Now there is not much problem for us, they listen, but a time w i l l come. . . political leaders will say yon give them work, there is no part-time work. What we need in Kuttanad is absolute right to select people to work and to fix their number. . . . When this Emergency was declared, there was specific instruction that if a cultivator asked for police protection, he could get it. He could restrict the numbers coming for harvesting. We applied. But some 600-800 people came for harvesting. We wanted only 300. What to do? The police cannot send them away. So there was a talk and a compromise made and we took 450. Still, at least not 600. It is easier in the kayal lands. There even if 600 or 800 come we can

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February 1978

use them all. Here, there are only small acreages to each person. Now, even for harvesting double the labourers come. . . . [He goes on complaining about his problems with cultivation, with living conditions in the area, etc. He has to spend Rs 10,000 a year for his children in boarding schools. And the price of rice is low and the labourers demand too much.] The labourers behave in such a way that we do not even feel like going to our fields. They are so haughty. . .. My son works in a bank now. We cannot depend on the land anymore, so I 'allowed him to work. . . . The labourers come and enter the land and they decide how many should harvest and so on. We have to stand on the bund and witness the damage done by so many labourers. . . ." Some untouchable labourers living on an island in the kaval area : We are only labourers here. Some special labourers of the cultivator would get first preference. Others would get only after that. So many times we had even to come back without getting work. When so many people come, they give coupons, to those who stay in the locality. Four persons for 10 tents. Only alter the neighbours are given the coupons, then the others from outside get it. Altogother got about 25 days, but there were days when I did not get even one para of paddy, and days when I got one para or more. In one day it may be 15 minutes, sometimes 10 m i nutes, sometimes 20 minutes. But never more than one para for a day. Previously we have harvest even for two or three hours a day. Even last year it was much better. For weeding, we get about one to two months. It is for a full five hours, only sometimes it max not be. . . . Somehow we manage, sometimes we don't even cook. sometimes we have sumptuous meals. We don't get any work now for 15-20 more days. Somehow, we manage w i t h the balance of last harvest's paddy. Now the floods will come and we have to live on top of the houses. We prepare platforms and use tables and benches and stay on top of the house. A Government officer . Previously the farmers would cultivate their land using the money they got by selling paddy. Now they are getting government loans. It they take a loan they will not use all of it for agriculture. When they harvest they do not pay back in full. Then they borrow horn others. That is why they are so bitter. They are simply saying that the labourers are the reason for their bitterness. Actually, the consumer prices' have not gone down, only the partly; price. So, if the wages are reduced the labourers will not be able to live. The big cultivators, what they do is after the harvest they sell the paddy and put the money and make the labourers work on credit. . . . It is true there was brown hopper, hut it was not so bad as they say. Their aim is 359

