Agrarian Sociology Assignment

RICHA SINGH
2353
5th SEMESTER

1.David Ludden- An Agrarian history of South Asia

Relevant question

Q1: Define the evaluation of agrarian systems in South Asia?

Q2: Elaborate the historical impact of the agrarian system in South Asia?

An agrarian system is the dynamic set of economic and technological factors

that affect agricultural practices. Political factors also have a bearing on an agrarian system due
to issues such as land ownership, labor organization, and forms of cultivation. Over the
centuries, Agrarian history has moved along in farming environments, outside the structure of
states, almost always connected in one way or another to state authority, but embedded
basically in the everyday life of agricultural communities. Modern nation appropriate agrarian
identity and territory. Scholars need documentation produced outside the state and a critical
perspective on official records to situate the historical
imagination at the slippery articulation of state institutions and agrarian communities.
David Ludden in Agrarian history of South Asia mentions that agrarian folk
appear as a negative mirror image of all that is urban, industrial, and modern, not as makers of
history but rather as inhabitants of history. A very long trend
of increasing state power in South Asia accelerated dramatically under British
rule. Agrarian sites now appear as standardized objects of administration,
policy debate, and political struggle. Ideocratic local histories and old agrarian
territories were in effect buried by imperial modernity. The non-modern quality of the agrarian
past became quaint stuff for folklore, irrelevant for history except as a reflection of archaic
peasant memory and tradition. Modernity’s understanding of the agrarian focused mainly on
matters of state policy, agricultural production, law and order, and resistance and rebellion.
Agrarian history appeared first as a chronicle of state policy, whose impact was
measured in the endless dance off numbers on agrarian taxation, rent, debt,
cropping output, living standards, technology, demography, land holding,
contracts, marketing and other money matters. The agrarian facts entered
modern minds through policy debates, statistical studies, guide books, travel
maps, law reports, ethnography, news, and theories of modernity and tradition. South Asia
acquired its agrarian history during the period of 1870s to 1930s. The nationalist discourse
appropriated a colonial understanding, turning the issues of agrarian South Asia into a critique
of colonial policy. The colonial discourse on agriculture was based on dual elements
-administration of land and commercialization of resistance and rebellion. All such narratives led
to the massive intervention of the state into agricultural matters and developmental
programmes in the post-colonial period. By the time of 1930, the agrarian world was subjected
to an internal reform in its social and economic configuration. The agrarian narrative was majorly
focused on the aspect of regional diversity in the 1960s and was followed by a radical change in
intellectual understandings which in fact polarized agrarian studies.The discursive shift from
state to society marked the post-1960 period. Thereafter rich empirical studies came forward
focusing more on the local, subaltern, peasant, pastoral and tribal experiences. New social
movements were initiated scrutinizing the old developmental agendas and reflecting from the
influence of agrarian localism. These advancements over history catalyzed the process of
delving into the notion of social power in the agrarian world. Ludden identifies agrarian history
as a 'long history of social power of many agrarian environments' built together. Ludden's
agrarian history is dynamic and undergoes continuous transformation with time.
Nationalism protected the cultural status of the urban middle classes as it
united people of India against the oppressions of colonialism. By promulgating modern ideas
about religious community, racial identity, linguistic identity, national development, and political
progress, middle class leaders made the foreign character of British rule the central issue in
agrarian history. Between 1870 and 1930, agrarian South Asia assumed its modern intellectual
appearance and acquired its own history. In the 1840’s, we can see the early beginnings of a
modern development discourse which would provide a strong narrative center for agrarian
historical studies) in petitions by critics of the East India company against excessive, coercive
taxation, and in petitions by Arthur Cotton for increased government irrigation expenditure. In
the year 1869, Lord Mayo argued for the foundation of an imperial department of agriculture. It
was argued that Indian prosperity had become poverty under the British. Famine deaths had
increased. Excess taxation had ruined agriculture. Land settlements had punished investors.
Deindustrialization had forced workers
onto the land. The national agrarian scene became a ground for debate, research and political
action. By 1980, agrarian history had moved away from the state toward society. Though,
