21 The place of agrarian labour II

Salamah Ansari

epgp books

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

In this module, we will take you through the intricate social world that the agrarian labour inhabits. In general, there is symmetry between the social hierarchy and the agrarian hierarchy. This means that those who are at the bottom of the land-based stratification are also the ones who come from the low caste groups. Conversely, landowners are usually from the high caste groups. You will not find it surprising at all that the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are disproportionately represented among the ranks of agrarian labour. This module builds on the earlier module (4.3 A) and gives you overall exposure to the messy nexus between caste and labour in the Indian countryside. We will also talk about the consequences of labour-displacing technology such as tractors, harvesters, threshers etc. We will try to assess the benefits accruing from the adoption of modern technology in agriculture from the vantage point of the agrarian labour. We will speculate on the future of the agrarian labour in the new agricultural economy.

 

CASTE AND LABOUR RELATIONS

 

Social stratification is omnipresent is all societies. In India, the most perceptible form of social stratification has been based on caste. Caste fixes and sanctions the obligations and privileges of its members by birth. Caste system in rural economies is more pronounced than their urban counter parts. Conventionally, some of the members of the category of agrarian labour would be bonded agrarian laborers. They would be tied to certain landowning households across generations. Now, the practice of bonded labour is legally banned even as informal forms of bondage may persist in different parts of the country. In general, the socio-economy would operate in such a way that those in the lower echelons of society would never get an opportunity to rise in the hierarchy. The socio-economic structure would support this by the force of convention and one’s acquiescence to one’s place in the hierarchy. An important dimension of the social system was the linkage of labour division with particular social categories (Breman, 1976: 1906).Hereditary occupation plays a pivotal role as these identities were inherited from one generation to another. The choice of occupation was not unrestricted. For instance,most of the lower caste groups belonging to the so-called shudrascategory and the ‘untouchables’ were traditionally involved in doing menial jobs. The social structure was such that there was no question of exercising choice in matters of occupation. Even if an individual was interested and inclined towards some other vocation, society did not permit it by erecting normative-structural barriers against any such movement. There was very little permissible structural space for what we call upward social mobility. It may not have been totally absent but the rural social structure of which agrarian structure was a part admitted very little of this possibility.

 

Even now, caste identities play an essential role in determining the extent and level of loyalty on the part of labourer. The rural agrarian structure is of considerable significance. It is this agrarian structure that socializes the lower classes and the labourers into submitting themselves completely to their masters. The agrarian economy provides them social security but in urban setting it might be absent in its traditional form. Nevertheless the labourers show no signs of transforming their attitudes and social relations (Bhowmik, 2009: 139). They tend to be overcommitted if they get secure employment with acceptable wages. Ostensibly, they view their jobs in the same way as they viewed their traditional caste occupations where the specialist (the worker in this case) serves the patron (the industrialist). Bhowmik (2009) affirms Lambert (1963) and conjectures that traditional agrarian culture was consistent with industrialization (Bhowmik, 2009: 139).

 

Even in contemporary agrarian structure, caste is not unrelated to functional or occupational differentiation. In agrarian context, menial jobs requiring intense physical labour are mostly done by the members of the lower caste groups. These people generally do not have the ownership of the land they labour upon. As technological advances have made agricultural production much less labour-intensive (Breman, 2004: 3872); agrarian labour is displaced from its traditional roles. These labourers are forced to seek non-farm employment which is low paying and irregular. Superficially it might seem that caste based stratification is a predominantly rural characteristic. Industrialization which is another facet of modernization along technological lines can be expected to be caste neutral. Once the agrarian labourer frees herself/himself from agrarian bondage, her/his caste identity would dilute and upward mobility would become feasible. Nevertheless, the real situation of footloose labour is strikingly different. In fact, Cornell et al posit that migration starts from a situation of inequality at the point of departure and leads to further inequality at the point of destination. Migration from conventional and overtly protective rural society to a city requires physical and social capital assets besides education and training. It is unfortunate that a majority of the subaltern classes from villages are unequipped in these regards which makes it difficult for them to get regularized shelter and work in urban neighbourhoods.