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ECONOMIC A N D P O L I T I C A L W E E K L Y to hoodwink the labourers. They sell the produce and tell the labourer that they are in difficulty. Actually, they are not so badly off. The relationship between the employer and labourer is so bad that the employer wants the labourer to be downtrodden. So they bring police and threaten the labourers. . .. Some of the rich cultivators are able to convince Government that they are having a very difficult, time and all that. It is not because of high wages that the cultivators are losing out, but because of the high price of fertilisers and pesticides, I have six acres, but I do not mind paying the labourers their due wage, because I know that my problems are not due to the high wages. Most of the bigger cultivators in Kuttanad are Christians, they got their land due to land reforms. Now that the wages have gone up they are forced to share their good fortune with the labourers. So they are more bitter. Because the labourers simply refuse to become slaves anymore. They are more educated these days. . .. If the cultivator does some injustice the labourer announces that and accuses him of doing it. Since the Emergency some of the cultivators are trying to reduce the levy, hiding paddy in some poor person's house after bribing him. Some labourers will inform the authorities. Now we have to collect levy for the government, from the big landlords especially, w i t h police protection. Fifteen years back labourers used to get into the fields at 7 am arid work till 6-7 pm. And they would get one rupee at the most, Now they work for only five hours and that is another reason for the hostility, But still, their living conditions are terrible. In monsoon their condition is pitiable. A cultivator who is also an organiser among the cultivators : We are purely an agriculturalists' association. Indira Gandhi says that the land is for the labourer but we say that, the land should remain with the actual cultivator. Nobody is there to help the cultivators. Here, the workers are getting more and working less hours. To us who produce the foodgrains. government is not showing consideration. Even when we have difficulties the labourers are not prepared to compromise or to help. In one field we have decided not to do the second crop, because the labourers will not work one extra hour as we have asked them. So they w i l l now get less work altogether. In any case, the price of paddy is low, so why cultivate an extra crop? Still, I am doing 20 acres of second crop. They w i l l earn 7 and 10. But, we are not giving the full amount now. We ask them to work on credit. We give 8 and 5 and the rest w i l l be given after harvest.. . . Now they are strengthening the bunds and all, so that people in Kuttanad can grow two crops with security. But what is the use, if we do that, the price w i l l go down even more, We w i l l produce as much as we can, but there must be a guarantee from the Government side that they w i l l give us a percentage of our cost of cultivation. They should know. They are not growing the second crop on the Government farm because they say it is uneconomic. The business people can buy and sell at any price, but we poor cultivators are curbed. We are taxed in so many ways; the minister finally said let the. landless decisions be w i t h each panchayat, but in our panchayat it is not abolished. [He then went on to complain about having to pay the ploughmen under the law, even when he manages to rent a tractor] I h e y should help us, but Government is more concerned about the votes of the labourers than about progress in cultivation. I want to withdraw from this field, but there is none to buy it. Nowadays more poor people are buying land, they buy one or two acres. But we are net getting a good price, so I can't sell. Sometimes we are afraid to go to the fields because of the labour disputes. Only this Emergency brought peace to this place. There were so many fights here. The labourers are well organised. But now, we cultivators are getting organised too. Talk with one of the above cultivator's labourers on the same day : Today I only got three hours. That is all the work, I got four rupees. So, 1 bought one Kilo of rice. So wo will cat some kanji (rice gruel mixed with a lot of water) and some fried fish. For our entire family, only that four rupees. My husband could not get any work. We must buy rice daily. We do not have anything left after harvest. We are paid in paddy at the harvest time, but then we must sell some in order to buy other things. .. . Our fate is to sell the paddy at a lower price at the time of harvest, and then harvest we need to buy at higher price. At least now there is some work. After this, it will stop. And no use asking for loans, because cultivators won't give and shopkeepers also won't give. So we mostly will starve. How can we expect anything? The shop people cannot supply to all labourers on credit. They do not get things on credit from wholesalers. The fall in the price of paddy that started in late 1975 has in part exacerbated the tensions, especially in the Kuttanad area. This price fall was the result of a number of factors, including more favourable rains in Tamil Nadu and a generally better harvest in the country as a whole. Thus, in 1975-76, not only was the procurement price for levy paddy low, but also the general market price. This especially affected the cultivators since they had enjoyed exceptionally high prices in 1974-75, as well as in the previous two years, Many had expanded their way of living, w i t h high expectations for the

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February 1978

future, many had bought cars, built new houses, or sent children away to schools and colleges in other parts of the country. They had also used their profits to invest in other money-making businesses, In addition, in 1975-70, some of the cultivators suffered losses due to the 'brown hopper' pest. Though there seems to be a major disagreement between government levy procurers and cultivators as to how severe the brown hopper menace was, it is clear that it had been selective, and that while some cultivators suffered a great deal, the majority only suffered minor damage. Nonetheless, it also served to further harness the discontent of the cultivators. What was striking to us going around in Kuttanad. was that the first complaints made were uniformly against (he agricultural labourers, but when asked for more details, cultivators would readily complain about the higher price of fertilisers and pesticides. (They had gone up about threefold during a period of six or seven years.) It b clear that there is a tremendous amount of tension and bitterness between the tenants and labourers. According to one of the labour leaders in Palghat: Only if the cultivators and the agricultural labourers go forth with the same opinion or attitude towards cultivation can there be pi ogress. - . . But now . the cultivator is not getting enough for his produce, so he is disappointed. On the other hand, the labourer is not getting enough incentive to work more hard and more sincerely in the fields.... So the cultivation suffers. For the benefit of the cultivator and the labourer, this land has to go to a common owner instead of individual farmers. It has to be some sort of co-operative farming instead of individual holdings. When that comes into existence the worker has the consolation that the result of his hard labour does not benefit one individual but a common group even if he has to work hard . In Kuttanad, in part because of the earlier development of capitalist farming and (as a concomitant to this) the development of an active labour movement from the 1940s on, the polarisation between landowner and labourer is even more sharp than in Palghat though Palghat is rapidly catching up. From their respective vantage points, what the cultivators say and what the labourers say is equally true. At present (November 1977) there are cultivators in Kuttanad sitting w i t h paddy from the second harvest in their granaries which they cannot sell because the price is so low, and no one really wants to

