– S A Vidyasagar
Even during the colonial period, dalits waged several struggles against the social and economic oppression of the caste society. Dr. B.R.Ambedkar took a leading role in these struggles and fought for the cause of dalits. Consequently, colonial rulers made some corrective steps to improve the condition of dalits. The post-Independent state took several steps of affirmative action, mostly in education and job opportunities in government jobs. The preamble of the Constitution of India in its Directive Principles explicitly stated to bring social and economic equality in the country. This should apply to land ownership also. In the entire land reforms acts and land redistribution program, some land transfer is expected in favour of dalits or Scheduled Castes as referred. There are 59 officially recognised Scheduled Castes in State of Andhra Pradesh. They constitute 10.91 percent of population, roughly the same at the national level. They do not even own 1 percent of arable land in the state or in India. In this article I would present my observations on the efforts of Indian state in providing land to Dalits, who were deprived of land for ages, even the meager extent to which it provided what kinds of lands that they were, how caste society thwarted every attempt of dalits to bring them under cultivation, forced to transfer some of these lands back to themselves. I will also shed some light on struggle of dalits to escape the clutches of obnoxious annual farm servant system in agriculture in their course of migration to urban opportunities. I present these from the field study undertaken in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh state in the period 2005-10.
As Ambedkar rightly observed that proletarians in Indian society existed by social sanction. In his words, “An untouchable must not own and cultivate land and lead an independent life. For his livelihood, he must depend upon stale remnants of food left over by the Hindu households and upon meat of cattle that die in the village. These remnants of food he must collect from door to door. For, he must go on his begging round every evening.” (Essays on untouchables and Untouchability: Socialwww.ambedkar.org)
Daniel Thorner, an American political economist, in 1955 also commented in his lectures at Delhi University that “the rare Chamar,Mahar, Panchama or other untouchable who prospects economically and attempts to secure a foothold for his family buying land may find insurmountable obstacles in the way of purchasing” (The agrarian prospect in India: Page 11: Daniel Thorner). It was hoped that abolition of Zamindaries as intermediaries as the major land reform would transfer the land to the actual tiller, it was never recognized that there is another layer of intermediary in the name of `recorded tenant’ who usurped all the land, than the actual tenant who is the real tiller. Thus Abolition of Intermediaries Act has created the rich peasantry in India. Land that is distributed hardly reached the dalits, who were the bottom fraction of the tillers. Social and economic oppression continued in society.
Implementation of Land Reforms:
In several budget speeches and official documents on land administration, it is stated that Government has the intent to transfer uncultivated lands to dalits since 1970s. Amidst several contradictory statistics, we learn that about 24 lakh acres of banjar land, de-reserved forest land were to be distributed to dalits. However, by 1980s, no such proclamations to be found in the budget speeches. During late 90s, the government declared that the poverty and development of Dalits is linked to education. Hence, focus is shifted from the land to education.
As per State level records, by 1972-73, only about 70,329 acres of land were identified as surplus, there were at least 10.5 lakh dalit households, on average they could have received 0.33 acres. Subsequently, in 1981-82, a total banjar land to a tune of 5.85 lakh acres had been distributed, among 4.58 lakh beneficiaries. Dalit beneficiaries were 1,88 laks in number, and got land of 2,32 lakh acres, which means an average 1.23 acre to each. Thus some marginal farmers, by ownership are created by fiat at best (Source: Paper on land revenue administration- a historical outlook: Shri C.Umamaheswara Rao, I.A.S, Commissioner, AMR-APARD)
Further, much of the land distributed is ridden either with legal dispute or unfit for any active cultivation. They neither obtained any institutional loan to improve these lands nor had any sufficient savings from the subsistence wages they earned. Eventually, many have sold off their lands to upper castes. An upper-caste individual even triumphantly remarked, “Can the Dalits keep their lands? They are too lazy to do field work.” Indeed, the peasantry castes who earned their profits from the surplus labour of Dalits, conveniently forget the source of their own wealth.
In fact, in all the villages I studied, majority of lands were alienated from Dalits. The land distribution program thus has worked as indirect means to transfer land to rural rich peasantry. The Agricultural Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Hon’ble Raghuveera Reddy declared, “so far in Andhra Pradesh, the government distributed 46 Lakhs acres to the landless. Almost 1/10th of the landi.e..4.35 lakhs of Acres were alienated. Some lands were sold by beneficiaries while some are grabbed. So far, the government had taken over 2.88 lakhs Acres.”(Source: Andhra Jyothy daily, dated 01/01/2013).
