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DOI 10.1007/s40622-014-0049-x

RESEARCH PAPER

The saga of the commons in Kuttanad: appropriations,

contests, developments
Mathew Kuriakose

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2014

Abstract The paper argues that the mutually enforcing processes of enclosure of land and entanglement of
labour have been central to the development of state
and capitalism in Kuttanad, a protected Ramsar site in
the south Indian state of Kerala. The driving force of
epochal changes in Kuttanad was the transformations
of the commons; different regimes that ruled Kuttanad
have actively engaged in the appropriation, distribution and production of commons along with and for the
dominant sections in the region. Reclamation and
re-reclamation of backwater lands, spanning over one
and half centuries, are thus carried out by the
distributive state apparatus in collaboration with its
constituent class sections. The resultant shifts in land,
crop, labour, technology and resources are what define
the crisis of commons in the region.
Keywords Commons
Primitive accumulation

Governance
Land appropriation
Reclamation

Rice cultivation

Introduction
There is no doubt that land contributes significantly to
economic processes in society. However, there is no
M. Kuriakose (&)
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India
e-mail: kurimat@iitb.ac.in

consensus over how land actually functions as a factor

of production or more than a passive factor. The land
cover of a region, as in paddyfields, backwaters, rivers
and garden lands, not only constitutes the ecological
commons but also functions as the key determinant of
changes in livelihoods, society-nature interactions
and region-specific governance strategies. This paper
explores the tortuous interactions between colonialism, development and ecology in the Kuttanad region,
in the south Indian state of Kerala in order to portray
the labyrinthine redrawing of its colonial, developmental and ecological geographies. By examining two
distinct phases in the history of this regionthe
backwater reclamation1 phase in the colonial times
and the re-reclamation phase of post-independence
times, one can easily discern that transformation of the
ecological commons, especially land was the single
most important factor that decided the nature of the
regions economy. This myriad process of accumulative development led to transforming commons by
appropriating, distributing and producing them in
ingenious ways. As a result, new types of commons
emerge which in turn redefines the contours of
economic life. Most importantly, the transformation
of commons through state intervention develops as

The large-scale land reclamation of the shallow parts of the

Lake Vembanad was mostly carried out between1870 s and
1940 s. These lands were converted as polders for paddy
cultivation with state subsidies.

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whole into a mode of governance wherein developmental dependency is created and sustained.
After giving a socio-economic overview of the
region, the paper proceeds to examine Kuttanads
early encounter with colonialism, the historical
changes that occurred with large-scale reclamation
of backwater lands from 1860s to 1940s, and the
developmental re-reclamation phase from Indias
independence to the present. The paper then examines
the configuration of primitive accumulation in the
specific context of Kuttanad and how it shapes the
transformation of commons. The study is a work in
historical sociology. The attempt is to retell the history
of the region from the perspective of transformation of
commons, especially land. The study combines archival research with field work which is being carried out
as part of authors doctoral research.

improve the economic conditions of Kuttanad through

the Kuttanad package5 taps into these various livelihoods
and has further contributed to the uneasy co-existence.
The Kuttanad delta covers approximately an area of
1,100 km2, and consists of seventy panchayats and
seven municipal corporations. It is a densely populated
area, inhabited by around 1.5 million people. Compact,
semi-compact and disperse settlements patterns can be
identified in the region. Compact settlements are mainly
in the highly urbanised areas in and around Tiruvalla,
Changanassery, Kottayam, Mavelikkara, Chengannur,
Vaikom and Alappuzha. Semi-compact settlements lie
in and around small towns and village centers like
Athirampuzha, Kumarakam, Thalyolaparambu, Nedumudi, Thakazhi and so on. The former slave castes
are still mainly confined either to isolated homesteads
on dykes or to marginal government housing colonies
situated in geographically isolated places.

Kuttanad: an overview
Early colonial encounter in Kuttanad until 1865
Kuttanad is located in the south Indian state of Kerala.
Kuttanad is a fragile wetland eco-system; a delta
consisting of eight agro-ecological zones. Lake Vembanad2 is the mainstay of this wetland, which in turn is
nourished by the flood waters of four rivers in central
Kerala (see Fig. 1). The Kuttanad region is one of the
few places in the world where below sea level rice
cultivation is practiced. The region is spread into
Alappuzha, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts. The
region is part of the Vembanad wetland ecosystem (a
protected Ramsar site which remains scientifically
unprotected!). Rice cultivation has been the primary
livelihood. Fishing, duck-rearing, clam collection,
toddy3 tapping, canoe-making, water transporting, coir
weaving and lake piracy4 too have been the notable
traditional sources of livelihood. Tourism, developmental projects, perennial crops, real estate and construction
and fisheries are the major sources of livelihood at the
present time. There is a tenuous coexistence of new and
old livelihoods. The governments latest attempt to

The largest wetland system in India, covering around

2,000 km2. The lake is an internationally renowned tourist
hotspot.
3
Country liquor, extracted from coconut tree.
4
The disgruntled upper castes often made use of the slave
castes to attack the flourishing commodity transport through
Lake Vembanad during the 18th and 19th centuries.

