Agrarian Social Structure

Answer : The various land ceiling legislation such as abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reforms, security of tenure, right of ownership for the tenants, consolidation of land holding etc. have greatly affected the social life, especially peasant in the rural areas. The new hierarchy in the agrarian social system consist of: (i) Big land owners which stands at the top of the hierarchy. Normally, these landowners relied on the hired labour and the modern farm machinery for cultivation. Agriculture for them is a profit making activity. (ii) Rich peasant which consists of self-cultivating farmers who occupationally use hired labour. These section of the peasants have been pre beneficiary of the tenancy reforms. They also generate sizeable surplus to sell in the market and employ modern farming techniques along with technological inputs like fertilisers, pesticides and high yielding varieties of seeds. (iii) inferior tenants; which comprise the numerous class having small cultivating interest whose economic status even after the land reforms remains as depressed as before. There have been no change in respect of the land revenue payment demanded from them or the right enjoyed by them over their land. (iv) Tenants at will, share croppers, marginal farmers and farm labourers; which exist at the bottom of the social scale.

Answer : The peasant society, chiefly refers to the society of village life where the main source of livelihood is agriculture and allied activities. According to Durkheim the main basis of the division of labour of this society is communal and characterised by the mechanical solidarity. The other basis of the division of labour are lineage, gotra, caste and varna. The jajmani system, under which the goods and service are mutually exchanged is a crucial feature of the peasant society. The subsistence economic system with the prevalance of market are the characteristic features of the rural life style. The rigid system of social stratification based on caste is the unique features. Religion and kinship network play integrative roles in the peasant society. Recently, the introduction of Panchayati Raj system has strengthened the power and authority of the village head. Now, the peasant will enjoy more autonomy in social, economic and political fields. The traditional peasant society and its means of livelihood have been greatly affected by the introduction of new technology, high yielding varieties of seeds and fertilisers and the new developmental policies of the government. The peasant and agriculture are the fundamental aspects of the Indian society and about 70 percent of livelihood depend on it. Peasant society is like a “republic” and “calm water” in a pond.

Answer : Feudalism and semi feudalism are the dominant reality of the agricultural land of the kingdom. In India, there was nothing analogous to the Roman conception of dominion and the land of the kingdom. The king did not, in theory, create subordinate owners of land because he himself was not, in theory, the supreme owner of the land. What he delegated to the intermediaries was not even his sovereignty understood in this restricted sense but only the specific and individual rights of Zamin, the revenue collecting power. In order to resist, when necessary, the overlord’s terms or conditions made even on the narrow ground of the Zamin power, a principle of cohesion was necessary and that was lacking among the intermediated baronage. They were intermediaries of different grades, different powers, different environments and languages, whose allegiance was never centralized and focused on a signle person or institution and who were moreover scattered widely over an immense territory. They could never, as an organised and coherent body, resits a common overlord and impose checks on him, partly because there was no common overlord to whom all of them has sworn allegiance, and partly because they themselves were rent asunder, were scattered and had each a different historical antecedent.

Indian feudalism remained fiscal and military in character, it was not monorail. When there was a conflict, it was over the shave of the agricultural produce to be retained by the peasant or surrendered to the lord. The foundations of agriculture themselves were not affected. The lord was in general satisfied to exact his utmost from the peasant in the shape of produce, without concerning himself with economic and technical questions of increasing production.

Answer : As far as class-structure of the agrarian social structure of India is concerned, there are some varied explanations and typology. Daniel Thorner has argued about three classes; Malik (land lord), Kisan (peasant) and Mazdoor (agricultural labour). The Malik was traditionally rich, but, now, the Kisan and Majdoor are gradually improving their status. The neo-rich agrarian class which constitute of middle or lower middle class is generally characterised by modern outlook, exposure to modernisation, secular-religious belief, dominating tendencies, politically conscious and economically progressive. In Bihar and U.P. some of the castes such as Koiries and Kurmi have made rapid economic progress with the help of cash-crops. They are resonably doing well in the field of education, administration and politics. Alongwith agricultural activities, the neo-rich are involved in the government and technical jobs in the private, national and multinational companies. Thus, with the flow of cash, they are entering into the modern life-style. The rate of social mobility especially vertical is very rapid among them. Some of them migrate to the urban areas and are borrowing the urban life style and values. The are positively appreciated and given equal status by the earlier rich class.

