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Agrarian Relations in Two Rice Regions
of KeralaJoan 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 theirfuture development.
Introduction
THE 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 living con-lotions are st il l deplorable. As the
thinks of the labouring force have swel
led because of (1) population increase,
(2) movement into agriculture of work
ers unable to make a living in other
industries (such as coir), (3) disposses
sion of tenants and poor farmers, (4)
the tendency of landowners to skimp
on agricultural operations such as we
eding to save labour costs, and (5) the
gradually increasing use of mechanisa
tion, there has been an inevi table
decrease in days of employment.
In a number of ways Kerala stands
apart from other parts of Indi a. To
begin wi th Kerala had a traditiona l
patt ern of dispersed settlement, wi th
large Nambo odir i or Nayar houses
isola ted in spacious dispersed com
pounds 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 foodgra in.
"This part of India produces but little
rice, which is a principal article of food
in these parts, as wheat is with us;
but it procures abundance of that and
all other kinds of provisions from other
count ries " (Castaneda, 1582:34 7), It
is noted that the extensive exports
more than paid for the imports of rice.
There are three other impo rtant
characteristics of Kerala wh ic h are
relevant to this paper. First, it is wellknown that the level of literac y in
Kerala is th e highest of any India n
state, though this varies considerably
from district to district (from approx
imately 44 per cent in rural Palghat
Dist ri ct , to close to 71 per eent in
rural Alleppey District). Second, Kerala
has been highl y poli tici sed, at least
since the 1930s. In connect ion wi th
this poli tic al involvement and aware
ness, 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 poor
est group of people.1
Till recently, the
diet of the poor included some fish;
but due to the increased availability ofrefrigeration 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 agricul tural labourers
studied in our diet survey, only four
out of 29 households consumed sub
stantial quantities of tapioca. The eon-
sumption 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 popu
lation, Furthermor e, the three eastern
taluks of Palghat are the main double
(and sometimes triple) cropped arers.
It is from these regions, in addition toimport s 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 Al-
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 poli tic al structure
of most of Kerala was quite similar,
though (here were a number of regio
nal 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 Namboo diri Brahman
[Hams, or one of tho rul ing famil ies,
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 migh t
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 he ld in a three-layered
structure, with a jenmi, a Nayar
kanamdar (holder of higher-level ten
ancy rights), and an Izhava verumpat-
tam (lower-l evel) tenant, the actual
cultivation being done by untouchable
agricultural labourers who were agrestic
slaves. Thi s was cert ainly the case in
Palghat and the evidence for Travan-
core 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
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the late eighteenth centu ry. 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 i ndir ectl y of 80 per cent of the
cult iva ted lands, and almost all the
arable and uncultivated waste). Cochin,
on the other hand, was a tract with
a little under half of its lands officially
categorised as peasant pr opri etor ship,
and the remainder with nan-cultivating
or absentee landlords (jenmis) under thecomplex tradi tiona l system of subin
feuda tion. (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 them
selves along with hired help, but also
people with several hundred acres, all
worked by hired wage labour.)
By the mid-1950s, accordi ng to a
survey by Varghese (1970:161-2), about
40 per cent of the households in Kut-
tanad were landless, 20 per cent wereowner-cultivators, 33 per cent were ten
ants, and about 7 per cent were rent-
receiving households. According to the
1951 census for Palghat tract of Malabar
District (which included most of the
irrigated part of the present Palghat
dis tric t), 58 per cent of the people
belonged to agricultural labourer house
holds, 25 per cent belonged to tenant
households, 8 per cent were owner-
cultivators and another 8 per cent were
rent-receiving households. Varghese's
figures for Malabar show a much lower
percentage of agricultural labourerhouseholds and higher percentage of
tenant households, but this may have
been a feature of his research design,
Mnee he was primarily interested in
studying land tenure relations, and not
agricultural labour, and thus did not
focus on the irrigated tracts.
However, there is no question that
there was a difference between the
two areas. Malabar was clearly an area
with a complex tenancy pattern. This
had existed in Travancore as well, but
had been eliminated at the end of the
eighteenth century. When Marthanda
Varma annexed the territories of al l
the Nayar chieftains in his domain,
the state asserted its sovereignty by
converting almost all of their land to
state or sircar lan d. 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.
It is interesting that capitalist penetrat ion 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 transpo rt and
communications in Travancore, though
with this explanation begs the ques
tion, which came first, the chicken or
the egg? Anoth er explana tion is that
capitalists found it easier to invest inareas of ind ire ct rule tha n in areas
where the British were ruling directly.
Not only did they invest in the high
lands (in tea estates), they also stimu
lated the Kerala Christians in the ir
land reclamation efforts in the lowlands
(see below). Interestingly, the Bri tis h
seem to have kept the Nilgiris as a
kind of preserve for their recreation,
and did not stimulate investment in
tea estates in the hig her parts of
Malabar (Brockway 1977).2
Palghat
Palghat District, along with the rest
of the former Malabar District and the
northern part of the former Cochin
State, was much more affected by the
land reforms of the twentieth century
than the Kuttanad region. In the early
years of this century the main focus
of rural agitation in Palghat was for
tenancy refor m. Thou gh much of the
agitation was led by the Nayar kanam-
durs, who held land primarily from the
temples or from big Namboodiri fami
lies or high-ranking Nayars, they werehelped in their agitations by the lesser
tenants. Under the British these konam
tenants had been denied the security
which they had held under traditional
practi ce. The r esult of these agit a
tions was that permanent tenancy was
given legal sanction, fi rst in Travan
core, next in Cochin in 1914, and in
the 1930s in Malaba r. In Malabar,
permanency of tenure came late, and
involved more agitation because of the
stand of the Bri ti sh. Thi s land legis
lation was also involved with agitations
among the Nayars themselves for theright to part iti on their landhoidings
held by the formerly indivisible matri-
lineal household, and by Na mboodir i
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 agita
tion to give some sort of security to
all tenants started. Thi s agitat ion at
first did not aim to change the jenmisystem, but 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 wo uld benefit most
from this sort of agitation. What made
the situa tion 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 itout to others on different types .
tenure.
In the early 1970s, the Kerala land
reform b i l l was finally passed and as a
result of several Supreme Court deci
sions, 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 with was at most
5-10 cents of land in and around their
small house-sites, on which perhaps one
or tw o trees mig ht 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 bill. 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 oftenanted land. Though large in number,
their holdings only account for a small
amount of the land being cultivated.