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As a region, the prominence of Kuttanad has seen ups

and downs with the rise or fall of various regimes from
ancient times. It was in the reign of the Chera dynasty
(which peaked in the period between CE 9th and 12th
centuries) that Kuttanad became a prominent place in
south India. In the eighteenth century, it was annexed by
the expanding Venad Kingdom and thus became part of
the Tiruvitamkoor6 Kingdom. With the British advances
in South India, Kuttanad became a dependent region in
the global imperialist market chain. The colonial effect
on Kerala was experienced through the invention of
plantations which produced spices for export. The
monopolistic and imperial control of spices plantation
and market prices by British settlers caused the conversion of up-hill lands (where paddy was originally
cultivated by the local population) to spices-plantations
turning Tiruvitamkoor into a rice deficit state. It is
5

A relief package in official parlance worth Rs. 18,400

millions, primarily aimed at renewing the crisis-ridden rice
cultivation in the region but extended to soil conservation,
distribution of livestock, enhancement of irrigation, construction of bunds and barrages and renewing water bodies. The
package attempts to integrate tourism, fisheries and agriculture
in a harmonious manner.
6
Tiruvitamkoor is the original Malayalam name of Travancore.
Throughout the report, Tiruvitamkoor is used except in direct
quotes where the spelling is otherwise.

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Fig. 1 Kuttanad region

argued that [b]eginning from the mid-19th century,

however, Travancore became a net importer of rice
draining supply from the Asian trading system, from
Bengal, Burma and Siam. Coastal firmsMetropolitan,
European firms involved in planting, trading and
manufacturing on the Malabar coast were the main
importers of rice from Burma and adjoining regimes
(Rammohan 2006, p. 14). Kayal reclamation7 was
7

Kayal (backwater) reclamation was an arduous process

through which the lakebed was converted into paddy fields by
enclosing portions of lake with bunds and draining out water
using sophisticated indigenous technologies.

invented as a strategy to deal with dwindling rice

production in the Tiruvitamkoor Kingdom.
In addition to the conversion of upland hill-slope paddy
fields as plantations (which produced spices for export)
and the making of wage labour in plantations and factories
(which ceased to become food producers), the import of
rice to the Kingdom became an absolute necessity. One
cannot forget that Travancore was self-sufficient in rice
till about the mid-19th century. By the early 1870s, import
of rice represented a quarter of Travancores all imports.
This rose to nearby half of all imports by 1914
(Rammohan 2006, p. 14). This brought the region under
a dependency regime and colonial control.

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The increasing dependency of the Kingdom could

be traced through the making of a series of monopolistic and uneven agreements between the regime and
the British such as the Pepper Contract of 1793, the
military agreement between Rama Varma and the
Company in 1788 and the 1805 treaty. With the failure
of the coup in 18081809 led by Velu Thampi Dalava
and his estranged Nair supporters, the Kingdom
became a tributary-dependent state. The army of the
Kingdom was quickly disbanded, followed by the
forced de-arming of the warrior castes. As a result, the
Tiruvitamkur army of 1.5 lac soldiers was dismantled
and instead, a tiny ornamental force of 700 soldiers
was created. The expenditure on the army, which was
Rs. 5.44 lacs, in 18071808, went down to Rs. 0.44
lacs by 18121813. The state was dispossessed of
arms and military stores, and no one could keep
firearms without the express consent of the DewanResident (Rammohan 1996, p. 15). After Munros
reforms,8 much of the devaswom lands were converted
as state property and leased out for cultivation creating
a new stratum of tenant-landlords. Initially, most land
in the Kingdom was owned by temples as devaswom
property which contributed to the caste power of Nairs
and Brahmins. By precipitating the disintegration of
native bureaucracy and the conversion of temple lands
as state lands, the social power of Nairs and Brahmins
was significantly curtailed. The paramount power not
only tried to dismantle the upper caste social base of
the Kingdom but also to fill the void with a new loyal
social base (inter caste-class in character). Marthanda
Varma (ruled from 1729 to 1758) supported this by
liquidating Nairs who were the indigenous aristocratic-military-bureaucratic caste-class. This void in
social control was filled by the elevation of Syrian
Christians in the social ladder. This had direct
consequences for the future of land and labour in
Kuttanad for the Syrian Christian landlords were later
to become the pioneers of reclamation agriculture.
As the dependent regime effectively transferred the
costs of dependency onto the subaltern people by way
of raising taxes, the social churning that followed was
inevitable. The transformation of the Tiruvitamkoor
Kingdom from a sovereign theocratic state to a
tributary-dependent state intensified taxing on the
land. Taxation had to be rationalised in order to keep
8

In the first decades of the 19th century. He served the

Kingdom as a resident Dewan.