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Annual Number buy the paddy to stock-pile it. Yet at the same time, there are also labourers going hungry. In his note of dissent to the Kuttanad report in 1971, Panikar noted that the price of rice may fall when better seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc become available. Subsidies given to farmers in the region will also be withdrawn. Labourers will resist the fall in real wages by fighting for higher wages. Thus cultivation in Kuttanad will become less viable over the years. The alternative he suggests (as opposed to the one suggested above by the Marxist labour leader) is peasant farming in the strict sense of the term: allowing the present owners to keep only that amount of land which they themselves physically can work on, and distributing the rest to the landless labourers who work on the land. I would agree w i t h Panikar that redistribution of the land would certainly alter the situation in the. Kuttanad area, but I do not see peasant farming (in the strictest sense of the term) as meaningful in the area. Elsewhere (Mencher 1977). I have noted that in the context of Indian rice cultivation, the concept of the 'peasant farm household' is misleading. Even on the smallest parcels of land, there are always periods of time when many labourers are needed. In the sample villages studied in Kerala, as well as others I have studied elsewhere, even among those who own half-an-acre or so of paddy land, there is a seasonal requirement for outside help, even if the owners themselves must at other times go out as day labourers. In such a context, while redistribution is certainly an important step, it is clear that it c o u l d only make sense if it is followed up immediately by genuine co-operative farming. Certainly the productive forces of the society demand it, not only in Kuttanad, but (as noted above) also in the Palghat area. And certainly the agricultural labourers, are ready for i t . However, it is clear that at present this is a political hot potato. To begin with, for it to work, absentee landownership would have to be abolished. It would not be possible for someone employed in Bombay, or even in T r i vandrum, to continue to own village paddy land (though they might continue to own houses for their retirement). But even many of the Marxist leaders are absentee landowners. Thus, at least some sections of the left leadership would not support such a move whole-heartedly. Yet absentee land-ownership has been one of the most widely used devices to avoid land ceilings. It would be necessary to have some special provisions for elderly people or women w i t h small children who physically cannot work the land, so that they can continue to own small pieces of land. But such humanitarian considerations need not stand in the way of meaningful land redistribution on the basis of land to the tiller. However, the possibility of such legislation being passed, even in Kerala (despite its history of radical land reforms) is not high. Actually, redistribution would be harder to carry out in the Kuttanad area than in Palghat for a number of reasons. As noted above, in the Palghat area, the major part of cultivation operations are carried out by permanent labourers who have worked for a given landlord year after year, and who see themselves as asso ciated with particular parcels of land. (If the land is partitioned. the labourers expect to be divided among the parceners. If it is sold, and the new owners do not need them, they expect to receive a share of the sale money.) In addition, as a result of the land relonn in 1970, the land has now gone to the former tenants, at least some of whom are making good profits. However, this is deeply resented by the labourers: and this feeling exists even where the 'new owners' participate in cultivation more than the former jenmis J would suspect that because Palghat did not develop capitalist relations in land until relatively recently, it could in fact be easier in the future to mobilise the labourers in Palghat in a land-to-the-tiller programme, as copared w i t h Kuttanad. Furthermore, I suspect that it will be harder for the 'new landowners' in Palghat to fight such a programme than it w i l l for the Kuttanad capitalist farmers. To begin w i t h , in Kuttanad the landowners are very familiar w i t h every tactic of the labour unions, Furthermore' at least in many areas, they can make use of kinship ties to boycott the unions; this is especially true among the Christian landowners. In 1972, when the labourers called a strike in an area near Kuttanad, landowners called up all their poor relations and some rich ones too and got them to harvest the crops. It is true that the new owners in Palghat are more likely to do this than the former jenmis. Many of these new owners are Ezhavas and have worked for years in the fields. Yet only a small proportion of the labourers are