 

To put it differently, industrialization and the subsequent urbanization do not have a direct impact on caste based agrarian rural structure. Technically industrial employment of labour does not discriminate on the basis of caste but effectively it does. Industrialization breaks away from the traditional hierarchy of rural agrarian structure and allows occupational mobility to a certain extent. Identities such as caste, ethnicity or gender are to be seen as constitutive of the very structure of the working class and not merely external cultural identities or ideologies (Kapadia, 1998: 3306). Migration of labour from agriculture to industry has been a common feature since the inception of industrialization. However, it should be noted that a majority of those who migrate as labour do not have land ownership. Their income increases but not substantially. Earlier mostly the male folk would migrate in groups and lived in clusters around industry. But now even female members of the family migrate along with the male labourers. This new set up has a new set of problems.

 

On the one hand, migration from agrarian labour to industrial labour allows them occupational mobility but, on the other hand, the nature of this migration is such that caste identities become more pronounced. Mostly individuals of the same castes migrate in groups. In urban areas they get asylum in their own caste dominated areas. Consequently, caste identity merges with class identity. Industrial sector is devoid of perpetual bondage but it also tends to consider various types of poorly-paid, unorganized and unskilled labour as substitutable (Breman, 1976: 1905). Labourers are treated as commodities and hired as per the need. On fulfilment of requirement,there is lack of any form of commitment from the employer to provide the labour with subsistence wages or even work.

 

Indebtedness towards urban money lenders is like a double edged sword for footloose labourers. If the money lender happens to be contractor cum employer, the labourer who is so acclimatized to life time commitment and loyalty in villages, tries to imitate similar behaviour even in cities. This is uncalled for but the labourer does it out of habit. He is socialized into believing that master should be served at all costs. This can be voluntary on the part of the labourer. However, commitment and bondage can also be obligatory. Often the money lending employer does not allow the labourers to work for other employers who may provide them better wages and work conditions. Advance payment is a tool used to tame the footloose labourers.

 

To understand the trajectory of footloose labourers we have to understand the financial and economic situation in which labourers migrate. Seldom has a flourishing labourer migrated. It is marginalized and excluded who migrate. They are in a pauperized condition in their hometown and in dire need of money. It could be either a disease, marriage or a natural calamity that requires them to borrow money. Labourers borrow money to meet the contingency and then migrate to pay back the debt. In such a situation, it is often the employer who lends them in form of advance payment. In lieu of advance payment, the labourer has to accept low wages, stringent work condition and restrictive conditions which erodes their resistance powers. The agrarian labourers, upon migration are incapacitated and are forced to respond at the beck and call of employers or his agents (Breman, 2001: 4817).

 

A prominent role is played by the middle man who provides employment opportunities. Owing to limited employment the distribution of opportunities is skewed across various social groups. The new-comers from hinterland do not have extensive social networks in the urban areas which can provide them employment opportunities on arrival. Usually the early migrants from a particular caste bring their relatives and friends and help them settle in the new society. Breman argues that caste and faith operate as signposts in seeking and finding work. Entitlement to favours, protection and support in the event of misfortune are also channelled along these lines (Breman, 2001: 4820). As the middle men have an advantage of being the first movers, they also play the role of creditor to the migrants. The roots of the kinship between creditor and labourer can be traced back to either the same village or same caste. For the help extended financial or otherwise; by the members of same caste group the labourer becomes indebted to the new creditor/employer.

 

The caste based division of labour also continues in the urban economy. It is usually the lower caste members who are involved in executing tasks which are physically more strenuous. Caste identities play an important role. As discussed earlier, people migrating from the same village tend to bring their kin and friends; this leads to the creation of a new community based on caste albeit in an urban space. Sharma posits that the general conclusion seems to be that the caste composition of the workforce broadly reflects that of the urban population as a whole, though the middle and higher castes areover-represented in the higher echelons of the industrial work hierarchy(Sharma 1970: 13), while the bottom ranks have high concentrations of lower-caste workers-a correlation which is strongly affected by differences in educational levels (Breman, 1999: 22).