Not Even the Endowment Lands:
As it is common knowledge that there is substantial land under temple endowment. There were many struggles undertaken by dalits demanding state to either least or transfer to to them. But even these lands have gone peasant castes, but not dalits. I will cite a few examples to show how land transfers took place.
Ajjada in Balijipeta Mandal in Srikakulam district, was traditionally a Brahmin Inamdari village. The Brahmins allegedly a century ago lost a gamble with the zamindar of Bobbili and lost 450 acres in the game. The zamindar refused to take the land, considering it as sacrilege and returned the lands. But the Brahmins refused to till the land. Consequently, the zamindar dedicated those lands to their family God Venugopalaswamy and made dominant village peasants as trustees. After the abolition of Inamdaris, they lost economic and social control in the village and the rich peasantry of KoppulaVelama caste occupied those lands. Later they did not even pay the nominal rent to the state. They even managed to get ownership over them, started selling and distributing those lands among their kin. In the whole game, they have not considered to distribute even one cent of land to the Dalits of that the village.
After prolonged agitations and legal battles, the Dalits of SeebilliPeddavalasa and Kitchada villages could get some of these lands. The expert committee of the Planning Commission recommended 22 years back, “Where lands with religious and charitable institutions are leased out, at least, 50% should be earmarked for Scheduled Castes agricultural labour on mutually fair terms.” (Quoted in National S.C.Commission report 1994-95).The Finance Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1971- 72 budget speech told “Certain other measures such as leasing out of lands of various institutions to the landless poor on a preferential basis…..”(Source: Andhra Pradesh Budget speech 1971-72). However, neither the recommendation nor the implementation saw the light in this district.
As per the Endowment Department, in Srikakulam district, endowments lands constitute about 22,649.56 acres and 190 shops. At present, only 11,201 acres remained on paper and 116 Dalit families were tilling less than 250 acres. The official explanation is dalits could never remit the deposit money to participate in auction process. Thusdalits neither got a share in lands illegally occupied nor legally leased out. According to the Deputy Commissioner of Endowment in a recent interview to the press told, “In North Andhra, 55,000 acres of land were under the name of the department and out of these, 8,000 acres were occupied.”(: Eenadu, Srikakulam edition, 10/5/2012). For sure, it is not Dalits who occupied those lands.
Even at the national level, the percentage of Dalit cultivators was decreasing. As per the data of the National Scheduled Commission 2004-05, in the year 1961, the share of cultivators among Dalits was 37.76 percent in 1961 slipped to 22.08 per cent in 2001.In the state of Andhra Pradesh, the share of cultivators among dalits has fallen from 58 percent to 23 percent during 1981-2001.
Land and Dalits: Some Instances
The abolition of intermediaries,for Srikakulam meant the land power of three upper castes namely, Kshatriya, Brahmin and Velamas were replaced by upper peasant castes namely KoppulaVelama, Kalinga and TurpuKapu. Dalits did not get even an inch of land. In some villages, dalits got wastelands of 1.3 acres per holding, most of these too were alienated to upper castes. I would illustrate three case studies.
Gopannavalasa is a village in Merakamudidam Mandal where the Government distributed 6.76 acres of land to Dalits with TurpuKapu being the major peasant caste here. Toorpukapus objected this assignment on the plea that those were tank-bed. Revenue administration clarified that those were not tank-bed. Toorpukapus disputed that the land allotted to the Dalits receives the rain water first and it flows to the tanks, hence it is tank bed. Dalits began cultivating thee lands. Meanwhile, the Turpukapus filed legal case. While the legal proceedings were on, two Dalit leaders of the village representing the cause were murdered. The assassins got the case squashed by the by the High Court. Dalits stopped claims on the land.
Tolapiis a village in Ponduru Mandal where Kalinga caste was the major peasant caste. Government allotted 0.15 acres each to 39 Dalit families during the mid-70s where the Dalits tried to cultivate the land. Kalinga prevented dalits from cultivating the land given. In every harvest season, they used to drive their cattle to destroy the crop, until finally, the dalits stopped their cultivation.