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paying the colonial dues to the British. Rationalisation of taxes made state intervention in economic
affairs, i.e. primarily in agriculture which was the
principal source of income for the Kingdom, inevitable. Thus, the state in Tiruvitamkoor gradually and
progressively reinvented itself as a developmentalist
state that encouraged kayal reclamation through a
variety of measures such as the campaign to raise food
production, tax waivers, subsidies and loans.
Kayal reclamation became absolutely necessary
since the Tiruvitamkoore Kingdom became the de
facto executive of the colonial regime. The tributary
state was held responsible for managing the collective
affairs pertaining to colonial accumulation in the
region, which was the only way to avoid complete
annexation. And the state had to literally outgrow
itself to cope with ever-growing pressure from colonial and popular forces. Without reincarnating as a
developmentalist state, the Kingdom could not have
successfully contained the social, political and economic transformation unleashed by colonial dependency. This also helped to consolidate the freshly
educated aspiring classes as the new social base of the
tributary state. The increasing interventions of the
developmental state led to the enclosure of land and
entanglement of labour in Kuttanad.
The search for new paddy fields was catalysed by
British colonialism and promoted by the native
developmentalist state. It was implemented by a
new set of landlords who were similarly colonial in
their approach and whose oppressive actions, towards
the exploited castes constituted a form of internal
colonialism. Reclamation activities gave birth to a
new stratum of landlords who were primarily drawn
from the professionals (mainly lawyers and teachers)
who had connections with the royalty in the Tiruvitamkoor Kingdom. The landlord-professionals used
their social capital (educational background and
networks) for obtaining royal permissions (pattayam)
for reclamation along with financial loans and tax
holidays. These landlord-professionals hailing from
the borders of the region entered into partnerships
with the local landlords for actualising the arduous
task of reclaiming kayal lands. Importantly, the new
landlords, although educated, were not indifferent to
using slave/servile labour for the labour-intensive
reclamation activities. The land to be reclaimed was
five metres or more under water which caused the
frequent breach of dykes. This struggle against the

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might of nature gave birth to a new practice of

sacrifice of Pulaya/Paraya slave labourers, based on
the belief that human sacrifice was the final step in
stopping dyke breaches.
The early agricultural labourers in Kuttanad were
slave or attached labourers (Alexander 1973) of the
feudal landlords whose dominance was sanctioned by
mechanisms of caste society. Kamalasanan (2005,
p. 23) a leading labour activist from the region, points
out in his memoirs that the spiritual relationship
between janmi (landlord) and tenants was based on
rituals. He argues that the landlord and tenants were
like family members. The serf had to give gifts on the
occasions of Onam, Makam and Vaavu, and he was
paid back accordingly. If anyone deforms his lord his
blood would boil. If the serf does any mistake the lord
would punish him. In Kuttanadu, there were many
occasions in which the serf died due to severe beatings
by lord. The slave labour of Kuttanad was also a part
of the commons of the region. The transition from
such slave labour to servile labour happened due to
British legal intervention and the abolition of slavery
in 1855 and the stoppage of slave sale (George 1987,
p. 141). However, the dependency of these erstwhile
slave caste groups on the landlords remained for two
reasons; first, labour was attached to the landlords
because they stayed either in the landlord homesteads
or in the lands of the landlords as kudikidappukar
(tenants); and second, the slave castes could procure
paddy for food only by exchanging their labour
(monetary economy came to existence much late in
Kuttanad). As no state support was extended to the
newly freed labour, their dependence on the lord
continued (George 1987, p. 141). Thus, the slave
labour which belonged to landlords as their commons
(res omnium- things that belong to everyone) now
became servile dependent labour and in some sense
res nullis, which belonged to nobody yet could not
really survive freely.
The labour of Pulaya/Paraya castes was fully
dependent on the landlords as the paddy they received
in return for their labour was their only source of
subsistence. The labour of men in the Ezhava caste,
primarily toddy tappers but seasonally worked in rice
cultivation, was semi-dependent labour because it had
the freedom to exchange its products for paddy.
However, this freedom was seriously hampered as the
Ezhavas had to rent out the coconut trees for toddy
tapping from the landlords, and their caste status was

low with relations to the Nair-Syrian Christian-Brahmin landlord castes. The labour of Ezhava women too
was semi-dependent as it was primarily seasonal
labour for sowing and harvesting. It was some of these
labourers who engaged in susbsistence coping mechanisms by reclaiming small patches of lands for
homestead farming. It is the reclamation techniques of
the poor that the new elite had later adopted for largescale kayal reclamation.
The transformation of Kuttanad as the rice bowl
of Kerala became possible only because of the
extensive reclamation of land from the Vembanad
Lake, a direct result of the integration of Tiruvitamkoor Kingdom into the imperialist commodity chain. It
is crucial to remember that the reclamation activities
in Kuttanad began in the same period, around 1870s.
Observers like Panicker (2005, p. 5) called the kayal
reclamation one of the most important things in
Travancore history. One cannot forget that Tiruvitamkoors important thing in history was absolutely necessary for keeping both wages and food
prices low and thereby keeping popular unrest in
check. Besides, the rice-centric development of
Kuttanad (Narayanan 2003) was accompanied by
the development of rice-centric dietary practices
amongst the people of the region. As rice cultivation
intensified, rice started replacing various indigenous
tubers as a major source of nutrition, further
increasing the dependence of the servile class on
agricultural economy.