 

Consequently, and also due to lack of other alternatives, the indebted labourer has no option but to work for whatever wage that is offered to him by the creditor/employer (Jodhka, 2007: 3928). The mechanism of bonding the labour is similar to the agrarian structure. This bonding also gets institutionalized although in a different manner. The employer has no obligations towards the labourer whatsoever and the labourer has no sense of security either of subsistence or of employment (Jodhka, 2007: 3928). It is for these reasons that Breman chooses to call it “neo-bondage”.However, unlike industrial labourers landless labourers are not accustomed to function within frameworks which stress collective aims (Breman, 1974: 491).

 

Neo-bondage is the evolved form of classical bonded labour. The nature of work is different from agriculture, but the nature of employment is similar. In an agrarian system, there are seasonal contracts for farming while in industry there are casual labourers. In both the cases, the distorted power structure between the employer and labourer is retained. Unequal dependencies give rise to sub-optimal working conditions and lower than minimum wages. Neo-bondage thus arises from and gives rise to stringent and unfavourable economic conditions. Caste alone is not to be blamed for the prevalence of the exploitative neo-bondage system. It is the complex interplay of technology, caste, gender and land that shape the place of agrarian labour in the contemporary Indian economy. As the growth of industry is not proportionate with the population growth, the sources of existence are under pressure, and people are likely to fall back on familiar social mechanisms and make use of them to exert influence and to promote their own interests (Breman: 1976: 1906).

 

Mobility and restricted choices coerce labourers to lead a life of dependency and marginalization. Urban sector in a way discriminates highly between formal and informal sector. This discrimination is similar in nature to the caste discrimination faced by agrarian labourers in rural areas. Though coming from different sources, the nature and form of discrimination are the same. It is not very often that a high caste person becomes a marginalized labourer in the urban area. More often than not, it is the low caste people who continue to face marginalization and exclusion in urban areas post migration. Ties of debt which bind the rural labourer to his master in villages are present in the urban sector also. The money lender could be the one who sponsored the migration of labourer in search of greener pastures; or it could be the middle man who helped the newly arrived labourer. It could also be the contractor cum employer who has given advance payment to the labourer. Money lender could be of any form, but ties of indebtedness continue to loom large over the labourers.

 

Processes such as privatization, mechanization, industrialization crush the already marginalized and excluded communities of rural landless labourers and tribals. Often the discourse on rural labourers does not consider the tribals. Historically, tribals have been living in association with the villages and peasant agriculture. This association has not been regular or based on community linkages the way two adjacent villages are. It was a common practice for the tribals to come to neighbouring villages to sell forest products like lac, honey, herbs and other medicinal plants. The disruption in the agrarian structure due to the advent of industrialization has adverse effects on tribal lives. As more and more land is being acquired for setting up industries or for building roads and housing for urban dwellers, the tribals are being uprooted. Tribals have always been in close contact with land for their life and survival. Exploitation of labourers includes low caste rural labourers, tribals and especially a high proportion of tribal womenare a worrisome trend in our times (Kapadia, 1998: 3306).

 

TECHNOLOGY AND LABOUR RELATIONS

 

Technological innovation advances the displacement of labour. With the advent of industrialization, the rural labour which was essentially agrarian labour has become mobile over long distances (Breman, 1974: 490). This large-scale migration is further catalysed by the mechanization of agriculture. The demand for labour in agriculture is decreasing consistently as more efficient machines are being used for jobs which were earlier done manually. As a result more and more agrarian labour is being pushed out of the agrarian structure and they add to the pool of footloose labour. This is evident as most of the footloose labour come from more humble backgrounds, many being employed as agricultural labourers in the surrounding villages before they joined the footloose army of industrial workers in the urban informal economy (Neve, 2005: 157). The footloose labour is characterized by the casualization of labour. They migrate to and fro form rural to urban sector and from farm to non-farm jobs. Informality becomes their asset as they can be hired and fired as per the convenience of the employer. This is not restricted to rural areas; informality tends to become the overarching structure of the global labour market in general (Breman, 2013: 10).