Konuruis a village in Garividi Mandal where Kshatriya family owned almost 90 per cent of the agricultural land. They perpetrated violent dominance in the village, affecting everyone. To escape Ceiling Laws, they surreptitiously registered land on the name of dalits who were working as labourers in their fields. A dalit by name MajjiTamanna, got to know and protested and demanded the ownership of the land. Toorpukapus, who were second dominant peasant caste, who were also victims of this domination of Kshatriyas, expressed their solidarity to Tammanna. Then this pushed Kshatriyas on back foot. Slowly, Toorpukapus began their assertion after their caste leader Sriramulunaidu became unchallenged leader under TDP rule. Unable to stomach their decline, Kshatriyas violently attacked the dalit locality after knowing MajjiTamanna went to administration to restore land registered to dalits on whose names it is registered. Thanks to an NGO ‘Shodhana’ which threw its weight behind the dalits, helped criminal cases registered against the Kshatriyas, put pressure on district administration to execute the land restoration. Changing political climate in the state also helped to ease the situation. But dalits for a long time did not dare to till those lands that were given to them. Kunuru stands as rare example where dalits eventually got access to small parcels of an extremely violent struggle. Afterwards, dalits refused to work for Kshatriyas, decided to migrate. Kshatriyas were forced to plant mango orchards which does not require much labour.
Boddam is a village in Rajam Mandal. PolinatiVelama is the major peasant caste here. During the late 70s, the government distributed 40 acres to 60 Dalit families who tried to cultivate the lands. The peasant caste people obstructed the cultivation and attacked the Dalits physically. The Dalits lodged a complaint in the police station at Rajam. The complaint was registered because the sub-inspector happened to be a dalit. Of course, nothing much happened and the lands remained uncultivated for long time.
Dalaipeta is a village in Komarada Mandal. Despite the best efforts of two Dalit I.A.S officers, the Dalits could not cultivate in the village. The Dalits occupied the lands under the banner of the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) during the early 60s.Actually, this land belonged to the Hill zamindar of Kurupam. The government had not conferred title to anyone on the land. Since it is rain fed land, dalits could not do much remunerative cultivation. During the late 1970s, Shri B.Danam, the then District collector tried to provide irrigation facility to the lands by planning to build a reservoir in Madalangi village only to channelize the water from Gummadigedda, a regular stream from the hill tracts. The villagers of Madalangi objected to this plan on the pretext of inundation of the lands of their village. They went to the court and brought a judgment in their favour. Hence, the proposed project was shelved. Again during the early 90s, the then collector Mrs. Shri Radha sanctioned lift irrigation scheme and the water to be drawn from the river Nagavali. The Dalits had to manage it with collective efforts. For two years with a unity, the Dalits managed it well and reaped some benefits. The upper caste peasantly divided the community in the next general elections, by offering some positions to some and ended the cooperative scheme. Later, Lands became barren and 90 per cent of the Dalit families migrated to Chennai.
Ponugutivalasais a village adjacent to Rajaam, a Mandal headquarter. This village was under the jurisdiction of Santhakaviti Mandal. In the post 90s, Rajaam became an industrial town under the aegis of the world famous GMR group. In Ponugutivalasa village, the government distributed the lands to Dalit families during the early 70s. It was also a rain fed village and the land could not fetch the livelihood for them. To get rid of the debt burden, they sold away the lands at throwaway prices. A son of a rich peasant became a doctor during late 60s, and he emerged as a district officer in the health department. He bought majority of lands in the village. Now, because of the industries around, the land rates skyrocketed. To sum up, the rich peasant turned-bureaucrat reaped the maximum benefit from the land distribution.
Though it was peculiar to hear, in some villages, the government schemes had made the Dalits leave their lands. These examples present this peculiar outcome.
Sirusuvada is a village in Kothuru Mandal where Government allotted barren lands to 50 Dalit families, and they have toiled hard to make them cultivable. Then government took over some of this land to build houses for the backward classes. Some land was acquired to build a flood channel to Vamshadhara Phase II reservoir.
Annavaramis a village in Palakonda Mandal where Government allotted river poramboku lands to the Dalit families who also brought waste lands into cultivation. They even installed bore wells for the fields, planted cashew and mango groves in those lands, and reaped the benefits. In the year 1990, floods of the river Nagavali inundated the lands The government is still building a retaining wall to Nagavali, which would flood almost every year. In this process, all the lands of Dalits are swamped by the river and became unworthy of cultivation.