February 1978

Ezhavas. Some of the small landowners who might come out to help break the unions belong to the high-castes and are unwilling to soil their though they are cutting back on agricultural operations to put pressure upon the labourers. In Malabar, there had been a unity between the tenants and the labourers against the traditional jenmis. Now, new lines have begun to be drawn between these former allies. The new landowners and those former jenmis who have managed to retain some land are joining forces against the agricultural labourers who had earlier been the allies of the former tenants. In those villages where the Marxist leaders had been tenants, and had led the agitation for land reform, a new problem has come up. since these former leaders are now landowners and do not need the labourers to help them agitate. Indeed, now any agitation on the part of the labourers could only be for higher wages, or other fringe benefits which are inconvenient for even smaller landowners to accent. The various electoral alliances which the CPI(M) has made w i t h rightist parties have also hurt them with their local constituencies. It was said by several people that the CPI(M) would have fared better in Palghat if it had fought the election alone, intead of forging alliances with the Congress-O and the Jan Sangh. Even more than what people said about the CPI(M) being compromised, the alliance had the effect of changing the party's orientation and policy. Thus, in the Kuttanad area in 1975-78. and by 1977 in Palghat, it was striking to hear how much the CPI(M) union people defended the landlords and discussed their plight, instead of focusing on their own grievances. In the Kuttanad area, what impressed me most was the feeling that the unions really did not have an issue. The unions in general (Marxist, CPI and Congress, as well as RSP) were all concerned about seeing to it that the customary wage as paid in 1975 was continued in 197(). (The new Law had stipulated a wage, of s 6.50 and Rs 9 instead of the Kuttanad wage of Rs 7 and Rs 10, but the Law had also stipulated that if the customary wage was higher, it should be paid.) Some landlords had tried to lower the wage, and the unions were fighting it. For the most part, they had succeeded. But their main focus was on what they felt the government should do, i e, improve the coir industry so that those workers
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help the fishermen or find a cure the brown hopper. A few of the labourers were quite critical of the unions, saying that they spent all their time fighting one another. In any case, a lack of direction was apparent in the Kuttanad area, even though the labourers were more educated, had been in the vanguard of the agricultural labourers movements, and had won wage increases by hard and bitter struggles. It was almost as if they were waiting for something to happen. In contrast, the atmosphere was quite different in Palghat This was largely because land reform was new and union activity, though not recent, was still facing many hurdles. Somehow, there was a sense of the dynamic in Palghat, though interestingly, it seemed to be stronger in January 1976 despite the Emergency than in July 1977. This can be attributed primarily to the strength of landlord organising. It is clear that the two areas have certain similarities and differences. In the Palghat area, where the land has only recently been transferred from the jenmis to the tenants, and where there has been constant agitation for land reform for the past 40 years, there is no reason to assume that it will stop now, though there may be a temporary slowing down because of the ambivalence of the present leadership, As one of the agricultural administration officers, himself an absentee landowner, told me: I t will only be a few years before the land goes to those who work on it. The labourers have seen the tenants get the lands. And so many of the tenants like me and many others do have other employment. We can live by our jobs. And--this is happening more and more. The sons of better-off tenants are studying for jobs. They do not want this agriculture business. And the labourers, they do not feel the tenants are entitled to the land. So, I give it 10, at the most 15. years before the labourers get the land. When I asked him how he expected this to happen, he said by legislation, like land reform and the Wages Act. It is clear that the Wages Act was pushed by the CPI and the left in Congress as a way of trying to appear to be more left than the CPI(M), Further, I suspect that in February and March during the second harvest and election f e r v o u r t h e Congress labour union workers, along w i t h the Government Labour Officers, d i d push for the increased wage actually being paid. At

peast that is proparry one of the factors accounting for Namboodiri pad winning his assembly seat by only 2,000 votes. In Kuttanad, where people have been far less affected by the land reform measures, there is even less reason to expect a peaceful movement in the direction of radical redistribution of the land, though I certainly agree with Panikar that agriculture is growing less and less economical for the cultivators in the area. Still, it is going to be a long time before they give up their land. If the price of paddy continues to stay low, people who own sizeable portions of land have three alternatives: (1) They could stop growing as much paddy in an attempt to bring up the price; they might get lesser yields by not growing during the monsoon season (which is risky anyhow), not weeding (which is becoming more commonplace), and in general cutting back on the use of labour. This is happening more and more. (2) They could deride to opt out of agriculture. We did note some land being sold by middle-sized landowners. But the trouble is that the price of land has fallen and there are not many buyers, except for the occasional poor man who manages to get a loan to buy land. If a lot of land were sold in this way, it might pave the way to eventual co-operative farming, since the new owners by themselves cannot afford the new inputs. (3) Alternatively, the farmers with middle-to-large holdings could go in extensively fur labour saving devices such as tractors, chemical weedcides, and ultimately transplanters or h i p s t ers. If this happens, it can only lead to massive confrontations with the labourers, but it is hard to say who will win. The use of these labour-saving devices is already being talked about in Palghat, and there are areas where tractors are used for most of the ploughing. Tractors were opposed violently by the CPI(M) hi 1969-70, but by 1975 the CPI(M) loaders were favouring tractors even though unemployment among male agricultural labourers was most intense, and the cost of diesel had gone up by leaps and bounds. The explanation given to me was that ploughing being such terribly hard work, the men preferred the tractor. I do not believe the explanation; it is more likely that the landowners had simply emerged victorious in their battles against the labourers on this one point. Another possibility would be for the

