Semi-Feudalism or Capitalism?

Contemporary Debate on Classes and Modes of Production in India Author(s): Alice Thorner Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 50 (Dec. 11, 1982), pp. 1993-1999 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4371649 . Accessed: 20/04/2013 09:46
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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Capitalism? Seni-Feudalismor Contemporary Debate on Classes and Modes of Production in India

Alice Thorner For over a dozen years Indian and foreign marxists have beetn arguitng with passion, subtlety and an abundance of statistics about the existing mode of production in Indian agriculture or, more broadly, in India. There have been proponents of capitalism, pre-capitalism, semi-feudalism, coloniaA and post-colonial modes, and recently, a dual mode. From the beginning, the debate has been carried on simultaneously at several levels: that of the individual cultivating unit, that of the agricultural sector of a particular region (eg, Punjab-Haryana or Ecastern India) or of India as a whole, that of the entire economy of a region or of India as a wchole; that of the colony-metropole relationship or of the imbrication of India in the w;orld economy. A number of authlors have brought in freshly gathered field data, at the first and second levels to buittress their arguments. Others have drawn upon the vast stock of data available from official sources suchl as the Farm Management Studies, the Nationnal Samtple Survey, the Ruiral Credit Suirveys, the Censuses and Agricultural Censuses and the Rural Labour Surveys. Some authors have used historical souirces to document their analyses of nineteenth century developments. Several of the economista have employed mathematical models. A handful have restricted themselves to purely theoretical exercises. This paper seeks to delineate the main issues at stake int the debate, enmbracing nodes, forces and relations of production; modes of exploitation; agrarian classes; social forma(tions, contradictions aind articulations; mnovements and dominant tendencies; effects of imperialismz and of centre-periphery linlks; and recommendations for praxis. This is the seconid part of the paper which is being published in thrcc )(Irts. The first part appeared last week. Rural Class Structure
JOAN MENCHER, NIRMAI. CHANDRA, UTSA PATNAIK,ASHOK RUDRA. PRASAD, BARDHAN,PIRADIIAN FIBANAB JOHN HARRISS AN important reason put forwxard by Joan Mencher for trying to understand socio-economic classes the nature of in rural areas is *to try to find an

explanation of whv peasant organisacertain in deve.oped have tions regions of India, but not elsewhere, are area one in "wvhy people

involved in conitinual revolt, while those in another area are relatively (uieseent". (Mencher 1974) Looking at village India (i e, rtling out tribal tracts such as Naxalbari) in recent years, Mencher concludes that movements have occurred "where there is a strong. polarisation between landless

and all others". In effect, these are labour areas with a large agrictultural class, although peasant organisations are not strong in all suich areas. In the South Indian context, Mencher asserts, Eric Wolf's hypothesis that it is middle peasants who constitute the pivotal groups for peasant uprisings does not hold. Rather it has been the

landless labourers "unconstrained by possible ties to the land" who have been the main agi'ators or strikers. Meiucher contrasts developments in two regions known for successftl organisation of landless labourers and sharp agrarian conflicts - Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu anid Kuttanad in KeraTa with Chingleput district, also in Tamil Nadu. In Chingleput, Mencher points out, there is a large proportion of agricultural labourers, but in any given year a handful of these landless families may become share-croppers "on a 50/50 basis if they have bullocks; if not, on a 1-to-6 basis". Competition for obtaining land on cropshare acts to inhibit iinity among the landless, as alsc between peasants with small plots of their own who equally hope to rent .in additional fields from the same land-owners. The ruiral bigwigs, for their part, are quite capable of jtugaling tenancies not only to prevent the actual cultivators from being able to claim customary rights but precisely to kIeep the poor divided and ealderless. Thlus, one way of handling a potential organiser of the landless or of the smnall peasants has consistently

been to threaten that he might not get any share-cropping land for the next season or for the next year. (Mencher 1974) Mencher calls attention to the use of caste alfegiances "by people in the system, as well as by outside observers. to mask class differences". For example, well-to-do members of mliddle-ranking castes may give land prcferentially- to their own poor caste mates, who are thus led to identify with the village landed. On the basis of detailed informnatioin which she gathered in 10 villages studied in 1966-67 and 1970-71, Mencher proposes "a very rough socio-economic classification of the rural population of Chingleptit District". Her roster of six classes amnong "the population whichb stubsistencefrom land, (derives its miiain in onie wvavor another" begins at the botoom. She characterises in order:(1)

rmarily (lerive their livelihood from working in agriculture either as day-labourers, as attached permanent labourers for
particular landlords, or as ... a