Gochekkawas a village in Parvathipuram Mandal. As mentioned earlier, the Mandal was 100 percent rain fed. Not only in Gochekka but in many villages of this Mandal too, the villagers had lost their lands to capitalist farmers. The capitalist farmers include the professionals of the peasant castes and settlers from other districts. It was one of the strange examples of the land alienation. The Dalits had sold the assigned lands to repay the debts that were caused by another government scheme. Government purchased the land from a Kamma settler through Scheduled Caste corporation and distributed two acres each in which cashew plantations were raised. Dalits benefitted from this land distribution. After 2009 elections, the government sanctioned houses under the housing scheme to Dalits, called Indira Awas Yojana. The amount sanctioned under the scheme was insufficient to complete the construction and hence they took loans. By the time of completing the houses, the mounting debt burden made them sell the lands to another Kshatriya settled farmer.
Dalits and Attached Labour: Escape from Servitude
The prominent labour system that prevailed possibly over century or more in Indian agriculture is the annual farm servant system or otherwise known as attached labour system. Here a labourer is given an annual wage is given as advance/credit, lead them into a debt trap by lending money at usurious interest rates, and thereby enjoy unfettered labour supply for a ruthless exploitation. There was no alternative to selling for labour for rural Dalits who never owned and cultivated any land. Since the agrarian labour was seasonal in nature, dalits had to opt for attached labour system as an insurance mechanism under starvation, as it includes daily provision of food. An attached labourer in Srikakulam is called Kambari, and elsewhere he is referred to as Paleru. Besides dalits, several other landless people of different castes also worked as attached labour in this district, while we can say Dalits constituted a dominant share of attached labour.
Rakesh Basant in his detailed study on the attached labour during the early 80s in India, observed “In so far as the socially and economically handicapped Scheduled Castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes acquiring the bulk of the attached labour contracts, and their employers are large farmers the latter may be in a position to pay them lower wage rates and/or depress the effective wage rates for this category of workers by extracting longer hours or more arduous work. Further, he noted it adversely affects the wages of the casual workers by reducing their bargaining power. In other words, for an employment security, labour foregoes value disproportionately (`Attached and casual labour wage rates’ by Rakesh Basant, Economic and Political Weekly, 3rd March, 1984 page:393). The employer gains unlimited capacity over fixing the labour power in the attached labour system.
During the early 70s, the kind wage paid was 180 kilograms of grain. The measurements were faulty. The employer though fed the attached labour three times a day, but always gave atrociously inferior quality food. Some rich peasants used lure the labour with to 10 cents of land to the attached labour and the yield on that to be given to him. It maintained the dalit families barely above the starvation reserve, besides supplying the child labour for household chores of rich peasant. This child labour also were the cattle grazers, only to graduate later into attached labour. The wives of the attached labour used to work in the house as a house cleaner and in farmyard just to get some pickle for a meal at the end of the day. To put briefly, the total family of the labourer is attached to the rich peasant manor, a stable job to insure against an otherwise full level starvation.
During 1960-67, the then Communist Party of India and Communist party of India Marxist, CPI (M) tried to organize against the attached labour system in this district. But their influence was limited to few places in the plains areas and little more in tribal tracts. After that for a very long period during 1968-82, there was hardly any agitation opposing attached labour. The economic and social oppression of them knew no limits in the countryside. This exploitation went unchallenged for about three decades.
When asked them the reason for opting for such a hard and menial profession, a former attached labour aged about 80 years in KanugulaValasa village replied “Hunger! We were famished. Even we had dreams about taking food. When we were going along the riverside, there were sand dunes. We always used to dream if these sand dunes could transform as heap of rice to enable us to eat voraciously.”
The ushering of capitalist relations in the shape of transport, communication, education and electricity, etc had paved way for freeing these semi-serfs from the clutches of rich peasantry. The alternate employment opportunities that followed with the self-consciousness liberated them from the iron grip of rich peasants. The retreat slowly started during the late 80s in this district, and it reached its peak during the late 90s. By the turn of 21st century, attached labour had almost disappeared from the countryside. In fact, it was a decisive victory of the new opportunities over the outdated relations.
However, this disappearance of semi-slave labour caused heartburn in the medium and rich peasantry. When asked about the reasons for disappearance of this system, an octogenarian peasant-caste women in Dalaipeta village replied outraged, “Finish! The good old days have gone. Nowadays, these Dalits are not even listening to us. Earlier we used to compel the Dalits from their huts by 4 am—in case they were absent, we used to tie them to pillars and whip them”. This statement represented the opinion of rural affluent sections.