modern history remained officially confined to the colonial period,
agrarian history continued to reach back into the medieval period and it continued to reach
beyond the limits of South Asia in its concern with poverty, revolution, imperialism and other
third world issues.
Agrarian history is not just a local matter, therefore, even though farming is always local in its
everyday conduct, the agrarian past has conditioned states as well as most other social
institutions. For historical study, Agriculture can be defined as the social organization of physical
powers to produce organic material for human use. Animal and forest products fall within this
definition, so agriculture includes not only farming but also animal husbandry. Farm mark time at
the point of contact between human powers and natural forces outside
human control. Agrarian history unfolds in the seasons of everyday life in agricultural
societies.The modern invention of civilization territories continues a very old elite project of
using narration to organize agrarian territories. The modern master narrative of Indian
civilization bestows upon leaders of the modern state the charisma of epic heroes and classical
emperors.One zone of mobility defines South Asia overland inside inland Southern Asia. This
zone includes two broad corridors- one connects the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta in the east with
Iran and Palestine in the west and the other runs north-south from central Asia into central India
and the southern peninsula. These corridors intersect in two strategic regions- Kabul, Herat, and
Mashad lie astride corridors that connect south, central, and west Asia. Delhi, Ajmer, and
Bhopal lie astride the intersecting corridors that connect Kabul, Bengal, and
Gujarat with the Deccan and southern peninsula.A second zone of mobility defines South Asia
in the Indian Ocean. The sea is not a barrier but a watery terrain of low transportation costs. It
creates a historical geography of shorelines that run from East Africa and the Red Sea to
Southeast Asia and China. Over the centuries, technological change
dramatically lowered transport costs. Long distance and bulk transportation were always
cheaper, safer, and quicker, until the railway and in Roman times,
waterways connected South Asia with the Mediterranean and South China. In
the day of Delhi Sultans, sea routes spanned Eurasia. These connected zones of extensive
mobility rather than any fixed territorial expanse of Indic civilization have defined a world which
has continuously
shaped agrarian institutions in South Asia. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are at
the eastern edge of an urban region that was strung along land and sea routes
running from the Mediterranean to Indus.
In centuries just before 1300, agrarian territories were expanding all across
Eurasia, from western Europe to China. Agrarian elites left many texts to indicate that they
experienced their changing medieval context as an age of foreign invasion and conquest. It is
appropriate to study agrarian regions in South Asia during the centuries after 1500 in a historical
context that is not formed by an enclosed civilization territory but rather is defined by extensive,
fluid zones and corridors of mobility stretching overland to Syria and China and overseas to
Europe and the New World. It is quite inappropriate to imagine agrarian South Asia as being a
closed, tradition-bound territory, fixed in its territorial definition during the medieval period, which
was invaded and conquered by Muslims and later by Europeans.Agrarian territories took
distinctive forms in six kinds of environments, which we can divide roughly into forty
geographical units. All have ancient traces of agrarian activity. Farming landscapes are not
defined by their physical or environmental qualities, but rather by the long-term interaction of
geography, culture, technology, and social power. According to Ludden, 'a region or social space
is agrarian because a preponderance of social activity engages agriculture in one way or
another'. Through describing the fundamental environments, constraints and the context of
historical geography of the continent, Ludden embodies South Asia as an agrarian social space
with a cultural environment. He also defines that 'agrarian histories intersect modern histories
everywhere'. South Asian history composes both rural and urban environments together. Yet,
modernity seems to have somehow detached
agrarian history from social life. But, the institutions and mechanisms that have control over
production is a basic project of modernity which evolved through the process of agrarian
development. The idea of mapping agrarian territories and legitimizing state authority in agrarian
space built the modern invention of civilisation territories. The notion of an institutional
environment in which social powers influence organizing agriculture is important for modern
states and its interpretation of civilizing power.Altogether, South Asia has to be identified as an
agrarian space in which social powers exert control over agricultural and social activities and its
agrarian history repeats itself in one way or another.