The second gro up consists of those
who held portions of 5-10 acres of
paddy land and who now, after the
land reforms, are doin g qui te we ll .
(Five to ten acres of double-dropped
paddy land in the Palghat region can
provide a household with means for a
very comfortable standard of li vi ng ,
inc ludi ng 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
350
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These in clu de the few former fermis
who were cultivating their own land,
but the majority are former Izhava ten
ants wh o held a considerable amount
of land, often from more than what
was held by the old -ti me landlo rds,
and often under a variety of types of
tenancy. Mos t of these new ri ch were
also politically astute, and had on paperpartitioned their land in such a way
as to avoid land ceil ing limi ts. 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
Chi tto or taluks. These new ri ch also
include former jenmis who had ma
naged to hold on to sizeable pieces of
land by taking it back for self-cultiv
ation in the late 1950s or early 1960s,pid some medium-size cultivating
households that belong to the former
jenmi class, mostly Nayars and Nam-
boodiris.
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 activi
ties in Kerala or elsewhere (including
Malaysia and Burma) to buy new
lands, or to buy back form er jenmi
lands in their ancestral village or thatof their wives. On the whole they
align themselves with the other new
landlords politically and economically.
Tables 1 and 2 give the basic break
down of socio-economic groupings in
Palghat as well as in Alleppey. Because
of the differences be twee n the tw o
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, bu t
the general position of the agriculturallabourers has been one of extreme ex
ploitation. Though a considerable
percentage of labourers had supported
the Communist Party from the 1930s,
it was only after the state's reorganisa
tion that the Communist Party started
slowly organising the agricultural
labourers into unions, and it was really
only after the second Un it ed Fron t
ministry came into power in the mid-
1960A that the unions began to be
something of a force in the district.
Despite this, it has been a continuousuphill 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 peri od
from 1965 un ti l 1976. Un ti l 1975 the
main unions in the Palghat area were
led by the CPI (M ), thou gh there were
a few small CPI unions as we ll . In
1975, the Congress also started orga
nising the labourers, especially in the
area near the border of Trichur Dis
tr ic t of the former Cochin State. In
October 1975, the new minimum wage
law was passed It singled out Palghat,
and provid ed special wages for the
labourers there. Since the mi ni mu m
wage was higher than anything being
paid, it gave the labourers something
to work for. Furthermore, though
strikes had been outla wed 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 thi s reason, from the labourers'
point of view, there are many advant-
ages to bei ng registered w it h the
panchayat as a parti cular landowner's
permanent labourer. In addition, therewas the hope that they could also
ultimately take advantage of the pro
vident fund.
On the other hand, the landowners
have not been at all happy about the
new agr icu ltu ral wages Act . Ther e is
a provision in the Act exempting house
holds owning less than one hectare of
land. Wha t 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 minorchildren. Still other devices have
been resorted to by some landowners
to evade the Ac t. Accor ding to one
union organiser;
There is a provisio n in the Ac tthat a farmer can dismiss alabourer if he brings loss to thefarmer. But there is no defini tionof loss in the Act. So, if a labourerslips on a bund in the rain andsome of the paddy in the bundlehe is carrying gets separated fromthe hay due to the fall, the farmer
can say he brought a loss of oneor two measures and dismiss him.We have had so many cases liketha t
There are a number of other ways tocreate a case against particular labourers to get them dismissed if the land
lords are dete rmine d to do so. They
have not always been successful be
cause 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. Furthe rmore,
while strikes were illegal, work stop
pages were not. In those pockets where
the labourers were really well-organised,
they were able to take advantage of
the permanent labour system to pres
sure the landowners to pay the mini
mum wage according to the wages Act.
Elsewhere, there contin ued to beconsiderable variation in what was
actual ly bei ng pai d 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. No t only were
the Marxists left relatively free to
organise the labourers, but the other
unions (the small CPI unions and the
growing but still small Congress unions)
have been vying with one another to
see how many people they can get
registered in each panchayat as perma
nent 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 Kutt anad . 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 Kut tan ad, thou gh
the larger land-owners in Palghat
certai nly saw the labourers as the ir
main prob lem. In our inte rview s 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 now
adays. It was only as an after tho ugh t
that they would then complain about
the high price of fertilisers or pesti
cides. These tensions between the
landlords have increased markedly in
the past two years, and have come to
inc lud e at least some of the smaller
landowners. This is discussed below.
An ad diti onal 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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bitter, and though they have not joined
the C PI( M), give strong support to
the ''Congress le ft ". As one man put
i t :
Look at us, we have lost everythi ng. Ami now we are starving.Yet look at Y, he was my tenantbefore. Now he has a new carand lives like a kin g. He hasalso built a new house with allfacil ities. And the labourers wha t have they got? Now theirwage is more, but they are notpaying. Those former tenantsknow how to extract work fromthe labourers. No t lik e us. Weused to give them presents formany occasions, and help with somany things. They call this social
ism, making us poor and the formertenants ric h. This is not socialism.Somehow, it would have beeneasier to take even i f we werepoor, if they had helped the poorand not simply created a new classof rich. If they want socialism,let it be real socialism.
People habouring such sentimentsclearly will not go out to fight for thelabourers, but they wi l l not opposethem either.
Tine perception of the labourers of
the changes in agrari an re lations are
not consistent, and depend in many
ways on the particular local situation.In the two villages where we collected
detail ed materials, we fo und certain
str iki ng differences. In the fir st vill age,
where today there are no very large
landowners and only a handful of
medium size ones and where previ
ously the jenmis were especially power
ful we find that of those labourers
answering the question about differen
ces 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 cordia l. In the
second village, where the former jenmis
had been mostly absentee land lord s,
and where there are quite a few house
holds of former tenants with large
holdings, only a few labourers claimed
that the old landlords were worse. The
majority either claimed that the pre
vious landlord-labourer relationship was
more cordial, or else commented on
new improvements in thei r 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 wan ti ng to take everyt hing away
from them . They fear that their new
found prosperit y may be short-li ved.Having experienced such prosperity,
they are resentful of the government's
unwillingness to provide price supports,
or subsidise the cost of pesticides and
fertil isers. Yet , the only ones the y can
take it out on arc the labourers.