Early kayal reclamation in Kuttanad from 1865

to 1947
The times we characterise as the early reclamation
period came into existence from 1865, the year of
Pattom Proclamation. The Proclamation can be
viewed as the Magna Carta of Tiruvitamkoor Kingdom. It transferred ownership rights to tenants which
crucially initiated the commodification of land in
Kuttanad (recall that land was mostly held as a
commons through temple lands previously). The
changes in land ownership were later to be manifest
in the reinvigorated quest for adventurous new reclamations (for an extended discussion, see Varghese
1970, pp. 6465). The reclamations from Lake
Vembanad were carried out in phases in the following
decades. Interruption in reclamation activities was

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Table 1 Large-scale backwater reclamations in Kuttanad
(Reclamation Period between 1865 and 1947)

Re-reclamation of Kuttanad: 1947 to the present

No.

Polder

Chithirakkayal

Kainakari

716.60

Marthanadam kayal

Kainakari

674

Rani kayal (T block)

Kainakari

568.59

C block kayal

Kainakari

633

Aarupankukayal

Kainakari

486

Cherukalikayal

Kainakari

251.55

Oloorankayal

Aymanam

52

Vattakayal

Aymanam

213

Malik kayal

Aymanam

103

10

Seminari kayal

Kumarakam

418

11
12

Padinjare Pallikkayal
Thumbekayal

Kumarakam
Kumarakam

107
87

13

Kizhakke Pallikyal

Kumarakam

102

14

J block 900

Thiruvarppu

1791

15

MM block

Thiruvarppu

596

16

F block

Thiruvarppu

889

17

Vechoor kayal

Thiruvarppu

800

18

H block

Kunnumma

1396.40

19

Mangalam Manikya
mangalam

Kunnumma

1,006.4

20

KL block

Kunnumma

827.30

21

Rajaramapuram

Kavalam

1,370.17

22
23

I block
E block (2,400 kayal)

Kavalam
Kavalam

351.60
2,366

24

Sree moolamangalm

Pulinkunnu

590.82

25

D block Thekku

Pulinkunnu

600

26

D block Vadakke
Aarayiram

Pulinkunnu

600

27

D block Puthan Arayiram

Pulinkunnu

600

28

Vadakke MathiKayal

Pulinkunnu

330.45

29

Thekke Mathi Kayal

Pulinkunnu

382.60

30

Padinjare Venattukari

Pulinkunnu

99.86

31

Madathil Kayalpokkam

Pulinkunnu

93.11

32

Madathil Kayalthazhchha

Pulinkunnu

292.62

In the post-independence period from 1947, what

changed is not just the degree of reclamation in
Kuttanad, but the very nature of reclamation. There
was an absence of large-scale reclamation as compared to the kayal period. But more importantly, the
ecosocial technologies of reclamation practices underwent radical changes. The thrust activity in this period
was to alter land use and land cover of the region by
conversion of wetland into dryland. The postcolonial
developmentalist state was now at the forefront of rereclamation of the region. A set of developmental
activities that included construction of irrigation
channels, canals, bunds and barrages, embankment
of various types, extensive road networks, bridges and
sluices altered the land cover, especially the waterspread of the region substantially. The huge infrastructure that the Public Works Department of
Government of Kerala in collaboration with the
Central government and various international agencies has built up in Kuttanad can be called the new
developmental commons. Developmental commons
in Kuttanad have profound role in changing the
ecological commons of the region. For instance, the
construction of Thannermukkam Barrage alone
caused the division of Lake Vembanad into two
distinct agro-ecological zones in which one zone
remains organically saline and other zone with controlled salinity levels. The primary strategy of rereclamation was the state-led formation of developmental commons, which was aimed at making Kuttanad a rice-centric region. Various complementary
strategies such as land filling, cultivation of perennial
crops like coconut instead of paddy, leveling of
waterspread areas and encroachment were all characteristic of this period. Thus, in a sense, it was the
process of extraction of a different and/or possibly
higher economic value from the land which had
already been reclaimed from the Lake Vembanad in
the previous period of kayal reclamation. Thus, it
would be apt to characterise this phase as re-reclamation period. To put it simply, re-reclamation was a
result of the combined effects of large-scale developmental projects such as Thannermukkam Barrage9 and

Village

Area (in
acres)

Total acres = 19,395.07

Source Kamalasanan (1993, pp. 6364)

caused by differences between the Kingdom and the

British over its ecological impacts. Reclamations were
intensified on the last decade of 19th century and the
first decade of 20th century but continued on in
varying degrees around the time of Indias independence from British empire (Table 1).

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Even the Thannermukkam Barrage was built up with voluntary labour. Unpaid labour is the fundamental commons in
Kuttanand, one wonders.