2. Green Revolution and Social Inequalities in Rural India

-D.N. Dhanagare
Relevant question

Q1. How did the Green Revolution impact different social groups in rural India?
Q2. What were the consequences of the Green Revolution on the livelihoods of
marginalized communities in rural India?

Green Revolution is the process of increasing agricultural production by using modern machines
and techniques. It was a scientific research-based technology initiative performed between 1950
and the late 1960s, that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the
developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. It used HYV seeds, increased use
of fertilizer and more technical methods of irrigation to increase the production of food grains.
However, the speed of adoption of the new techniques, their diffusion (geographically,
economically and socially), and their impact (on production, productivity, income distribution, the
labor market, the environment, etc) have all been the subject of academic controversy as D N
Dhanagare mentions in his essay. The primary goal of this developmental strategy was to
provide better applications of modern science and technology to enhance farmers both
economically and socially. Because it has been believed that improvement in farm production
would help decrease socio-economic inequalities. But on the contrary, any of these strategies
could transcend the task of removing poverty, eradication of rural inequalities or even
unemployment on that matter. The consequences of the green revolution affected various
degrees in different regions. Even though the poor farmers were interested in trying new inputs,
the pro-rich bias of the bureaucracy seldom encouraged these farmers. The particular scheme
failed at constructive implementation in so many levels with new ways of disparities. For
example introduction of high yielding seeds, variety seeds were almost inaccessible to the
law caste farmers and at the same time, big landowners reaped large scale benefits out of
it.Inequalities are sustained even among the poor farmers based on the type of land they
cultivate. a significant number of developmental programmes were established aiming for
majorly wet areas that already had irrigation facilities. Farms in the dry area did not favor the
nature of high yielding varieties of grain. Farmers in dry areas often had to work in
non-agricultural sectors too to obtain a fair income. Even for that matter too there was a huge
wage disparity between the laborers of the wet area and dry area. The rural proletariat in the
wet areas is a more specialized workforce with less non-agricultural income with higher forms of
work organization since they are few in numbers. The agricultural laborers, peasants and rich
farmers of wet areas are highly polarized in terms of class structure. And the fact is green
revolution held the helm only to maintain these gaps between
classes or make it even worse. As the quantitative studies show, the number of landless
laborers increased against those who possess the land and other assets. Existing resources
including irrigation facilities were more likely in the hands of upper caste farmers, whereas
farmers belonging to untouchable castes seldom got holdings in resources. Wealthy farmers
influenced the cooperative institutions to get loans at minimum interest and to gain other
advantages to execute farming better than poorer farmers.Despite the rich farmers hardly being
directly involved in the process of farming, they could earn a significantly large amount of annual
income, which is in specific 20 times larger than the annual earnings of poor peasants. On the
other hand, what makes this disparity even more impulsive is not only the poor farmer but also
his whole family had to work tirelessly to get a minimum income of subsistence. Also, the poor
farmers tend to spend a significant percent of their annual income as expenditure which
includes the improvement of land as well as other related assets. So the studies show that poor
farmers had the tendency to work tirelessly to get maximum production and had shown more
risk-taking proneness than the rich farmer. It is pertinent to note in this context, that more than
fifty per cent of the annual income acquired by poorer farmers were actually from
non-agricultural activities but not directly from farming.As a part of the modernisation of farm
technology, the introduction of machinery and usage of
chemical pesticides further lead to more disastrous scenes. Many of the farmers lost their body
parts, even lost their life while engaging with those dangerous machines. Lack of knowledge in
proper usage of pesticides affected farmers’ health in adverse effects. What makes it even
worse is the government failed at a fair distribution of adequate supportive legal protection or
compensation plans to the victims of accidents. It is wrong to say that there are no significant
benefits raised because of the green revolution. Certainly, there has been an increase in the
growth of agricultural production over a period of time. But this developmental strategy didn't
succeed in executing its main aim, which is the eradication of rural inequality. As more poor
farmers were gone under depeasantization since they lacked the types of equipment to sustain
their farming in this modernized agrarian realm, rich farmers monopolized economic resources
and took control of institutions in the countryside. The population of people who live below the
poverty line grew even in the prominent states where the green revolution was executed almost
properly.
In general, Indian planning of rural development, whether it is policies aimed at growth in
agricultural products or rural poverty alleviation programmes, seldom succeeded in reducing
social and income inequalities. Hence, without altering or restructuring the existing orders and
arrangements which primarily stand against the beneficiaries, a fundamental change of
progression is not possible.