The landless

"those who pri-

kind of share-cropper, receiving one portion for every six retained by the landowner". (2) Poor peasants - "those who 1993o

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December 11, 1982 own small pieces of land, betacres, small ween 1 and 2.5 enough to require that on occasion some of the members of a household do day-labour". (3) Middle peasants - "those who are clearly self-sufficient and able to sustain themselves without ever doing coolie-work... Households with over 2.5 acres of Jland are employers of labour, and rarely go out as manual labourers themselves" (4) Rich farmers - "those having between about 7.5 and 15" acres, "not only self-sufficient they are also able to store surplus for a bad year, and still have enough grain to sell to obtain cash for the purchase of cocisumer goods. (Most have a transistor set or a regular radio, and if possible, electricity)". (5) Rich farmers, capitalist farmers, and traditional landlords "households owning between 15 acres and approximately 30 acres of land. In this category there are three types of agriculturists: (a) "rich farmers who, apart fromn giving small parcels of land to share-croppers, cultivate most of the land themnselveswith the help of coolies and actually go into the fields and do some of their manual work...." do not do physical labour themselves...." (c) "traditional lanrdlordsof the school. I hesitate to old call them 'feudal' because this is an area that has been subjected to capitalist penetration for a long period.... Mostly this category consists of landowners who give their land on various kinds of tenancy to labourers who look after their land for them." (6) Indeterminate class of large landholders - "a few households in the over-3S-acre category.... I frankly question whether it would even be useful to decide if they are 'capitalist fanners' o. 'feudal landlords'." (Mencher 1974) Putting together Census of 1971 figures for Chingleput District and her own survey data, Mencher provides an idea of the relative strength of the six classes. According to the Census, 43 per cent of all working mnalesin the rural population of the district were recorded as agricultural labourers. Another 32 per cent were returned as cultivators. The vast majority of these latter, Mencher judges on the basis of her survey villages, belong to her categories 2 and 3, So far as concerns the three upper classes, "Those owning more than 7.5 acres, even of dry land, are qfuite rare...". It is these same well-to-do hou.seholds in which more ten(l to be employed mnember.s -famnily
1994 (b) "capitalist farmers ... who

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY outside of the village or to have additional sources of income "which add to the households' resource base and serve to,raise them further in the socioeconomic sphere". (Mencher 1974) In the Chingleput villages studied by Mencher, class and caste hierarchies overlap to a considerable degree. Landless households (those owning less than one acre) were mostly Vanniyars (low-caste) and Paraiyans (untouchables). Proportionately fewer untouchables were to be found in the second, poor peasant, category. Large landowners (over 30 acres) belonged almost exclusively to Brahman, Reddiar and Mudaliar castes (these last two considered locally to be agriculturalist castes), although the majority of households in each of these castes had smaller holdings. Caste loyalties tend to blur class boundaries, as does the fact that owners of even tiny plots become employers of labour at peak mnomentsfor transplanting and harvesting rice. Thus "on the whole the well-to-do Vanniyars have managed to keep the Vanniyar poor politically isolated and segregated from the untouchable poor". On the other hand, "families in category 3 (middle peasants), and even many in category 2 (poor peasants), do not see a commonality of interest with the landless - not even with their own landless relatives". (Mencher 19$74)
PERCENTAGES OF HOUSEHOLDS IN DIFFERENT RURAL CLASSES IN BURDWAN VILLAGES (N CHANDRA 1975b)

Agricultural Income only 3.5 landlords 19.2 jotedars 16.0 rich peasants middle peasants 9.0
i