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Thottapilly Spillway (designed to control flood and

salinity intrusion) and also small-scale, sporadic
plebeian interventions on land. Both in combination
irrevocably transformed the ecological commons in
the region.
With the growth of rice production, labour struggles
intensified. Crop shift and land shift were the two
prominent strategies of capitalist cultivators to deal
with increased labour unrest. The early farmers
strategies of economic and extra-economic coercion
were no longer viable, due to the presence of a general
social democratic consciousness in Kerala society and
the particular strength of communist, labour union
movements. Rice cultivation was the sphere of
production in which the land-labour displacement
conundrum was best (or worst?) manifested. Labour
mobilisation was met with systematic land-use shifts
favouring cash crops which were not labour intensive.
The cultivation of perennial crops, replacing rice also
caused large-scale loss of labour days, especially for
women. The near impossibility of making profit from
rice cultivation became an entrenched excuse for the
crop shift. Moving to perennial crops like coconut
helped the capitalist cultivators to reduce their dependence on agricultural labour. Crop shift, from rice to
other cash crops, makes labour redundant. It especially
affected womens labour as rice production was
intensive of womanly works. Crop shift enabled
the easy exchange of agriculture land from the hands
of rice cultivators to corporate intersts, boosting up
realestate consequently. Or, rice cultivators themselves become corporate land dealers.
It was possible to substantially increase the economic value of the land for the owner by converting
his/her wetland-paddy fields into dry lands, in effect
transforming it into real estate plots. This land shift
also became a contributing factor in the growth of the
tourism industry in the region. The agricultural
labourers then had the only option of forcefully
putting an end to the conversion of paddy fields which
they attempted but tragically failed (the Save the
Paddy Fields Campaign initiated by the leading
agricultural labour union of CPI (Marxist)). The
agrarian distress in Kuttanad was the result of
continuing primitive accumulation of nature and
labour which happened in varying intensity and pace.
It almost appears that labour struggles for emancipation, particularly for wage rise, were detrimental to
rice production.

Whilst agricultural labour was extensively affected

by the shift from paddy cultivation, the fishing
community, another traditional livelihood group, was
adversely affected by agriculture itself. The inflow of
marine waters into the Lake and the surrounding areas
was beneficial for their catch, whereas the intrusion of
salinity adversely affected agriculture. There have
been several contests around the opening and closing
of the barrage and spillway, and in fact around their
construction itself because of these conflicting
resource needs. In addition, the Lake and the various
boat race festivals/games and the backwatersthe
present day transformed commonsbecame part of
the tourism sector with active encouragement and
support of the state. Parts of the lake began being
appropriated for tourist resorts and other related
activities, pushing the fishing communities into the
margins. This marginalization of the fisherfolk intensified the conflict between agriculture/paddy, tourism
and fishing.
The displacement of labour from nature had dire
impacts on the food economy of the working poor.
Labour has the added responsibility of giving life to
itself and to other factors of production because it is a
living commodity which has to be constantly reproduced. Food is the most vital commodity that determines the capacity of labour to reproduce itself and
resultantly the other factors of production. Crop shift
caused food price inflation and reduced the general
availability of food grains for the consumption of poor.
Foraging had been a vital source of extra-nutrients for
the people of Kuttanad and especially for the dispossessed castes. Land shift hastened ecological degradation and lowered the possibilities for alternative
indigenous food which used to be abundant in a region
like Kuttanad. Thus, labour that was displaced from
nature was easily thrown into the vicissitudes of a
service economy.

Recent developments around land and rice

in Kuttanad
Nowadays, large-scale rice production has resumed in
Kuttanad, largely because agricultural workers have
already been displaced, and mechanization is more
profitable. It is also important to note that paddy
cultivation is not more merely a livelihood issue.
Given the high land prices, the low margin of profit

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and the risk of crop failure, the possibility of

sustainable rice cultivation is extremely thin. The
new trend in Kerala is to promote rice cultivation as a
leisure cum conservationist venture. Rice cultivation
aims on the one hand to conserve the authentic Kerala
tradition of eating the rice cultivated by oneself and
on the other to conserve paddy fields from encroachments. School children, youth clubs and environmental groups are more than willing to pump in voluntary
labour to sustain rice cultivation. As if supply of free
labour is a necessary condition for rice cultivation!
There is an ongoing vociferous campaign to reclaim
paddy fields for rice cultivation fuelled by the media
outcry about Keralas increasing food grain dependency on other states in India. Even celebrities like
Mammotty, Sreenivasan and Sathyan Anthikkad
amongst many others have turned to pastime rice
cultivation, and political leaders have joined the
chorus making rice cultivation an endangered essential utility service.