Government to decide in favour el increasing the buying price of paddy and then selling it cheap to the poor This would in. effect mean that the rich are being subsidised. N Krishnaji (1977) has noted that in India, especially in Kerala, the effect of government policy has until now been to prevent the collapse of the middle peasantry (the group often designated as the backbone of any radical or revolutionary movement). He refers specifically to policies relating to high support prices (not yet available for rice), subsidised inputs, extensive. investment' in irrigation with only minor. cesses from the beneficiaries, low tax rates in agriculture, etc. At the mom e n t the middle peasants in Palghat and Kuttanad are beginning to be driven to the wall. They are still adopting the strategy of trying to take it out on the workers, but this can only continue for a limited period of time. If the govern-' ment decides to set a floor price for paddy, this will save the middle peasants. If not. it is possible that they w i l l begin to collapse. The really wellto-do households w i l l be able to weather the storm, since many of them have adequate storage facilities as well; as alternative sources of income. It is clear that what happens in the; field of agrarian relations in the two rice bewls of Kerala w i l l depend not only on the internal dynamics of each region, but also on economic and political decisions at the state and national level and one might add, even at the international level. One of the things which keeps, the Kerala economy; from being 'free' is the extent to which it is dependent on the sizeable monthly remittances from abroad. This is especially true among the Christian population in the south (including Kuttanad) but also among Hindus and MusIims There is no question that the amounts which flow in influence political and economic decision-making and these; decisions w i l l surely play a major part in the direction of agrarian relations in the years to come. The question of collectivisation also depends on the Central Government Even if Kerala should by some miracle enact a really radical land b i l l which abolished absentee landlords, gave land to the tiller, and set up meaningful cooperative farming, it could be thwarted by the Central Government. In this connection, it must be noted that the Kerala land reforms bill of 1969 required two constitutional amendment before the President of India could

give assent to the : bill. I have tried to describe the nature of agrarian relations in each of the two main rice regions of Kerala, and to point up the most striking contradictions in the present situation in each. It is clear that they can go on pretty much exactly as they are for sonic time. However, it is equally clear that eventually something has to give. The gross inequalities are something the poor do not accept, and ultimately the antagonism w i l l have to he played out. The only question is when and in what fashion. It is obviously hard to assess the prospects for any more radical changes occurring in Kerala. It is clear that Kerala agriculture could he much more productive than it is, and that it could potentially absorb many more people than it does even at present. It is beyond the scope of this paper to spell all of this out in detail, but agronomically, there is no reason why in theory Kerala could not ultimately become self-sufficient in food. Furthermore, there is also tremendous scope for developing its plantation production by making use of labour-intensive techniques. However, it is clear that this cannot happen without some kind of radical transformation of the social relations of production. Our of Kerala's biggest assets is its large, highly intelligent, increasingly educated and articulate agricultural labour force. However, at the moment, there is a failure of leadership. Hopefully, these labourers need not have to wait long for that leadership to emerge from among themselves.