The following quotes from individuals
interviewed during our Palghat study
wil l perhaps illustrate the human im
plications of the preceding discussion.
First, a few quotes from 1975-76:
A well-to-do cultivator: For the
past so many years we were cultivators. Previously, we di d not haveas muc h as we have now . We camehere 32 years ago. At tha t time th ejenmi of this land told us that hecould look alter that land better, sowe should move and look after thisland. We have 30 acres here, and10 in M and another 5 we are notcultivating because it is waste land.We have about 25 permanentlabourers here and 15 in M. Thi syear I am doing less of the hybridseeds because when you take intoaccount the costs of fertilisers, etcand the extra labour, it is not worthit even if the yie ld is bett er. If wesell the paddy for less than Rs 1,000per cartload it is difficult to manage,and this year it is seven or eighthundre d rupees. Last year it wasRs 1,250. The government has in tr oduced a new wages bi l l . If theyinsist that we should pay at such ahigh rate then they must keep theprice of paddy up. It is true thatwe get more and more yield, butprices are higher than ever and mostof the fanners are in debt. Mychildren are all educated and working . We also parti tione d the landway hack in 1962. The governmentwants to take one acre of land and
give it to a poor person and form asociety. But it won't work. Nobodyis responsible in co-operative farming. So. it won't work. Simply goand write report in the night, thatis all.
A landowner who is also a Marxistworker: This year we are giving5 and 6 measures. Acc ord ing to thenew Act it is 6 and 7, bu t i t ispossible to give only this much.Four years back it was 4 and 5.That next house, he is having troublewi th the labourers. For 3 years, heis the troub le maker. Of coursebecause I am a sympathiser with the
party I wi ll say that. In everythingtie is like that. After the land reform, he is not giving anything tothe landl ord . He has 25-30 acres ofgood double corp land. See, whatyou require is good behaviour withthe labourers. Even it
1you pay less
than what is prescribed, they won'tmin d. If you behave harshly wi ththen), even if von give more it isnot enough. In the beg inn ing I waspaving more because I am an activewor ker. We were, the first to give1: 10 when the rate was 1: 16. Wemust not be harsh with the workers,and if they do something wrong, wemust inst ruct nicely. We give themfor the full day's work even if thereis only half day needed.
A former jenmi who still has 10acres ; It is true that the tenantsgot the land from us. But it is notbenefiting the labourers in any way,Even the good that we were doing
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for the labourers t he new landlordsare not doing. The ol d jenmis evenin the middle of the night used toextend help to the labourers by wayof cash if need be, but the presentlandlords are not like that. They willsay do your work and earn yourwages. They will not give loans.And if the labourers refuse to work,
then the male and female membersat thei r families [the new lan downers familie s] wi l l enter the fieldsand work. In this village somelandlords have had trouble withlabourers. After harvesting, beforeentering the field they would nottalk of any fixed terms or anything.After the harvesting was over, whenthe bundles were on the bunds andmay be it was raining or something,or even the o wner was not instation, only his wife or son supervising, they would demand increasedrate. Thi s used to happe n. It wasthe w ork of the pol iti cal parties.They are extracting Its 3 from the
labourers now for registering themwi t h the panchayat. They tell themthat there are so many facilities andthat they can have this and that,'They are the ones w ho create; allsorts of problems in the agriculturalfield . The work ers do not care aboutall of these facil ities . Wh at theywant is work all 365 days of theyear. They do no t even care ii theyonly get Rs 4 per day it they getwork through out. The governmenthas to take steps to help the workers,not by increasing wages, but bysetting up factories or cottage industries where they can get work whenthere is no work in the fields. In
the old days I used to give 2-1/2measures, now it is 5. But thevolume of work they do is less. Evenif the labourers are wi ll in g, theunions wi ll not let them work as before.
A landowner who manages 18acres of double-cropped paddyland: [tie was a tenant formerly.Since 1970, he is not paying rent,though he gives small amounts tothe former jenmis so that when hehas to pay compensation he won't bepaying too much.] Fiv e years before, we did not have car, now Ihave that . No fri dge before,
now we have that. Now I amconstructing an overhead tank forhousehold purpose. I also haveadded a new section to my house.Even the labourers are better off.Then they worked from morning toevening and only got 10 : 1. No wthey work less and get 6 : 1 . Theyget more paddy. 1 get along we llw i t h labourers. I pay them wel l.So they themselves realise that thelabourers of the neighbour house getless, so they keep quiet and do notbother me. [ No me ntion of lessdays.]
A landowner with 18 acres of pad
dy fields and a large rubber estate :See. there is no work now in myfields. The labourers are str iki ng,so no wor k. I was prepar ed to givethe prescribed wage but they worktoo slow. They know they w il l getthe 8 and 7 wages but they are not
prep ared to wo rk. Th ey say 8 hoursof wo rk; come at 7.30, go at12.30 , back at 1.30 and go at4.30. But they are doi ng onl y thework of half that. Last year theytransplanted in 30 cents in one day,thi s year only 10 cents. I have 23permanent work ers. If I cal l one,all the 23 want to work together.
Usually these 23 people wi l l harvest23 plots in a day. But this year all23 wanted to work together. Thevdi d only 60 cents in all . [Bu t don' tthey get a share for harvest?] Yes.but they want to get me. I start edgiv ing 6 : 1. They don't wan t todo it on time, so that I wi l l get someloss. [La ter on we were tol d tha t
. the workers are doin g thi s becausehe is calling them only for transpla nti ng and harvesting . He doesnot do any weeding, and uses thesociety for pesticides. . , So to spitehim. they are foll owin g this go-slowtactic. This shows the lack ofunderstanding. In another field
nearby there was a 16-day str ike .Finally the landlord had to take themback at their terms. No w they arecutting hack on the labour]
Previously I had 19 women weeding . They wo ul d not pu ll the Weedsalong with the roots, but simply pullhaphazardly and the roots wo uldbreak and in no time the weed willgrow once again. If 1 need 5 womenthe first time I will need 8 nexttime . So now, I supervise' the wo rkcarefully and have less weeds.