Primitive accumulation and the appropriation,

distribution and production of the commons
in Kuttanad
Carl Schmitt, the (in)famous German legal theorist,
discusses the consequences of appropriation, distribution and production whilst focusing on the imperial
manoeuvers of land conquests. According to Schmitt
(2006, p. 327), in every stage of social life, in every
economic order, in every period of legal history until
now, things have been appropriated, distributed and
produced. He argues that the sequence of these three
has profound implications in the making of legal
orders as they are different for different historical
situations. For centuries and for philosophers, he
insists, land remained the first substantive acquisition
on which the succeeding economy was to be built up.
Therefore, the claim that land-appropriation is always
the ultimate legal title for all further division and
distribution, thus for all further production (Schmitt
2006, p. 328). Further he strongly asserted that
appropriation (often colonial in nature) preceded and
remained a precondition for further distribution and
production. The present study points to the fact that
land appropriation in the form of backwater reclamation in Kuttanad was central to further distribution and
production of commons in Kuttanad, the particular

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historical form it took in the region was transformation

of commons with state support and anchored on the
slave-attached labour of oppressed castes. The land
reclaimed from Lake Vembanad was distributed
amongst an incipient agrarian bourgeoisie (peopled
by a combination of professionals, entrepreneurs and
landlords) termed by many as agripreneurs10 under the
financial blessings of a dependent regime. This
extensive land-appropriation from a lake purportedly
owned by none was what catalysed further (land and
social) divisions in the region, a complex political
process unfolded through direct confrontation with
both the forces of internal and external colonialism.
The background process of urbanisation was at once a
cause and a result of these large-scale transformations
of land and labour. A semi-rural, semi-urban type of
splintered urbanism (Graham and Marvin 2001)
emerged in Kuttanad which was inevitable given the
semi-feudal, semi-colonial character of the region.
Since urban in Kuttanad is dispersed and unevenly
spread, the effect of which on the commons is also
uneven. One cannot forget that what Roy (2005)
celebrates as urban informality has only added to the
woes of the commons in Kuttanad; Kumarakam, a
global tourist attraction, the village that suddenly
became a semi-urban area due to huge inflow of high
end tourists attests to this fact because it developed
without a master plan.
In Kuttanad, the appropriation, distribution and
production of commons was facilitated actively by
state intervention. The state, whether it was the
erstwhile tributary-dependent-developmentalist Tiruvitamkoor reign or the modern post-independent
welfare state, had actively appropriated commons,
redistributed entitlements, ownership and usage rights
over commons and unequal rewards, incentives and
disincentives for production based on commons. The
resultant transformation of commons can be mapped
onto five different shifts, namely, (a) land shift (b) crop
shift (c) labour shift (d) technology shift and
(e) resource shift. A distinctive mode of urbanisation
is set out as the background process which articulates
these shifts and is simultaneously a resultant state of
these shifts. Since it is almost impossible to individually analyse the complex history of land shift, crop
10

Those who led reclamation are known to combine agriculture

and entrepreneurship since most of them were professionals
cum landlords.

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shift, labour shift, technology shift and resource shift

in neatly separated compartments, we would attempt
to construct a model of these interdependent shifts, for
the early reclamation period and the later re-reclamation period.
Of the shifts, the most obvious are with regard to
land, crop and labour. Diversity of/in land (uses) and
labour (practices) is a defining characteristic of the
region which is the product of centuries-old process of
territorial (dis)integration. According to Panicker
(2005, p. 8), Agriculture is a venture; the razed
human relationships that changed it into war are what
ensued the devastation of land. Land shift seems to be
a more dangerous strategy because it devastates both
nature and labour. Land shiftconverting wetlands to
dry lands to real estatehad irrevocably altered the
fragile ecology of the region and led to growth in
urbanisation and tourism. The crop shift from paddy to
perennial cash crops was in many ways synonymous
with the land shift and led to sudden changes in
livelihoods. Soil degradation is coupled with the
spread of alien biota in the region, not only affecting
agriculture but also tourism and fisheries. Thus, with
basic appropriation of commons, nature is displaced
from the primary sector of the economy to the tertiary
sector with a single stroke, forcing the flight of labour
to the same service economy. This displacement of
nature has been simultaneously facilitated by and
constitutive of the shifts in the nature of labour itself.
First, the land was conquered by means of reclamation
using slave labour; in the next phase, servile labour
(legally free but dependent) helped the intensification
of rice production in these below sea level backwater
lands; by the 1970s, the landlord response to the
militant struggles by subordinate labour was conversion of paddy fields into cash crop plantations; at
present, the degraded lands are rejuvenated for tourism
and fish farming using the service labour through
projects such as the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme and contract labour in various
government-sponsored Kuttanad Development Projects. The nature of the labour relation has forever
been changed by the dynamic interaction of other
shifts and is itself contributing to these shifts. The
transformations of slave labour to servile labour to
subordinate labour to service labour to contract labour
were accompanied by corresponding changes in land
(use). Reclamation was central in making Kuttanad a
rice bowl. This would not have been possible without