3. Daniel and Alice Thorner- Land and labor in India

Relevant Questions

Q1: Explain Land Reforms in India?

Q2: Illustrate the mechanisms of Land Reforms in India?
Land is a passive factor whereas labor is an active factor of production. Actually, it is labor which
in cooperation with land makes production possible. Land and labor are also known as primary
factors of production as their supplies are determined more or less outside the economic system
itself. Land refers to all resources provided by nature used in production while labor refers to
human efforts in production. Land supply cannot be increased while labor is both geographically
and occupationally mobile. Land produces raw materials for production while labor provides
services in production.Daniel and Alice Thorner in the Agrarian problem in India mentions that
there has been an immense and unprecedented wave of land reform in India since the coming
of independence in 1947. High rents, high rates of interests and low prices leave the mass of
petty peasant producers with very little to invest
in the development of the land and keep them in the mercy of more powerful
people in the village. He further mentions that there is a kind of industrial revolution proceeding
in India today in the sphere of manufacture. But, due to agrarian problems, nothing can be
called an agricultural revolution. The announced aim of land reform in India was to bring the
actual cultivator into direct relationship with
the state. To enable the cultivators to hold their land directly from the state, the land reforms
were undertaken to eliminate the intermediaries.
Land reforms in India have not succeeded in their central and announced
purpose and hence the agrarian problem in India remains basic, serious and deeply rooted. The
state whose land reforms have been the most publicized in India is U.P., which passed in 1950
its famous U.P. Zamindari Abolition Act. The top families of U.P. held on to a great deal of
land. The U.P. The Zamindari abolition act was supposed to get rid of absentee landlords, but it
has left plenty of room for the persistence of non-tilling absentee cultivators. One of the major
aspects in which the U.P. Zamindari Abolition act as
presented to the legislature in Lucknow was highly favorable to the larger holders.
It allowed them to keep all the land that they could prove to have been their
sir and khudkasht land. The U.P. Zamindari Abolition Act also provided a legal basis for the
continuance of the crop sharing system. India has not yet had the kind of land reforms that
could conceivably pave the way for a period of rapid agricultural development. However, the
land reform position in India is not altogether dark. Independence has been followed by adult
suffrage which means that the high caste owner and low caste crop sharer or laborer are on the
same plane during voting. Another fundamental development since 1947 has been the
virtual disappearance of the forced or unfree labour.The agrarian change in India in the past
decade is extremely. One of the chief reasons of this is that village family in India are in
economic sense, mixed forms
i.eThey carry on simultaneously a wide variety of different economic activities. This variety of
economic activity is particularly characteristic of half dozen-to-dozen families which are usually
dominant in any given village.During the first two five-year plans, there were good governmental
efforts to improve yields and to transform agriculture. There has been an immense
increase in the funds spent for agricultural development. The most recent effort to revolutionize
agricultural development has been the countrywide development programme.Throughout India,
the great mass of petty peasants carry on their production primarily with their own family labor.
They utilize the crops they grow chiefly to feed their own families and to hand over what is due
to the moneylenders, merchants or landowners upon whom they are dependent. Today in
India’s villages, the families have a very mixed pattern of economic activity. There are very few
pure capitalist producers in the countryside. Capitalism has not been the dominant form in the
countryside. The transition from British rule to independent India has turned out to be a fairly
conservative process.Thorner concluded that all men are equal in the sense of having equal
votes and of being equal, before the law. All men are promised education. The idea is that life
can be and should be marked by some degree of human dignity for each and all. These are all
forces for great change in rural society.