A cultivator who is managingabout 70 acres and Juts over 100permanent labourers: In Palghat
the fanners are downtrodden. InKuttanad they can employ any number of laboure rs, bu t h ere we canonly employ our permanent labourers. Even for harvest we can onlyuse our permanent labourers. Forone acre, it used to take 20 peopleone day, but with new high-yieldingvarieties they only do 70 cents. Nowwe are using trac tor . We onbecausecat tle for 3-4 acres where it iswaterlogged or something out ofevery 20. Nowadays the men onl ycome for ploug hing at 8 in themorning; previously they used tocome at 3 in the mor ning and toplough as if it was their own land.
Previously they used to sing andwor k. Now , if they sing someonewi l l tease them.
A group of agricultural labourersin the presence of Congress labourunion officials: I have no permanentwork now. Wh enev er I am calledI go. T here are tw o per manentlabourers there now. I was wor kin gfor them for the last 3 years, butnow I say I am not a perm anentlabourer. Thi s year I wen t for hisweedin g wo rk. Then I was d oin ghis household, sweeping the compound, cleaning the cow-shed,carrying water from the river when
there was no water in his well. WhenI entered the field to do the weeding, it was not possible to pull outeach weed. Then he called mesaying I need not go there . Th epaddy plant was so tall it was difficult to weed. He started hur ryi ng
me to finish the work . I di d notsay anythi ng. He pai d me cash forweedin g Rs 3.50. For trans plan tin g also I get only Rs 3.50.[Several other workers came up andsaid they too were get tin g onlyRs 3.50 for weeding or transplanting.]
Discuss ion with a group of labour-
ers in the second study villageHere we are getting 6:1 pathambu(share) and 4 and 5 as wages. Bu tat X (2 miles away) they are getting6 and 7. They are perma nentworkers a nd they argue and get.Here, the cultivators are not makingus permanent. When they heardthis permanent system coming, theydismissed us. We have giv en ournames to the panchayat, bu t st il lthey tell us to go away. Here theunion is not as strong. There mus tbe unit y among the workers. It isnot here. In Wa rd I, that side theyare getting more from last 3 years.Once the transplanting is done the
agriculturists do not weed. Theylook the othe r side. In cases wehave registered, they bring in falsepoints and take case against thoselabourers who mentioned theirnames.
Women Maixist Organiser, whois also an agricultural labourer:I am get tin g 6 measures du ri ngseason, and 5 at othe r times . Fo rharvest I am ge tt ing 0: 1. Seineworkers have not joined the unionbecause they are scared they wi l llose their job, and the relationshipwill worsen between them and theiremployers. If we ask for more moneythe culitvator gets angry. Otherwise,they are more friendly. My employermakes me do some work along withprescribed work such as shopping,grinding, taking paddy to the mill,without giving anything extra. Eventoday I had to clean some rice anddi d not get anything for i t. In ol dtime it was the same. Fir st ti mewe went for weeding he gave 5measures, second time he gave 4.When 8 people go for harvestingone is kept in the house for house-work. The other 7 have to giv e ashave to this 8th woma n. [W e askif they did n't protest.] No, if the ywon't agree it won't work. They
are afraid they wi l l lose. We mustall stand together b ut some areafraid.
Union Leader: The only way isto get them all to unit e. St il l, manylabourers are afr aid. If one personasks for i t , th e other 5 must alsostand by it . If one woma n asks forsomething and the other 7 womendo not share their wages with her.there wi l l be a change. If yo u arestrict, he has to give her the wages.They are sayin g tha t when 4 of usunite, and ask for more, the othersact as if they are not in the groupSo the cultivator will say thatLakshmi is the troublemaker and getr id of her. If everyone is as one,then it won't be like that.
Dis trict Congress Co mm it te eUnion Organiser and a Youth Congress Leader; We must organistthe workers. It is we who pu
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through the wages b i l l , but if thelabourers do not come forward whatcan we do? We must organisethem, to demand the new wage.Actually, ultim ately the land mustgo to them at least one acrefor each labouring household. Youask how that can be. We say bylegis lation . You need only add oneclause to the present Act not allow
ing absentee landowners. An d then-wi ll be enough land. We are fighting for that. Even we must fightthe feudal and reactionary people inour own Party. But we wi l l succeedin the next 10-15 years.
It may be useful to add here a few
quotes from interviews during the mon-
toon season of 1977, in order to
understand the changes that have occur
red :A fairly large-owner, If
everyone else gave the IRC wage,then I wou ld give. But , generally noone is givin g. It is not possible,
because costs of cultivation are toomuch. All the ministers know wecan't give and are not giving. [Onlya few days earlier several Ministershad mad- statements that the TRCwage was being implemented.] Thelabourers are not demanding nowbecause if they do, they wi l l get nowork, so they accept what they aregiven. We have to cut on operations,or work in order to try to bringlabourers' wages within the limit wewere giving previously. Previously,I used to weed one more time, nowI am not doi ng. I used to hir ewomen to cut grass on the bunds,but not any more. Li ke 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 ofwork. Those cult ivato rs who do
give weeding work do only one-ball.They say it is enough if I get one-half yield. My landlord is now doingthe straw work himself, simply notto give to us. before we got 1 or2 days of work from tha t. He can.afford it . . .
Some other labourers working fora Marxist landowner : We aregetting 0 and 5 measures now. previously 7 and 6 But , some othersare giving even less now . . . somegive 5 and 4. For casual labourthey give cash only. Some are givingas little as Rs 2.50 or 3, SOME Rs 5.But we must work or we will starve.
Some agricultural labourers work
ing in pouring rain near the roadside : This Maharaja called for worktoday. We do not know what weare getting, but for past 4 days nowork . Our childre n are cry ing from
hunger, so we, must wo r k. . . Theunion is not doing much If I don'tcome for work for lower wages,others will come. So only my childrenwill starve.
These passages illustrate perhaps
more graphically than the words of any
outside observer the flavour of the dis
agreements 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 wi th their ally the CPI .made a considerable dent in the Marxist
strongho ld of Palghat in the recent
assembly elections, securing 7 out of
11 seats. On the other hand, it was
quite striking (in July 1977) how-
organised the landlords had become,
and how strong they are in their deter
mina tion to br ing down wages. The
falling price of paddy has partly spark
ed this, but also the influence of Kut-
tenad leaders could be noted. Even in
1976, one landowners' association leader
had told us that they were having
'consultations' with Kuttanad agricultu rist s. The results of this consulta
tion could clearly be discerned.