the bonded labour of the oppressed castes. Ironically,

the emancipation of labour often appears as adding to
the degradation of nature, and the protection of nature
seems to be going against the interests of labour (as
understood in being free). Labour in Kuttanad is
condemned to survive/perish in constant negotiation
with the transformations of land.
But, it was not just labour which was actually
shifting. Along with it shifted various kinds of elitedifferent caste, religious and economic groups. All
sought to gain new status or redeem old ones in this
appropriation-distribution-production matrix. The
landlord class in Kuttanad too knows no less varieties
and hybrids; traditionally, ranging from absent landlords to adjacent landlords to cultivating landlords to
tenant landlords to immigrant landlords to partner
landlords to professional-entrepreneur-bureaucratic
landlords to Christian-Nair-Brahmin landlordsand
in the present, distant landlords, out-migrant landlords, non-cultivating landlords, resort landlords and
real-estate landlords.
The technology shifts are much more subtle:
reclamation was initially characterised by a simple
process of building dykes as embankments and
enclosing the lakebed for paddy cultivation. The
technology even included burying slaves under the
bund on the belief that it would stop the breaching of
dykes. The later eco-social technologies included crop
shift, leveling of land, mechanization to combat labour
unrest amongst other things. It was the progress form
manually operated waterwheels to large electric
pump-sets that enabled adventurous kayal reclamations (even from the deeper parts of the Lake) and
large-scale paddy cultivation. The spread of various
flood control and prevention of salinity intrusion
technologies helped to increase the frequency of rice
cultivation from one crop a year to three crops a year.
The resource shifts are much more prominent. If
backwater reclamation initiated the development of
bourgeois forms of property on land in Kuttanad and
bourgeois production relations, its integration to the
larger region and to the world market in unequal terms
hampered the autonomous development of capitalism
in this subaltern region. Embankment in the form of
dyke building concretised bourgeois forms of property
in the Kuttanadan backwaters. Construction of roads
was a developmental activity that had profound
consequences on the region. Vallikappen (2012, p. 4)
is of the view that alongside this emblematic rural life

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of Lower Kuttanad, the new roads that networked the

region were dynamic always with people and fast
moving vehicles sounding their horns, as if announcing the approach of developments and urbanisation.
Roads announced the arrival of urbanisation even into
the interiors of the region, along with the arrival of
tourists and real-estate brokers. Developmental projects, initiated and funded by various governments
across the periods, were crucial in resource shifts; not
only in the way of diversion of project funds for
protecting the interests of special people in special
places but also by converting resource uses. The
region is at once imagined as a Special Agricultural
Zone, a Fishing Zone, a Special Tourist Zone and
many more within the competing paradigms of
different developmental visions. And developmental
projects based on such conflictually co-existing
imaginations readily add to the ongoing primitive
accumulation of land and labour in Kuttanad.
If reclamation period saw the seeds of accumulation
in Kuttanad, the re-reclamation period intensified it by
constantly over-exploiting nature and marginalizing
labour. The (un)freedom of wage(less) labour has been
the central driving force of ecological and social
changes in Kuttanad. The abolition of slavery was one
of the key factors that initiated the search for
discovering new lands by way of backwater reclamation. The reclamation of Lake Vembanad intensified the transformation of Kuttanad as the rice bowl
of Kerala. The intensity of primitive accumulation
constantly shifts from nature to labour and vice versa.
Not surprisingly, industrial labour has been destroyed
in a deeply entrenched de-industrialisation process,
especially in the coir industry, which was catalysed by
the rapid destruction of commons. But in the agricultural sector, it is the very growth of industrial farming
that weakens labour, which in turn contributes further
to the tragedy of the commons.
Primitive accumulation is a two-sided sword: Marx
and many Marxist writers have defined it as expropriation of marginalized sections following (often violent) appropriation of nature, in the form of enclosure
of land. In a functional electoral democracy like India,
primitive accumulation cannot appear as a naked
economic process of capitalist appropriation. Therefore, it has to be presented as a developmental mode of
governance that transforms existing social relations
in the appropriation-distribution-production matrix
that governs commons. To put it bluntly, primitive

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accumulation veiled as development is a governance

strategy formulated in the specific conditions of
primitive accumulation under democratic control in
order to enclose land and entangle labour which are
necessary for sustained capitalist accumulation.
Understanding primitive accumulation as a continuous
process (De Angelis 2001) spans various phases of
capitalist development is necessary to shed light on the
mechanisms that sustain accumulation in Kuttanad. In
capitalism, the separation of producers from the means
of production is not achieved once and for all. It is a
process repeated throughout various moments in the
consolidation of capitalism. As part of continuous
primitive accumulation, land and labour in Kuttanad
are constantly re-appropriated but in different forms
using different techniques. Whilst discussing the
concept of primitive accumulation, Hardt and Negri
(2000) point to the importance of looking at the source
of wealth and command that structure accumulation.
This would also help us to see resource shifts under
internal/external colonialism. In the first period of
reclamation, the wealth was produced by the slaveattached castes but only a minimum essential was
spent on their consumption. The remaining surplus
was distributed in a graded manner; one share was
appropriated by the landlord caste-class, the remaining
was distributed amongst the native state and the
colonial state. The structures of command too were
formed with a graded system of inputs from landlords,
native and colonial states (the native state took the
mediator role). Whilst the landlords saw it to the
implementation of commands, the colonial state was
the paramount arbitrator. In the second period of rereclamation, a better share of wealth produced by the
labourers is distributed amongst themselves thanks to
labour militancy. What changed is the wealth sharing
mechanisms between the landlords and the local state,
and between the local state and the neo-colonial
market. The change is reflected in the structures of
command as well. Now, the command structure is
governed with inputs of new landlords, a mediating
local state and an arbitrary neo-colonial market which,
in the final instance, set the prices of commodities/
services produced in Kuttanad.
The point we pursue here is that since surplus value
can be realised either from the overexploitation of
nature or of labour, there will not necessarily be a
balance between them. It means that the degree
of exploitation of nature and labour is historically