 

The problems that Indian agrarian labour faces are manifold. Labour is freely available and there is fierce competition for work. Competition is enhanced by the enlargement of scale, so that labour comes into the market at prices far below subsistence level (Breman, 1974: 490). Industries are established, but they do not fully absorb the surplus agricultural labour. As a result, the labour is forced to remain in agriculture sector. This surplus labour does not add to the marginal productivity of agriculture and makes it inefficient. Once the traditional landowner-labourer relationship ruptures due to a plethora of reasons mentioned earlier, the footloose labour are treated as a huge reserve pool of labour that can be recruited and laid off in accordance with the fluctuating tide of economic activity (Breman, 2010: 46).

 

Source:https://www.google.co.in/search?q=agrarian+labour+pictures&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=oOVIVPDSEJX58AWs24GoAQ&ved=0CBsQsAQ#imgdii=_

 

Technological innovations promote development in agriculture as well as industry. However, it is equally true that technology does not benefit all segments of society equally. If technology brings in efficiency on the one hand, it also displaces a large number of manual labourers on the other hand. It is for this reason that Gandhi was against industrialization as a paradigm for development. It was industrialization that was causing large scale unemployment in India. It displaced labourers from their traditional roles and these unskilled and semi-skilled labourers could not be absorbed in the industrial sector for several reasons discussed elsewhere in this paper. Even those labourers who are employed in industry have limited contact with technology and machines. Their role in the industrial structure continues to be menial in nature. Breman posits that in industries, at the bottom is a colossal army of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. These industries lack almost any advanced technology and have far less attractive working conditions (Breman, 1999: 28).

 

Green revolution is an example of a type of technological advantage which was limited to the class of big farmers and substantial landowners. Green revolution did impact the agriculture sector positively in terms of productivity growth but its gains accrued differentially to different segments of agricultural populace. Dhanagare argues that the accessibility of the green revolution technology was constrained in the hands of few large farmers who could afford it. As a consequence,the prosperity unleashed by the green revolution was distributed differentially to different categories of farmers putting the small and marginal farmers at a relative disadvantage (Dhanagare, 1987: 137). Any technological upgradation requires a considerable amount of capital. Only big farmers can afford such luxury of buying expensive machines and technologies. Also there is a vested interest of the capitalist to bring agriculture in their arena of market-driven operation. They use technology as a vehicle to introduce capitalism in the agricultural sector. There have been many instances of contract farming which essentially promote capitalist growth in agriculture.

 

Apparently, technology does not exclude anybody. It is freely available to all who can afford it. In traditional societies, occupational choices were highly restricted even if a person wished to change his/her profession. Technology propounds symmetric competition. The element of exclusion is introduced not at the access point but at the affordability point. All technological innovations are highly capital intensive. Small farmers have to borrow money from money lenders or banks to acquire capital-intensive farm machinery and other productive resources. Traditional money lending has vices of its own. They charge interest rate which is higher than market rates. Often the collateral is dear to the farmer as it is usually his/ her land title as a small farmer rarely has any possession besides his/ her land. Using the paltry possession as collateral for something as ambiguous as new technology might further the poverty of small farmers if it fails. Further, these small farmers seldom have access to formal lending agencies like banks or co-operative societies. Credit is the biggest hurdle these small farmers face in acquisition of new technology. There is a considerable lag before small farmers acquire latest technology which the big producers are already taking advantage of. This can be exemplified with the high cost/high yield cereal technology of the green revolution which required substantial capital investments which were generally beyond the means of a majority of small and marginal farmers (Dhanagare, 1987: 137).

 

Job generation of the kind witnessed by the Indian economy does not match with the skill profile of the bulk of available labour, thereby forcing people to remain in agriculture for much longer than they would care, and in turn, increasing both rural underemployment and unemployment (Mohanty, 2007: 740). The predominant growth of service sector vis-à-vis manufacturing adds to the general lack of employability of the agrarian labour. Rural non- agrarian growth leads to generation of non- farm jobs and migration thereof. As the levels of skill attainment are considerably lower among rural poor, this shift leads to further impoverishment as they do not command decent wages even in the non-farm sector. In developed countries, the pace of industrialization is greater but it does not hamper growth. The main reason for successful development experience can be attributed to a shift of labour from relatively low productivity agriculture to relatively higher productivity industry and services sectors; also there is a close link between industrialization and productivity, i.e. rapid industrialization has been associated with rapid increases in productivity levels (Mohanty, 2007: 739).