Kuttanad
As noted above, the major part of
Kuttanad is in Alleppey district, with
smaller parts in Kottayam and
kulam district s. The Kuttanad area
stands out in marked contrast to Pal-
ghat because of the early capitalisation
of agr icu ltur e there. as wel l 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 cent
ury on, it assumed its special distinc
tive pattern, as vast areas of land be
low sea level were gradually drained
and brought under cult ivat ion. In the
area known as Kut tanad, two- thir ds of
the total area is taken up wi th rice
lands. Un ti l fair ly recently, there were
practi cal ly no roads in the area, all
communication being by boat. The drygraden lands in Kuttanad are of limited
extent, as these lands have been raised
in patches from the low wet lands over
the years the sca rci ty, of land for
habitation having prompted such trans
formations . It should be noted tha t
on this 'habitable land' there is a im
putati on density of wel l over 10,000
people per square mile, These lands
have an eleva tion of only 3-4 feet
above the main water level, and they
are generally submerged dur ing the
monsoon floods. Large Nayar taravads
were bu il t about 0-8 feet from the
ground. They could not, however, build
rnul tist orie d 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
thei r roof-tops. There are only two
crops, rice and coconut. We shall only
discuss rice cul tiv ati on, since this is
the occupa tion that absorbs most of
the population.There are three main types of land
in Kutt anad. The largest area the
karappadams are old reclamations,
extending over an area of 102.000 acres.
They vary from one to seven feet be
low the water level. The second type
of area is known as the kayal, These are
new land reclamations w hic h lie at
10-20 feet below sea-level. Thi s area
is divided into contiguous blocks called
padisekharams bounded by canals, rivers
or other part itions. 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 thi rd kind of land
is known as kari land. These are
swampy areas wi th black peaty soi l
high acidit y. About half of one of
our sample villages consisted of kari
land.
The main system of cul tivati on isknown as punja cultivation (Pillai and
Paniker. 1965:28-31). A punja field is
submerged under water du ri ng 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
culti vatio n. Cul tiv atio n occurs after
dra ining the fields, though one does
occasionally see the start of ploughing
on fields even before they have been
ful ly drained. Thus, one may see the
head and shoulders of a man and the
heads of bullocks moving along in thewater, and one knows they are
ploughing.
The basic system of cul tivati on is
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the same in the karapaddams and koyal
and kari land, hut pumpi ng out is
harder in the ease of kayal lands
because t hey are so far below sea-
level . Cult iva tio n can start after the
southwest monsoon subsides in October
or so, thoug h sometimes plo ugh ing
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
fai rty large. The reclamations were
real ly quit e remarkable, feats. For the
most part they were carr ied out by
entrepreneurs with the help of a large,
pauperised agricult ural labour class.
The reclamations of the kayal lands in
Vembanad Lake at the tur n 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 invest
ment 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 wi ll 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 peculi aritie s 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 riceregions of South India (including most
of Kerala) where quite different vari
eties of seed have always been grown
on adjacent fields. The result of this
pattern of cultivation is that there may
be 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-Vaya lar police firing
of 1946. Serveral authors have dealt
with the question of agricultural lab
our in Kerala. (Mencher 1973, Gopalan
1959. Oomanen 1971) Pil lai and Pani-
ker (1965:118) point out that reclam-
ation-cu m-farming in the Kuttana d
developed against a predominantly
feudal backgrou nd. 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
Chris tians . They had also been the
former tenants who had become land
owners as a resul t of land reforms,
whic h occurred earlier in Travancore
than elsewhere in Kerala. The divorce
between ownership of land and work
in the fields was as comple te as in
Palghat. From early days the labourers
were drawn from a few untouchable
castes (including, in more recent times,Chr ist ian converts from these same
castes). The rela tionship between the
attached labourers and the landed pro
prietors 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 du ri ng the harvest
season. Agricultural labourers from
surroundin g districts regularly migrate
into the Kuttanad area for a period of
four to six weeks, li vi ng as a floating
population and part ici pat ing in the
harvest. To the ranks of these workers-
have 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 , inc lud ing the ir wives, who
find that they can supplement thei r
catch of fish by get tin g a few large
measures of paddy from harvesting.
The depression in the fishing industry
cansed by large-scale motori sed fishing,and the general modernisation of that
industry with a focus on exports, has
hit the average fisherman badly.
Panikar has noted that it was almost
inevitable that in this area union acti
vit y woul d develop. He notes that
agricultural labourers compare very
unfavourably wi th other classes or
labourers, having no regular employ
ment, no fixed hours, no compensation
in case of death, etc. Acc ord ing to
Paniker, "Demands for wage increase
among the agricultural labourers mustbe considered as a desperate effort to
ensure a minimum annual income for
their family where employment is so.
limi ted and uncertain. Union activ ity
among the agricultural labourers deve
loped 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 therehad been a steady decline in the real
wages of agricultural labourers in Kut
tanad from 1944-45 to 1967-68, des-
pite increases in the money wages, duo
to increases in the price of paddy .
From 1907-68 on there was some in
crease in real wages, so that in 1970-
71, the paddy equivalent of the daily
money wage of a male agricult ural
labourer was just 8.7 per cent above
the 1944-45 level . If anyt hing , 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 wou ld talk
about getting 45 minutes or one hour
and 20 minutes in a day for harvesting
a field. Thi s wou ld always be accom
panied wi t h tales of the number ofdays they had spent wanderi ng 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
proportio n of the land available for
cul tiv ati on during the second season
(the season tha t 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 isthe poor price of paddy.
The extreme development of capital
ist fanning in Kuttanad and adjacent
areas led to strong pol itic all y active
agric ultura l 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 be
longed to the CPI (M) union . It also
led, to the development of a total ly
new set of social relations of produc
tio n, whereby there was very li tt le
attachment of ind ivi dua l labourers to
any particular piece of lanil, or even
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to any part icul ar loca lity . Thus, one
now finds vast hordes of labourers
descending on an area at harvest time,
and very little of personal ties existingwith the land.