(a)

Income from All Sources 2.4 10.8 19.8 15.0 48.0 19.9 30.3 2.1

(b)

to'-al upper

classes poor peasants

agricultural

47.7

labour other

the one side, and the poor peasants and agricultural labourers on the other. Given this quasi-equality, a struggle launched by the exploited half' against the exploiting half "would never get off the ground". (Nirmal Chandra 1975b) An alternative political approach implicit in the two giant waves of peasant struggle, for the reforn of the tesancy system in undivided Bengal in 1946-47, and for the recovery and distribution among the poor of surplus land in West Bengal in 1967-70, was
to concentrate on a struggle agaicist

"one particular feudal remnant". The difficuty encountered was that in both Nirmal Chandra, in the Frontier arti- cases "the exploiters were sometimes cles to which we have already referrred, men wi b very small means, asid had delineates the rural classes in his close friends and supporters among Burdwan (West Bengal) villages in sections of the middle and poorer peasomewhat different fashion, and also santry". Too many enemies were creaconsiders the imnplicationsof the class ted. This enabled the "most powerful structure for political action. He de- sections in rural society" to create divifines as "upper classes" landed families sions among the ranks of the militants which do not depend to any signifi- and their fol'owers, and eventually to cant extent on income from agricultural defeat the movements. Nirmal Chandra wage-labour. These classes include proposes instead a two-stage approach landlords "who depend mainly on their with left-wing political hegemony as rental income,", jotedars "those funec- the first g<oal. Once this has been tioning in a capitalist manner", rich achieved, the main task becomes the peasants who are dependent upon non- elimination of all forms of exploitafamily labour although engaging per- tion. He foresees the possibi'ity of a sonally in some major field operations, inuimberof sub-stages in the course of and middle peasants who cul'tivate with the movement "when the lines betonly marginal help from workers out- ween 'friendly' and 'hostile' elements side of the famnily. He proposes twNo may have to be redrawn". (Nirmal 1975b) separate estimates of class strengths (handra which we can set out in tahullarform. Utsa Patnaik retuirns to the centre (a) taking into account only household of the debate in 1976 with an artic'e agricultural income, and (b) according on class differentiation among the peato households income from all sources. santry. Citing evidence from successive In other words, the villages are split censuises of landholdings, she emphaalmost into equal halves between those sizes the extent of "concentrationi with unearned incomes, ie, all who of the means of prodcuction". This high ationi. Pa'naik reaon degree of concentr lea.se oult land or hire in wvorker.s

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Economxiic Class (1) Landlord (a) Capitalist (1b) Feudal (2) Rich peasant (a) Proto-bourgeois (b) Proto-feudal (:3) Poor peasant (a) Agricultural labourer operating land (b) Petty tenant (4) labourer Full-tie labourerHiring (4) Full-time
sonIs, imyplies "a correspondingly high degree of economic differentiation within the cultivating population". Thus, there is nao single 'representative' type of holding, but rather a series of qualitatively distinct types, "which differ in the way their production activity is organised". (Patnaik 1976)

Clharacteristics Labour hiring greater than rent Labour hiring at most as high as rent Labour hiring greater than rent Labour hiring at most as high as rent Hiring out greater than renit paytnent Hiring out at most as high as rent out only form, no rent payment outonlyform,npayment gories she further specifies two different strata or divisions on the basis of the predominant form of exploitation, whether wages or rent. The resulting array of classes and divisions is shown in tabular form above. Distinctions among the four main classes are those familiar to the Marxist classics. Thus in the case of big landowners, whether feudal or capitalist, family mnembersdo not perform manual labour in major farm operations. Supervision or operating machinery, Patnaik specifies, is not considered manual labour. Rich peasants do participate in manual work; however their resource position is such that appropriation of others' labour is at least as important as use of family labour. The middle peasantry is primarily self-employed since on the average the resources per capita just suffice to employ adequately the supply of familv labour and to provide a living "at a customary subsistence level". The poor peasant family must hire out its members for wages or lease in land no matter how high the rent, or combine these two expedients. Typically these families "cannot make ends meet and have to depress consumption standards below customary levels". The same is true of full-time labour families; some of these may own small strips of land which they do not cultivate, but lease ouit. But the labour equivalent of the rent received is not large enough to balance, let alone outxs eigh, the amount of family labour hired out. (Patnaik 1976) Patnaik explains that her labourexploitation criterion is designed to bring out the rnecessityfor the different classes within the peasantry to enter into relations with each other in the process of production. Ashok Rudra tmakes a very similar point in the first of three 1978 articles on class relations in Indian agriculture. Classes, he understands, "are defined by class contradictions". The relations between classes are relations of production, but (here Rudra diverges) "not all relations of production define classes". They