 

Another important aspect of this shift of labour from agricultural sector to industrial sector is the exploitation that these labourers were subjected to by the agrarian land owners in the past. The bond between landowners and labourers was more often than not, bondage. Not only the agrarian labourers but his entire family including the females and children would be tied to the landowner’s household. And this bondage would be perpetual as it would extend beyond one generation. With the rise of colonial rulers came the opportunity to get education and transgress the caste inhibitions. Despite the extreme difficulties and hardships associated with much industrial work, workers still seemed to strongly prefer such work to lower-paid agricultural work (Kapadia, 1998: 3308).Industrial sector was attractive for agrarian labourers as it did not come with a rider of bondage. There was freedom for labourers in this sector. They would be paid only if they worked but they would not be dominated as in agrarian society. The agrarian regime of bonded labour was overthrown by technological modernization to an extent. In this sense, industrialization provided an escape route to the agrarian underclass. Drawing from his earlier work in 1996, Breman argues that the growing industrial sector widened and deepened the labour market, made it easier for the agrarian labour to leave the villages and the urban economy came within reach for many more people than before (Breman, 2001: 4813).

 

Massive influx of displaced agrarian labourers continues in industrial sector. This aggravates the problems of unorganized and under-protected labourers. Urban economy did provide opportunities to rural migrants who lacked skills and social capital but there is a limit to this absorption capacity. Unskilled labourers cannot rise up the social hierarchy easily as the employment opportunity for regular jobs is limited. This leads to rise in footloose labour. It is clear now that the formal sector is not able to accommodate the relentless influx of footloose contingents driven out of the agrarian-rural economy (Breman, 2010: 44). Even after substantial mechanization of agriculture and parallel industrialization a considerable proportion of labourers are involved in casual work. This upholds the hypothesis that industrialization leads to casualization of labour. Quoting Breman, Srivastava has argued that there is a continued existence of a large mass of unorganized and unprotected workers about whom very little is known (Srivastava, 1997: 210). There is little formal information about this category of labourers. For labourers who keep oscillating between rural and urban areas depending upon wages and employment availability, it is difficult to categorize them in any one category. These footloose labourers continue to struggle for their marginal existence as the reserve pool of labour. Oscillating between sectors and capacities, they acquire their status of being footloose.

 

Technology in agriculture aids the betterment of the rich and the landed. Seldom has the advantage of technological innovations seeped down to the marginal farmers. Satya Deva (1980: 269)posits that agricultural development through the application of new scientific knowledge was just a euphemism for using the public sector to promote the private seed industry in which the benefit of the new scientific knowledge went invariably to the upper caste rural rich farmers; it seldom reached poor tenants and low caste farmers who needed it the most. The landless peasants or small farmers do not have access to the amount of capital required to acquire the latest technology. It is the landed farmers who get an access to technology further deepening the divide between the large and small farmers.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

Agrarian structure is the complex interaction of technology, economy and social stratification. The agrarian social structure is the criss-crossing patterns of relationship encompassing ethnicity,caste, religion, land ownership,village, and kinship and family ties. As India is an agrarian country, the economic and social development is directly linked to the agrarian social structure. Be it agrarian transformation, industrialization or globalization; all are accompanied by a change in agrarian structure. Further, agrarian structure impacts the life chances of the agrarian labour. Migration from rural to urban areas, from informal to formal sector, from farm to non- farm job is not devoid of the essence of the agrarian structure. The ties of kinship and brotherhood established in the agrarian structure continue to be valid in the urban settings and help the newly migrant labourer in finding foothold in the new establishment. As we haveseen earlier, these ties of kinship also become a source of bondage for labourers who have escaped the agrarian bonded labour. We delved into this issue in detail and tried to understand how neo- bondage is practiced in urban areas along the same lines as traditional bonding of labour in the rural sector.