In the period following the formation
of labour unions, there was strongagitation 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, in1976, 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 amin order to begin the harvesting, which
might be completed two hours later),
but also the local labourers, who haveseen thei r earnings dim ini sh as thenumber of hours of harvesting dwindle
due to the pressure of numbers of
people. Both these groups seemed to
approve the system of passes handed outby 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 situati on: (1) the small land
owner with less than an acre of paddyland is as likely to see a vast army of
people harvesting his land as the man
wi th 30 acres. l i e cannot protest,
though he might try to get all of hisrelatives 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) Itis rare to find permanent labourers who
work wi th a given landowner and
really know all of the details of cultiv
ation, budget, costs of production, etcas well as the landowner himself, such
as one finds elsewhere. (3) When theKerala Government, under pressure from
the OPI(M), set up three state farmson land confiscated from the wealthiest
large landowner-cum-businessman in
Kuttanad. it was run the same way as
before. 3,000 labourers were allot tedone acre of land each, but the farms
themselves were run by the Govern
ment, The 'owners' simp ly received
their wages for each day of work. Infact, the wages paid were sligh tly
lower than the prevailing wages, since
they were considered to be working on
their own land. Thi s setting up ofstate 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 deci
sion-making positions. Furthermore,
poli tica l considerations dominated in
choosing labourers for each of the state
farms. Since they were bei ng run as
capi tali st businesses, obviously thei r
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 profi t, even though it woul d
have prov ided 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 : Nowall are working in the fields. Wemust go to other places, otherwise?we cannot liv e. We go to the otherside of the river, that is also thisvil lage. Then we also go to severalother villages, not very far away.We normally get Rs 7 and Rs 10as wages. Here we have to worksix hours continuously, and reallywork hard. There will be one amongus who will act as a supervisor, andalso the owner of the field will bethere. . .. But nowadays, this 'sixhours continuously', nobody gets.The number of labourers has increased so much, there wi l l be somany who enter the field. So weget work for two or three hours. orsometimes only one hour. Theycalculate at the rate of Rs 7 perday and give us accord ingly. Wehave to work even in the rain forsix hours. Here the landowners donot employ the same persons thesenext year also. They always changepeople, because then they are afraidthat the labourers will start fightingover their rights and all that.
A landowner in the kaval region:The land here is a problem. 1wanted only 10 women, but to selectonly ten from the local area is aprobl em. So I had to select 20.They work for three hours and go.Now there is not much problem forus, they listen, but a time willcome. . . political leaders wil l sayyon give them work, there is nopart- time work. What we need inKuttanad is absolute right to selectpeople to work and to fix theirnumber. . . . Whe n this Emergencywas declared, there was specificinstruction that if a cultivator askedfor police protection, he could getit. He could restrict the numberscomin g for harvest ing. We applied .But some 600-800 people came forharvesting. We wanted only 300.What to do? The police cannotsend them away. So there was atalk and a compromise made andwe took 450. St il l, at least not 600.It is easier in the kayal lands. Thereeven if 600 or 800 come we can
use them all. Here, there are onlysmall acreages to each person. Now,even for harvesting double thelabourers come. . . . [He goes oncomplaining about his problems withcultivation, with liv ing conditionsin the area, etc. He has to spend
Rs 10,000 a year for his children inboarding schools. And the price of
rice is low and the labourers demandtoo much.] The labourers behave insuch a way that we do not evenfeel like going to our fields. Theyare so haughty. . .. My son works ina bank now. We cannot depend onthe land anymore, so I 'allowed himto work. . . . The labourers come andenter the land and they decide howmany should harvest and so on. Wehave to stand on the bund andwitness the damage done by so manylabourers. . . ."
Some untouchable labourers livingon an island in the kaval area :We are only labourers here. Somespecial labourers of the culti vator
would get first preference. Othe rswou ld get only after that. So manytimes we had even to come backwithout getting work. When somany people come, they give coupons, to those who stay in theloca lity . Four persons for 10 tent s.Only alter the neighbours are giventhe coupons, then the others fromoutside get it . Altogother got about25 days, but there were days whenI did not get even one para ofpaddy, and days when I got onepara or more . In one day it maybe 15 minutes, sometimes 10 m i nutes, sometimes 20 minu tes. Butnever more than one para for a day.
Previously we have harvest even fortwo or three hours a day. Even lastyear it was much better. For weeding, we get about one to twomonths. It is for a ful l five hours,only sometimes it max not be. . . .Somehow we manage, sometimes wedon't even cook. sometimes wehave sumptuous meals. We don 'tget any work now for 15-20 moredays. Somehow, we manage w i ththe balance of last harvest's paddy.Now the floods will come and wehave to live on top of the houses.We prepare platforms and use tablesand benches and stay on top of thehouse.
A Government officer. Previouslythe farmers woul d cult iva te theirland using the money they got byselling paddy. Now they are get tinggovernment loans. I t they take aloan they will not use all of it foragriculture. When they harvest theydo not pay back in ful l. Then theyborrow horn others. That is whythey are so bit ter . They are simplysaying that the labourers are thereason for their bitterness. Actually,the consumer prices' have not gonedown , only the par tly ; pric e. So, ifthe wages are reduced the labourerswi ll not be able to live. The b igcultivators, what they do is after theharvest they sell the paddy and putthe money and make the labourerswork on credit. . . . It is true therewas brown hopper, hut it was notso bad as they say. Thei r aim is
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to hoodwink the labourers. Theysell the produce and tell the labourerthat they are in difficulty . Actua lly,they are not so badly off. Therelations hip between the employerand labourer is so bad that the employ er wants the labourer to bedowntr odden. So they br in g policeand threaten the labourers . . .. Some
of the rich cultivators are able toconvince Government that they arehaving a very difficult, time and allthat. It is not because of high wagesthat the cultivators are losing out,but because of the high price offertilisers and pesticides, I havesix acres, but I do not mind payingthe labourers their due wage, because I know that my problems arenot due to the hi gh wages. Most ofthe bigger cultivators in Kuttanadare Christi ans, they got their landdue to land reforms. Now that thewages have gone up they are forcedto share their good fortune with thelabourers. So they are more bit ter .
Because the labourers simply refuseto become slaves anymore. Theyare more educated these days. . .. Ifthe cultivator does some injusticethe labourer announces that andaccuses him of doing i t. Since theEmergency some of the cul tivator sare trying to reduce the levy, hidingpaddy in some poor person's houseafter bri bi ng him . Some labourerswill inform the authorities. Nowwe have to collect levy for thegovernment, from the big landlordsespecially, with police protection.Fifteen years back labourers used toget int o the fields at 7 am aridwork till 6-7 pm. And they would
get one rupee at the most, Nowthey work for only five hours andthat is another reason for the hostility, But sti ll, their liv ing conditionsare terrible. In monsoon theircondition is pitiable.