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contingent which was the case in Kuttanad. The early

reclamation coincided with the de jure freeing of slave
labour. In the beginning of backwater reclamation, the
primitive accumulation of nature and labour went
hand in hand; the intensity was on par. Therefore, the
mindless reclamation in the early period was matching
with the ceaseless exploitation of labour; first for
reclamation itself and then for paddy cultivation.
Because of the peculiar balance between internal and
external colonialism in Tiruvitamkoor in which the
survival of both are deeply entwined, people need not
necessarily be exterminated, especially if they are
laborious enough. Thus, the slave-attached labour of
Pulayas and Parayas was used in the reclamation
activity and subsequently intensified paddy cultivation
as if they were in a gulag. Systematically, they were
expelled into the margins of subsistence economy or
bare existence. However, as technology developed and
labour vigorously resisted, what intensified was the
primitive accumulation of nature, which still continues. This is a case of primitive accumulation sans
proletarianisation in which the majority of the dispossessed become the surplus population of capitalism, a
human wasteland. And, the primitive accumulation of
nature, in its most concentrated form, has converted
the delta into a waterfill, a wasteland of wetlands. The
unitary model of development of Kuttanad as a rice
bowl was replaced with a new variegated model of
development under the present Kuttanad Package,
which aims to create heterogeneous spaces, because of
the radical changes in social and political subjectivities, economy and mode of governance. The transformation of the commons effected by these
developments underlines the perpetual role of state
in the management of commons in Kuttanad.

Conclusion
Is the free sea Res Nullius or Res Omnium? The
question was once put forward by Schmitt (2006) in
terms of the governance of the seas. Things belonging
to nobody is what res nullius refers to, whilst res
omnium means things belonging to everybody.
Commons have the characteristics of both res nullius
and res omnium i.e. they belong to all whilst owned by
none or belong to none whilst owned by all. However,
the embedded tension between belonging to
everybody and belonging to nobody calls for an

imposition of a nomosa legitimate set of principles

for governance. This is what exactly happened over
Lake Vembanad with the imposition of authority by the
Tiruvitamkoor regime, under the conditions created by
the British. The immanent tension between res nullius
and res omniumis readily manifests as the imminent
tension between imposed statist nomos and existing
customary nomos. It is appropriation that brings forth a
solution to this conundrum. Whoever appropriates and
holds on to the land becomes the sovereign of the land
and the sovereign subsequently lays out the principles
of (further) appropriation. This is a typical colonial
tactic to see a land as res nullius in order to seek its
violent appropriation. Imagining the Lake as a res
nullius, the colonialist framework chose to ignore the
existing customary laws and practices that governed
life in the region. The Lake as res omnium was the
general principle of governance in the post-independence times. Therefore, different sections of population with competing claims over livelihood options
have tried to remake the commons in Kuttanad in
their own desired ways. But substantial changes were
enacted upon the commons for protecting the interests
of the dominant classes such as capitalist cultivators
and tourism magnets. Against the widespread practice
of romanticising commons, we would like to conclude
by asserting that commons are inherently sectarian, not
belonging to all. Hardins (1968, p. 1243) hypothetical
call to [p]icture a pasture open to all is a fictitious call.
Commons never have been open to all. It is more
productive to redefine commons as things belonging
to many rather than owned by none/everyone.
Commons are de facto owned by specific communities
in specific regions. The distribution of (usage rights
over) commons indicates existing social inequalities
and privileges of one community over another (Parthasarathy 2011). Neither possible nor desirable is to
define commons sans community.
Capitalist development has often been understood
as a process of capitalist exploitation of labour through
primitive accumulation. However, the profound transformation on nature caused by enclosure of land is yet
to be thoroughly explored. The enclosure of nature and
entanglement of labour are the two central tendencies
in the history of evolution of land and labour in
Kuttanad. And, it is the enclosure of land that paved
way for the further entanglement of labour. The state
has played an active role in actualising these changes.
The third world (developmental) state plays a vital role

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in the (re)distribution of effects in society. These

(re)distributive functions are considerably different
from (although not unrelated to) the functions of the
Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State
Apparatus as expounded by Louis Althusser (1971);
the organ of state that specifically manages these
(re)distributive functions can be termed as the distributive state apparatus. The totality of distributive and
redistributive functions of the state, which includes the
differential sets of rewards, punishments, incentives,
investments, disinvestments and resource shifts, is
what defines the functions of the distributive state
apparatus in Kuttanad. The distributive state apparatus
constantly engaged in transforming commons in
Kuttanad because it was necessary for sustaining
accumulation and managing relations of inequality
and dominance in the region, which also was its raison
detat.

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