 

We have also discussed the importance of caste in Indian social structure. Caste identities play an important role in determining the profession of people in rural areas. However, these identities continue to shape economic and social interaction in urban areas as well. It is an undisputed fact that the membership of a certain caste, region, ethnic group, tribal unit or religious community is still an important factor in the search for employment in urban sector (Breman, 1976: 1906). As there is certain continuity and certain change in the social structure, it is evident from the rising number of informal labourers in the urban areas that industry continues to attract agrarian labourers. They comprise both the male and the female workers. One reason can be the façade of freedom that attracts labourers; city life is more promising than the mundane rural life. Another major factor is economic. There is enormous discrepancy in material conditions between the agrarian and industrial sectors that ensures that migration remains an attractive proposition for a large proportion of informal labourers (Breman, 2004: 3223).

 

Source:https://www.google.co.in/search?q=agrarian+labour+pictures&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=oOVIVPDSEJX58AWs24GoAQ&ved=0CBsQsAQ#imgdii=_

 

Urban informal sector does not have certain important features that formal sector possesses. Labour unions which fervently protect the interest of organized sector labourers are mostly absent in informal sector. Informal sector labourers lack any form of institutional support. Footloose labourers engage in any job that will earn them money. A segment of them are contractual labourers but these contracts are purely personal contracts. They do not emerge from factory owners or trade unions. Also these labourers do not have the social capital or institutional mechanism to form their own union. Breman surmises that unlike industrial labourers who have their own particular trade unions, landless labourers are not accustomed to function within frameworks which stress collective aims (Breman, 1974: 491). This is partly because their collective action is not possible given the scarcity of work and employment. Individually labourers take up whatever jobs they come across and seldom think of themselves as a collective unit. Their situation is marked with scarcity and marginalization. They cannot be expected to mobilize for decent work conditions when availability of work is scarce. Special attention needs to be diverted for this marginalized class of agrarian labourers. They are condemned to eternal mobility in search of work and livelihood. No form of migration; either from rural sector to urban sector or from informal sector to formal sector helps in alleviating their diminished status. They invariably constitute the indigent category of reserve labour. Breman has advanced that the underclass pushed out from agrarian economy are forced to remain on the march between town and countryside as well as between different economic sectors and various employment modalities (Breman, 2003: 4156). The dependent members of the families of such reserve labour face unimaginable physical and emotional vulnerability. These reserve labourer live nomadic lives, no matter how many years they spend in a particular setting, they are the underclass who are pushed out repeatedly. One of the evidences of this is the surge in the number of female migrant labourers in the urban informal economy. Children are not spared from the ill effects of migration and marginalization either. A footloose labourer cannot enrol his/her children in school for the precise reason that they are footloose labourers. They migrate perpetually in search of work and livelihood. In such precarious life situation, feeding the children takes a priority over education.

 

An important emotional dilemma often faced by the footloose labourers is that of identity. Perpetually on move, this marginalized class of agrarian labourers often becomes declassed. Their class identity in the social structure confers upon them identity. No matter how marginalized they are, they still belong to a specific village or community. As footloose labourers, they have broken all ties with their original environment, who have nowhere to live, and who have no proper or regular contact with others in their immediate surroundings (Breman, 1976: 1940). Their identity gets lost in the extreme pauperization. Sometimes they cannot even elicit their identity from their profession as they would in rural settings. As they are involved in almost anything and everything that would fetch them money; be it working as a rickshaw puller or a coolie.

 

Apparently, technology and innovation are markers of development. They lead to efficiency. However, they also generate unemployment as a by-product. It was for this precise reason that Gandhi was against industrialization as a paradigm for development. India is a populous country and mechanization displaces traditional roles of labour. These displaced labourers are not absorbed in industry proportionately and the condition of unemployment is further aggravated. The agrarian social structure as a dominant framework shapes the behaviour of labour not only in the rural areas but also in urban spaces. The ties of caste surpass the rural boundaries and play an important role in determining work employment in urban areas.

 

In urban areas, the same forces act on men and women separately. The situation gets compounded for women as they face higher degrees of marginalization and exploitation. Concerted efforts need to be made at policy level to alleviate some of the sufferings of this marginalized and pauperized section of society. Special emphasis should be given to female footloose labourers, children and tribals. The footloose labourers form the important reserve pool of labour on which industries thrive. In order to secure a continual industrial progress, it is imperative to take affirmative action towards protecting the vulnerable section of footloose labourers.

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