At one end of the scale, Patnaik continues, a small minority of households have resources so great in relation to family size that they must rely primarily on labour from outside tha family. At the other pole, a large proportion of households "which may be the majority" have so few resources that in order to meet their family consump:ion needs they must rely primarily on working for others whether as labourers or as tenants. In between these extremes we may expect to find a middle category of petty producers neither employing others nor employed by others. Taking together the National Sample Survey figures on landholding and the results of various Farm Management Surveys, Patnaik finds that "the majority of holdings in most regions do not fall into this category". The bulk of agricultural holdings, she argues, are so small that peasant families must hire themselve out or take in land at high rents in order to make ends meet. (Patnaik 1976) Reiterating her earlier contention that the size of landholding is insufficient as an indicator of class status among the peasantry (see Patnaik 1971b), Patnaik elaborates a composite "labour-exploitation criterion", This ratio, to which she assigns the letter E, takes into account for each houisehold hiring in, hiring out, renting in, renting out, and use of family labour. Her E ratio, Patnaik stresses, "has been formulated as an empirical, and therefore descriptive approximation to the analytical concept of economic class". (Patnaik 1976, italics in the original) In much the same manner as Nirmal Chandra, Patnaik distinguishes between the exploiting classes -landlords and rich peasants - and the exploited classes - poor peasants and Jabourers. define various "social groups",but Within each of the first three cate- "only some social groups are pigses",

(Alhok ludra 1978a) Havin,g thus rlied out any theoretical obligation to fit the whole of the agricultural population into one or another class category, Rudra proceeds to argue that there exist in Indian agriculture today two, and only two, classes. These are "a class of big landowners and a class of agricultural labourers". The latter include landless labourers, landed labourers, and poor tenants who do not hire any labourers. (Rudra 1978c) So far as the big landowners are concerned, Rudra can discover no contradictions between those with capitalistic features and those who operate along feudal lines. There may be co-existence of more or 3ess feudal and more or less capitalist farmers "in the same region, or in the same village, or even in the same family". There mnay in fact be co-existence of "some traits typical of capitalists and some other traits typical of feudal landowners in the same farmer". Rudra also rejects the classical distinction between 'landlords' and 'rich peasants' on the basis of participation in the manual work of cultivation. In India, he maintains, this criterion is negated by the caste factor. In somne cases even very smnall and impoverished land. bolders will not take to the pbough because they belong to upper castes. On the other hand, with the introduction of mechanisation, one mnayfind, for example in the Punjab, women members of families owning several hundreds of acres who do not hesitate to drive their own tractors. The class of big landowners, in Rudra's view, is "a single class" and also "a hybrid class: part feudal, part capitalist". He refers to it as the "ruling class in Indian agriculture". Apart from the big landowners and the agricultural labourers, the rest of the population may be disregarded: "they do not constitute or belong to any class or classes". This classlessness results from the fact that, while they have contradictions among themselves, they do not have clear contradictions with the two principal cJasses. Or such contradictions "are of a subsidiary nature". Only the struggle between the two main classes "can provide the motive force for any changes in the agrarian strueture".. (Rudra 1978c) In his conclusion Rudra spells out the political implications of his class analysis. Since he lumps together landlords revealing a preponderance of capitalistic traits and those displaying a more feudalistic prose, Iludra sees no justificatiorl for "those who believe