In the villages surveyed, only in one village, an organisation tried to organise the attached labour. Duggeru is a tribal hamlet in Makkuva Mandal. In this village, the association of peasants, labourers and poor people (Telugu Rythu Coolie Pedala Sangam, Andhra Pradesh) organised Adivasis and Dalits for seeking a hike in the wages of attached labour and achieved a partial success. However, by that time, the profession as a whole waned out in the remaining broad plain areas.
Rural Wage Rates
For a very long time, the village rich peasantry as monopoly buyers of agricultural labour decided the wages rates in the labour markets. Usurious interest rates were used to tie the agricultural labour to farm. Endless expropriation of surplus value is derived from this hapless class of agricultural labour. Even though Minimum Wage Acts were promulgated, neither any labour unions worked assiduously nor the dalit labour were is condition to understand and exercise their rights. The rich peasantry thus generated vast amounts of agrarian surplus and transferred them to build urban property and urban business. This has made the cheap raw material for agro-industry and cheapened the wages in industry. There is a continuum in surplus value produced in rural areas, transferred to urban area and reproduced at expanded level. Ironically, the opportunities created in the urban expanded reproduction of surplus labour, in turn began creating opportunities for dalit labour to escape the village oppression.
For a very long time rural real wage rates stagnated. Including the villages surveyed, one does not hear that any united struggles for the wages of the rural proletariat that took place in this district. The late professor G.Parthasarathy made an astute observation “Despite considerable rise in money wages, real wages of agriculture labour in Andhra Pradesh are marked by stagnation. There is no association between trends in real wages and per capita (rural) agricultural production. The picture of stagnation at the state level applies also to mostly all districts. A noteworthy aspect of the data is the negative, though not statistically significant, trend in real wages for a relatively well developed district such as West Godavari which is known to have experienced significant changes in technology” (Real wages of agricultural labour in Andhra Pradesh: two decades of stagnation: EPW July 31,1982 pages 1248: G.Parthasarathy). There were no unions for them. The rural labour enquiry of 1974-75 remark that, “only 1 percent of agricultural labourers were members of any organisation or union of farm labourers” (EPW, June 14-21, 1980 page 1045) becomes applicable for this district too. Increase in productivity does not automatically increase real wages.
The small peasantry rallying behind the rich peasantry unfortunately emboldens the latter in curbing the voice of rural proletarian. Not only are peasants divided on caste lines, agrarian labour too are divided on the same lines. In some village they have their caste associations. However, when it comes for work they all demand same level of wages.
The decade of 2000s saw some faster growth of nominal wages, particularly after 2007. Many scholars also attributed to the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act. But in Srikakulam district, rural wages began rising even before. Though the rich peasantry complain about the exorbitant growth in the wage rates, the actual growth in the real terms is still nominal. The main reason for the stagnation lied in the disunity among the vastly scattered masses. The labour is getting feminized day by day. In Srikakulam district, it is only men who migrate mostly, even among the dalits. It is the female labour that still bears the yoke of agricultural labour in the countryside. Female wages are far less than male wages. The out migration of male labour has forced the rich peasantry to quickly resort to mechanisation. The withdrawal of agrarian labour because of migration led to the wage rise in countryside which remained above starvation reserve for such a long time.
From Agricultural Labour to Urban Migrant Labour
Dalits in the village by default became agricultural labour, not cultivators. They were attached labour at some point. But they could come out of its clutches and become casual labour. Yet the majority were still situated in agriculture. While the backward caste labour migrated as agricultural labour to wetland labour during the Green Revolution phase in south coastal Andhra districts, dalits still could not migrate much. This began changing by early 1990s. The opportunity that construction sector in the country offered a major opportunity for dalits in this region to escape the tyranny of the village and earn a far better wage income.
The percentage of Dalit agrarian proletariat among Dalit main workers in the district recorded as 69.76 in 1961, increased to 75 per cent in 1991, but by 2001 it dropped to 69.70 per cent. The agrarian labour in general drastically decreased during 1991-2001 to 27.35. It is interesting to observe that even the main workers in agriculture in general began showing a decreasing trend. Dalit who had to earn their livelihood as workers, began leaving the villages, to avoid the obnoxious circumstances conditioned by laws of Manu. Those dalits who chose to become farmers face the damning prospects offered by market forces.
[Excerpted from the Chapter on Dalits in S A Vidyasagar,Voices Unheard, Gian Publishers, New Delhi, 2014.]