Kerala in- B N Nair (ed) "Culture and Society:' a Festschrift for Dr A Aiyappan", Thomson Press, New Delhi, [1977a]: 'Land Reform and Socialism: The Case of Kerala, in D S Pillai (ed), "Studies in Honour of Prof Ghurye". Popular Prakashan, Bombay. [19771)]: 'Agricultural Labour Unions: Some Socio-economic and Political Considerations', in David, K (ed) "The New W i n d : Changing Identities in South Asia", Moviton, The References Hague. Oommen, T K [1971]: "Agrarian TenBrockway, Lucile [1977]: ''Science and sum in a Kerala D i s t r i c t : An AnaColonialism: The Role of the B r i lysis'' Shri Ham Centre for Industrial tish Royal Botanic Gardens in Empire Relations, New Delhi. Building", Ph D Thesis, City Univer- Pillai, V R and P G K Paniker [1965]: sity of New York (to be published "Land Reclamation in Kerala", Asia by Academic Press). Publication House, Bombay. Census of India [1971]; District Cen- Paniker P C K [1971]: Dissent to the sus Handbooks; Palghat, and Alleppey Report of the Kuttanad Enquiry CoinCastaneda [1582] (translated into mission, Government Press, TrivandEnglish by Lichefield): "First Book ruin, of History of Discoveries and Con- Office of Economics and Statistics, quest of Fast Indies by Portuguese", Trivandrum Report on Land Reforms republished in Kerr [1824], "Voyages [1975]: (based on data from 1968) and Travels. Vol 11, p 34. manuscript. Krishnaji N [1977]: 'On studying Agra- Government Press, Trivandrum [1971]: iran Change in India: An approach' Report of the Committee on Unem(Mimeo). employment in Kerala, Part I. Economic and Political Weekly [1977]: Thorner, Daniel and Alice Thorner Land Reform: Failure even in Ke[1965]: "Land and Labour in India", vala March 5, pp 415-7. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. Mencher, Joan P [1977]: "Agriculture The Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963; and Social Structure in Tamil N a d u : Act I of 1964 (as amended by Act Past Origins, Present Transform35 of 1969). ation, and Future Prospects". Allied Varghese, T C [1970] : "Agrarian Publishers, New Delhi. Change and Economic Consequences : [1975]: 'Agricultural Labour MoveLand Tenures in Kerala, 1850-1960.' ment in their Socio-Political and Allied Publishers, 'Bombay and Delhi.

steams. This forest preservation policy put a brake on the infant tea industry because the tea planters wanted forest land, not grass land, for their tea plantations... In trying to reproduce a little England there [in the Nilgais] the British followed a policy of environmental protection much as rich summer people now try to protect the natural beauties of ther- chosen vacation spot". (192, 197).

Political Repression in Bangladesh

ACCORDING to a Report released recently (February 27, 1978) by Amnesty International, at least 1-30, and perhaps serveral hundred, summary executions of military personnel have followed theabortive military uprisings in Bangladesh in September and October 1977. These executions were carried out alter summary trial by military tribunals and continued at least until December 1977. The report also expresses concern at the wide powers to arrest and detain political prisoners contained in the Special Powers Act and the Emergency Power Rules and puts the number of political prisoners in Bangladesh at between 10,000 and 15,000. In a foreword to the report, dated 31 January 1978, the Chairman of Al\s International Executive Committee, expresses concern about the hundreds of executions thought to have been carried out towards the end of 1977, of which the government has confirmed only 37. Official sources state that 92 military personnel were sentenced to death after summary military trials for alleged involvement in military uprisings which occurred in Dacca on October 2, 1977 and in Bogra on September 30, 1977. However Amnesty International has the names of 130 persons who have been executed and of 27 others awaiting execution as of December 1977, In a number of recommendations listed in the report. Amnesty International urged the Bangladesh government to restore customary legal safeguards at an early stage and take immediate steps to restrict and limit the use of martial law courts. It recommended that the government announce a date for the release of all political prisoners held for more than six months without trial, and take steps to improve the conditions in which political prisoners are being held, and which the report says fall far short of the requirements listed in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. On October 5, 1977, AI received a reply from the Bangladesh Home Mi nistry, which, while challenging the estimate of the number of politica prisoners, did not contest the finding in this report.

Notes
[The research on which tins paper is based was carried out while the author held a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Support for field work was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and for research assistants by the Indian Council of Social Science Research in a grant jointly to P G K Paniker, Director of the Centre for Development Studies, and the author. The author is very grateful to Paniker for his collaboration on the project. She would like to thank N Krishnaji, T N Krishnan, F C Southworth, and Gail Omvedt for their comments on this paper. However, the views expressed here are solely the author's.] 1 This information was provided by several doctors at the Trivandrum Medical College who are currently doing research on childhood diabetes. 2 Brockway notes: "The British government reserved to itself the right to protect the hills from deforestation, not only because of the timber (especially teak) but in order to protect springs and 366