1995

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in progress" to support "the assumed capitalist forces against the assumned feudal forces in an assumed struggle between the two". He rejects scornfully the concept of "an allianice of the entire peasanitry from landless labourers up to capitalist farmers against the feudal landlords". Such a political line, he pronounces, "cannot but objectively betray the interests of the peasantry not belong(ting to the ruling class", and in particular the interests of the agricultural labourers. In point of fact, Rudra tells us, this is what has happened in previous peasant movemenits, "led by the political parties of the country" which have "by and large benefited the middle and rich peasants, but not the landless or the landed labourers". By contrast, the line of political action which would follow from Rudra's thesis "is onae of struggle by the class of agricultural labourers against the class of big land' owners, without making any reservation on account of some members of the ruling class revealing more capitalis.ic traits than some others". (Rudra 1978c) Rudra's rather drastic disposal of commonly held notions of class structure draws a comment from Pranab Bardhan, who had previously worked together with him in a large-scale survey of land, labour and credit relations in West Bengal, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. (Bardhan and Rudra 1978). While listing five main points on which he wishes to state his agreement with Rudra, he specifies two major disagreements. Essentially, Bardhan approves Rudra's proposition that the most important contradiction in Indian agricultture is that between big landowners (including rich peasan!s)

talist elements. (Bardhan 1979) Pradhan Prasad, writing in 1979 and 1980 about Bihar in particular and, by extension practically the whole of the North-Indian ilindi-speaking belt (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh), provides yet another array of agrarian classes. As Mencher did for South Indian, but with less precision, Prasad inidicates which castes tend to be found in which classes.. His three ca'egories are as follows: (1) Top peasantry, including landlords, who deem physical labour even on their own lands below their dignity - upper castes. (2) Middle and poor-middle peasantrv, who do manual work on their own farms but do not labour for others. The middle peasants hire in agricu,tural labourers; the poor-middle do not - these are essentially Hindus (i e, back"nmiddle-caste ward castes other than scheduled tribes)".

of his field work in the dry districts of TamnilNadu. He defines his classes
according to two criteria size of

and

labourers

(landed

or

landless), and Rudra's criticism of the political line adopted by Left parties. But he takes Rudra to task for denying the significance of the middle peasants - who do not hire themselves out very often, or hire in much labour of others, as a separate class. For this purpose he cites data compiled by his wife, Kalpana Bardhan, from Farm Management Surveys carried out during the years from 1967 to 1972 in four states: Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Observing [hat the numerical strength of the middle peasantry varies sharply from one part of India to another, he calls for a more extensive investigation of the phenome-non. Bardhan also takes exception to Rudra's assertion that within the hybrid class of big landAt the other end of the subcontinent, owners the feudal elements do nlot John Harriss provides a version of have any contradictions with thle capi-- the rural dlass structure on the basis 19919

(3) Agrictulturallabourers, "a sizeable number of whom have small operational holdings"; these are drawn"mostly from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and some middle caste Hindus". Prasad points to sharp contradictions between the middle peasants, whose landholdings have increased and whose overall economic position has become stronger over the past thirty years, and the top peasants (Ioubled and made more acute by conflict belween the "rising" middle castes and the "traditionally dominant" upper cas'es. He also speaks of an "emerging contradiction" between the "landlords, cultivators and big peasantry on the one side and the poor peasantry on the. other". This antagonistic relationship arises "out of semifeudal "bondage", and is destined to become less important "as the semifeudal set-up disintegrates". It will be replaced by "another contradiction between new upper caste Hindu kulaks and the poor peasantry". At this stage, Prasad predicts, the landlords and big peasants will foaswear their earlier resistance to modernisation and "will take steps to dynamicise their cultivation". In his words, The fanning of caste passions which at one time led to a diffusion of class contradictions, and thwarted agricultural growth, now turns out to be a factor which may sharpen the contradiction and cause the disintegration of 'semi-feudal' production relations in Bihar. (Prasad 1979,