A cultivator who is also an organiser among the cul tivators : Weare pure ly an a gricul turali sts' associat ion. Ind ira Gandhi says thatthe land is for the labourer but wesay that, the land should remain withthe actual cultivator. Nobody isthere to help the culti vators. Here,the workers are gett ing more and
working less hours. To us whoproduce the foodgrains. governmentis not showing considerat ion. Evenwhen we have difficulties the labourers are not prepared to compromiseor to help. In one field we havedecided not to do the second crop,because the labourers wi l l not workone extra hour as we have askedthem. So they wi l l now get lesswor k altogether. In any case, theprice of paddy is low, so why cultivate an extra crop? Sti ll, I amdoing 20 acres of second crop. Theyw i l l earn 7 and 10. But , we arenot givin g the fu ll amount now.We ask them to work on credit. Wegive 8 and 5 and the rest will begiven after harvest .. . . Now theyare strengthening the bunds and all,so that people in Kuttanad can growtwo crops wi th security. But whatis the use, if we do that, the pricewi ll go down even more, We wi ll
produce as much as we can, but theremust be a guarantee from theGovernment side that they will giveus a percentage of our cost of cultivation. They should know. Theyare not growing the second cropon the Government farm becausethey say it is uneconomic. The business people can buy and sell at any
price, but we poor cultivators arecurbed. We are taxed in so manyways; the minister finally said letthe. landless decisions be with eachpanchayat, but in our panchayatit is not abolished. [He then wenton to complain about having to paythe ploughmen under the law, evenwhen he manages to rent a tractor]Ihey should help us, but Government is more concerned about thevotes of the labourers than aboutprogress in cul tiv ati on. I want towithdraw from this field, but thereis none to buy it . Nowadays morepoor people are buying land, they
buy one or two acres. But we arenet getting a good price, so I can'tsel l. Sometimes we are afr aid to goto the fields because of the labourdisputes. Only this Emergencybrought peace to this place. Therewere so many fights here. Thelabourers are well organised. Butnow, 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. Thatis all the work, I got four rupees.So, 1 boug ht one Ki lo of rice. Sowo will cat some kanji (rice gruelmixed with a lot of water) and somefried fish. For our entire family,only that four rupees. My husbandcould not get any work. We mustbuy rice dai ly. We do not haveanyt hing left after harvest. We arepaid in paddy at the harvest time,but then we must sell some in orderto buy other th ings. .. . Our fate isto sell the paddy at a lower priceat the time of harvest, and thenharvest we need to buy at higherprice. At least now there is somework. After this, it wi ll stop. Andno use asking for loans, becausecultivators won't give and shopkeepers also won't give. So wemostly wi ll starve. How can weexpect any thing? The shop peoplecannot supply to all labourers oncred it. They do not get things oncredit from wholesalers.
The fall in the price of paddy thatstarted in late 1975 has in part exacerbated the tensions, especially in theKutt anad area. Thi s price fall was theresult of a number of factors, includingmore favourable rains in Tamil Naduand a generally better harvest in thecountry as a whol e. Thus, in 1975-76,not only was the procurement price for
levy paddy low, but also the generalmarket pric e. This especially affectedthe cultivators since they had enjoyedexceptiona lly hig h prices in 1974-75,as well as in the previous two years,Many had expanded their way ofliving, with high expectations for the
future, many had bought cars, b ui lt
new houses, or sent children away to
schools and colleges in other parts of
the country. They had also used thei r
profits to invest in other money-making
businesses,
In addition, in 1975-70, some of the
cul tiva tors suffered losses due to the
'brown hopper' pest. Though there
seems to be a major disagreement
between government levy procurers
and culti vato rs 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
cultiva tors. What was stri king to us
going around in Kuttanad. was that the
first complaints made were uniformly
against (he agricultural labourers, butwhen asked for more details, cultivators
would readily complain about the higher
price of fertilisers and pesticides.
(They had gone up about threefo ld
during a period of six or seven years.)
It b clear that there is a tremendous
amount of tension and bitterness bet
ween the tenants and labourers. Ac
cording to one of the labour leaders in
Palghat:
Only if the culti vators and theagricultural labourers go forthwith the same opinion or attitude
towards cul tiva tion can there bepi ogress. - . . But now . the cultivator is not getting enough for hisproduce, so he is disappointed. Onthe other hand, the labourer is notgetting enough incentive to workmore hard and more sincerely inthe fields.... So the cult ivat ionsuffers. For the benefi t of thecultivat or and the labourer, thisland has to go to a common ownerinstead of individual farmers. Ithas to be some sort of co-operativefarming instead of individual holdings. When that comes in toexistence the worker has the con
solation that the result of his hardlabour does not benefit one individual but a common group even ifhe has to work hard .
In Kuttanad, in part because of the
earlier development of capitalist farm
ing and (as a concomitant to this) the
development of an active labour move
ment from the 1940s on, the polarisa
tion 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 culti vator s
in Kuttanad sitti ng wi th paddy from
the second harvest in the ir granaries
wh ic h they cannot sell because the price
is so low, and no one really wants to
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buy the paddy to stock-p ile it. Yet atthe same time, there are also labourersgoing 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 wil l resist the fall in real
wages by figh ting for higher wages.
Thus cultivation in Kuttanad will be
come less viable over the years. The
alternative he suggests (as opposed to
the one suggested above by the Marxist
labo ur leader) is peasant far min g in
the stri ct sense of the ter m: all owi ng
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 wou ld agree w i t h
Panikar that redistribution of the land
woul d certainly a lter the situa tion 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 Ind ian rice
cultivation, the concept of the 'peasant
farm household' is mislea ding. Even
on the smallest parcels of land, there
are always periods of time when many
labourer s 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 laboure rs. In such
a context, while redistribution is cer
tainl y an imp ort ant step, it is clear
that it c o u l d only make sense if i t is
follow ed up immediate ly by genuine
co-operative farming.
Certain ly the produ ctiv e forces of
the society demand it , not on ly in
Kuttanad, but (as noted above) also in
the Palghat area. An d cert ainl y theagricultural labourers, are ready for it.