Answer : According to A.R. Desai (1959) there are three main classes in agrarian society. These are landowner, tenants and labourers. The landowners constitute about 22 percent, tenants about 27 percent and agricultural labourers about 31 percent. The fourth, non-agricultural labourers about 31 percent. Daniel Thorner has analysed agrarian relation by using three specific terms: Malik for agricultural landlords, Kisan for working peasant and Majdoor for agricultural labourers. D.M. Dhangre has suggested a different model of agrarian classes. He has proposed five classes: (i) landlords, who derive income primarily from landownership by collecting rent from tenants, sub-tenants and share-croppers (ii) Rich peasants, small landowners with sufficient land to support the family and who cultivate land themselves, and rich tenants who have substantial holdings and have to pay nominal rent to their landlords (iii) Middle peasant-landowners of medium size holdings and tenents with substantial holdings and have to pay a nominal rent to their landlord. (iv) Poor peasant-landowners with holdings insufficient to maintain a family and therefore forced to rent other lands (v) landless labourers in agricultural labour. The problem of landless agricultural labourers are more economic than social. The vast majority of agricultural labourers belong to SCs, STs and OBCs category. In spite of government’s discrimination and reservation policy, their economic and social status has not much improved. They are not considered as the part of social life in village. In this way, the agrarian class-structure is diversified in a different ways.

Answer : The land reforms aims at the institutional and motivational obstacles which stood in the way of modernising agriculture and establishment of a more egalitarian social structure. Intermediary tenure like zamindari, jagirs and inams have been abolished. Legislative provisions have been made for enforcement of ownership rights on the tenants who require ownership of land from a landlord or from the state on payment of reasonable revenues. Provisions have also been made in the laws for security of tenure. Rent have been fixed at a reasonable level in the form of share of crop to be paid to the land owners by the tenants and the eviction of tenants prohibited, except in the case of non-payment of rent or on specified grounds. Land ceiling laws have been revised and implemented. Under these laws 72.2 acres of surplus land has been declared surplus and 45.7 lakh acres distributed. Consolidation of fragmented lands has been completed in some state while slow progress is witnessed in other states. Land records are being updated. However, the pace of implementation of land reform over the country, as a whole, is still very slow and unsatisfactory. The land reforms are bringing about a silent revolution in rural India. By transforming the agrarian society through peaceful and democratic method, they are helping to usher in a new era based on social justice. The reform measures recently undertaken have done much to remove social injustice in the rural areas. The social consequences of land reform in Bihar may be summarised as follows.

Firstly, a big land owners class has emerged who own the large pieces of land. Normally, these land owners rely on hired labour and modern machinery for cultivation. Agriculture for them is mainly profit making activity. They constitute the dominant class in the rural areas and have political power also. The big landowners of Bihar consists of Rajput, Bhumihar, Brahmin, Kurmi etc. On the other hand the Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Classes still remain deprived of the land.

Secondly, the rich peasant class has come into existence. It consists of self-cultivating farmers who occupationally use hired labourers. They are drawn from the upper layers of the tenannts who have relatively bigger holding and large enough financial resources to consolidate their position by purchasing ownership right under new land laws. Rajni Kothari has termed them "Ascended castes". This also consists of the higher castes.

Thirdly, the inferior tenants of Bihar comprise the most numerous class having small cultivating interest whose economic status even after the land reform remains as depressed as earlier.

Thus the inequality in the land distribution in Bihar has resulted in two polar opposite groups. The one is the big landowner and the other is the deprived caste or class. The internal conflict and war between these two groups has resulted in the disorganisation of Bihar. The Ranvir Sena, Bajrang Dal, MCC and other naxalite group of gun holding men involve in group killing and politising the issues.

The Planning Commission of India organised a task force under the leadership of Mr. P.S. Appu to investigate the major difficulties in the implementation of various land reform legislations. He suggested some principal reasons for it, which are lack of political will, absence of pressure from below because the poor peasants and agriculture workers are passive, unorganised and inarticulate, lukewarm and often the apathetic attitude of the bureaucracy, absence of up to date land records, and legal hurdles in the way of the implementation of land reforms. The task force categorically concludes; "In a society in which the entire weight of civil and criminal laws, judicial pronouncement and precedents, administrative tradition and practice is thrown on the side of the existing social order based on the inviobility of private property, and isolated laws aiming at the restructuring of the property relation in the rural areas has little chance of success. And whatever little chance of success was there, completely evaporated because of the loopholes in the laws and protracted legislation.”

The basic problem in the implementation of programme of the land reform is to break the stranglehold of the vested interest in land and the legal support given by the judiciary to the vested interest in the name of sanctity of the private property. Obviously, the talk of strengthening administrative machinery without creating condition for breaking the stranglehold of the holy trinity, i.e. landlord, moneylenders, traders, is nothing but lip service to poor peasantry. The frontal attack has to be made with a view to ensuring justice to the rural proletariat engaged in cultivation.