Howev er, it is clear that at present
this is a pol iti ca l hot potato. To begin
with, for it to work, absentee land-
ownership would have to be abolished.
It would not be possible for someone
employed in Bombay, or even in T r i -
vand rum, to continu e to own villa ge
paddy land (though they mig ht con
tinue to own houses for their retire
ment). But even many of the Mar xis t
leaders are absentee landowners. Thus,
at least some sections of the left le
adership wou ld not support such a
move whole-heartedly. Yet absentee
land-own ership has been one of the
most widely used devices to avoid land
ceilings. It would be necessary to have
some special provisions for elde rly
people or women with 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 re
forms) is not high. Actually, redistri
bution 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 associated wit h partic ular parcels of lan d.
(If the land is partitioned. the labour
ers 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 re-
lonn in 1970, the land has now gone
to the former tenants, at least some of
whom are making good profits. Ho w
ever, 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 mo
bilise the labourer s in Palghat in a
land-to-the-tiller programme, as co-
pared wi th Kuttanad. Furthermore, I
suspect that it wi l l be harder for the
'new landowners' in Palghat to fight
such a programme than it will for the
Kuttana d capitalis t farmers. To begin
with, in Kuttanad the landowners are
very familiar with every tactic of thelabour unions, Furthermo re' 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 lab
ourers called a strike in an area near
Kutt anad , landowners called up all
the ir 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 newowners are Ezhavas and have worked
for years in the fields. Yet only a
small proportion of the labourers are
Ezhavas. Some of the small landowners
who might come out to help break the
unions belong to the high-castes and
are unw ill ing 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 thelabourers 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 agricult
ural labourers who had ear lier 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 prob
lem 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 wi th 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-Oand the Jan Sangh. Even more than
what people said about the CP I( M)
being compromised , the alliance had
the effect of changin g the par ty's
orien tati on and polic y. 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 defend
ed the landlo rds 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 we ll as RSP) were all concerned
about seeing to it that the customary
wage as paid in 1975 was con tinued
in 197(). (The new Law had stipu lated
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 fig htin g it. For the most part,
they had succeeded. But thei r mainfocus was on what they felt the go
vernment should do, i e, improv e the
coir indust ry so tha t those workers
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help the fishermen or find a cure
the brown hopper. A few of the lab
ourers 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 lab
ourers were more educated, had been
in the vanguard of the agri cultu rallabourers movements, and had won
wage increases by ha rd and bit ter
struggles. It was almost as if they were
wai tin g for something to happen. In
contrast, the atmosphere was quite dif
ferent in Pal gha t This was largely
because lan d refo rm was new and
union activity, though not recent, was
st il l facin g 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 attr ibute d pri mar ily 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 agit atio n for land
reform for the past 40 years, there is
no reason to assume that it wi l l stop
now, though there may be a temporary
slowing down because of the ambivalence of the present leadership, As one
of the agricultural administration offi
cers, him sel f an absentee lando wner,
told me:
I t wi l l only be a few years beforethe land goes to those who workon it. The labourers have seenthe tenants get the lands. An d somany of the tenants like me andmany others do have other employment. We can live by our jobs.And--this is happening more and
more. The sons of better-o ff tenants are studying for jobs. Theydo not want this agriculture business. An d the labourers, they donot feel the tenants are entitledto the land. So, I give it 10, atthe most 15. years before thelabourers get the land.
When I asked him how he expectedthis to happen, he said by legislation,like land reform and the Wages Act.It is clear that the Wages Ac t waspushed by the CP I and the left inCongress as a way of trying to appearto be more left than the CPI(M), Fur
ther, I suspect that in February andMa rc h du ri ng the second harvest andelection fervourthe Congress labourunion workers, along with the Government Labour Officers, did push for theincreased wage actually being paid. At
peast that is proparry one of the fac-
tors accounting for Namboodiri
pad winning his assembly seat by only
2,000 votes.
In Kuttanad, where people have been
far less affected by the lan d reform
measures, there is even less reason to
expect a peaceful movement in the
direct ion of radical redistributi on of
the land, though I certainly agree withPanikar 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 alterna tives: (1)
They coul d stop grow ing as much
paddy in an attempt to bring up the
price; they might get lesser yields by
not growing during the monsoon sea
son (which is risky anyhow), not weed
ing (which is becoming more common
place), and in general cutting back on
the use of labour. This is happening
more and more. (2) They could derid e
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 occa
sional poor man who manages to get
a loan to buy lan d. 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 them
selves cannot afford the new inpu ts.
(3) Alt ernat ively, the farmers wi th
middle-to- large holdings co uld go in
extensive ly 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 wi th the
labourer s, bu t it is har d to say who
wil l win. The use of these labour-saving
devices is already being talked about
in Palghat, and there are areas wheretractors are used for most of the
plou ghin g. Tractors were opposed vi ol
ently by the CPI(M) hi 1969-70, but
by 1975 the CPI(M) loaders were
favouring tractors even though unem
ployment among male agricultural lab
ourers 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 trac
tor. 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 unt il now
been to prevent the collapse of the
midd le peasantry (t he group ofte ndesignated as the backbone of any
radical or re voluti onary movement ). He
refers specifically to policies relating to
high support prices (not yet available
for rice), subsidised inp uts , extensive.
investment' in irrigation with only minor.
cesses from the beneficiaries, low tax
rates in agric ultur e, etc. At the mo
ment 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 cont inue for
a limited period of time. If the govern-'
ment decides to set a floor p rice for
paddy, this will save the middle peas-
ants. If not. it is possible tha t they
will begin to collapse. The really well-
to-do households will be able to wea
ther 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 will depend notonly on the internal dynamics of each
region, but also on economic and poli-
tical decisions at the state and national
level and one migh t add, even at
the internat ional leve l. 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 especi-
ally true among the Christian popula-
tion 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 will surely play a major part
in the direc tion of agrarian relations in
the years to come.
The question of collectivisation also
depends on the Cent ral Government
Even if Kerala should by some miracle
enact a really radical land bill which
abolished absentee landlords, gave land
to the til ler, and set up meaningful co-
operative farming, it could be thwartedby the Central Government. In this
connection, it must be noted that the
Kerala land reforms bi ll of 1969 re-
qui red two constit utiona l amendment
before the President of In di a could
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give assent to the : bill .
I have tried to describe the nature
of agraria