production resources (including land) in relation to household livelihood requirements, and labour relations. This gives four categories as follows: (1) Capitalist farmers, with assets capable of realising more than four times basic livelihood requirements, employing a permalnent labour force, not contribulting personally more than a very little family labour; (2) Rich peasants, with assets yielding 2-4 times household requirements, possibly employing permanent labourers,, but substantially dependent upon family labour; (3) Independent middle peasants, whose assets yield 1-2 times employing household needs, principally family labour, mnay sometimes do wage labour for others; (4) Poor peasants, whose assets do not cover their livelihood requireTnents,so that they must depend primarily upon wage labour, this group includes marginal farners' and agricultural labourers. In the North Arcot village which Harriss studied intensively, he found evidence of all the features of a wellestablished capitalist mode of production. He emphasises the dominant position, consolidated since -the end of the last century, of a class of "landowning moneylender merchants", belonging preponderantly in this region to the Agamudaiyan Mudaliar caste. These landowners operate in classical capitalist fashion. "Money has been invested in agricultural production and profits reinvested; and farmers sold a large portion of their output; and farmers employ wage labour...." (Harriss 1979) Despite the fact that some 80 per cent of the households of the village. may be indebted, Harriss insists that the "dominant mode of appropriation of surplus in Randam is capitalist." (Harriss 1979) The distinctive element in Harriss' contribution to -the debate is his characterisation of the local dominant class as merchants as well as landowners and moneylenders.

Mode of Production in Colonial India

ASHOK RUDRA, GAIL HAMZA ALAvI, OMIVEDT, JAIRUS BANAJI, KATHLEEN COUGH, AMIYA K BAGCHI

a number

Starting in the middle of the 1970s, a of authors take up agai

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topic first tuooted by Utsa Patnaik, "Thev do not retaini "apar t from their c'asses in the countrxside, viz, the "the specificity of the colonial systenm". superficial f'orm, the essential nature of sharecroppers anid the sm.aliholdicig (Palinaik 1972) lHam!za . Alavi, in his in- the feudal relationships". Wheres the milddle peasants';" rather 'the picture fluiential article on the colonial mode feudal econlomywsasa system of 'simple is that of "a great increase in peasant of production, begins by postulating ieproduction' geaared to the cons- miilitancy". This is dtue to the "widethat neither 'feuidalismii'in colonial picuous conisuimpptionof the lords, as spread destitution of all the subordiIndia nor contemporary rural 'capi- contrasted with the 'expanded repro- nate classes" brought about iby "the talism' can be theoretically grasped ducttion' of capitalism, in which much development of 'capitalism' in Indian except in the context of the world-wide of the surplus is invested to bring agricultture,insofar as it has gone and structure of imperialism into which about a rise in the organaiccomposition in areas where it has progressed". India was, and is, artictulated. This of capital, the colonial mode shares (Alavi 1975) consideration, he continues, "should neither of these characteristics. Recent In the body of the article it is never leacl uIs toward a conception of a heavv investment in the colonial quite clear to which period in India's colonial mode of production" distinct agrari.aneconotnv has taken place. only recent history Alavi's colonial mode is fromnboth feudalism and capitalism in because of its "encapsulation"within stupposed to apply. At the end he sugthe metropolis. (Alavi 1975) If 'feudal' the highlv industrialised world gests that there is "by ac-d large, some and 'capitalist' modes co-exist in India, econiomv, and also on account of the' degree of correspondance in time beAlavi insists, Marxist theory requires "subordinated indus'trial development tween the transition from the colonial that they must be in contradiction: that has taken place within the colony to the post-colonial mode of produccme emergent, the other disintegrating. itse:f uin(ler the aegis of the mnetro- tion, and {the achievement of political In that case there is a necessity at politaIi- lbourgeoisie.' There is accord- independence". He also takes the preeach historical stage to specify which ingly, in the colonial miiode,a systemii caution of indicating that the "strucmode is dominant ainidwhich are the of expanded reproduction "but of a tural formation" which he has desigprincipal contradictions i,] the class deforned nature." More precisely, nated as a "colonial miode of producstruggle, "as has been elaborated and tion" does not constitute "a selfa substantial part of the surplus explained by Mao Tse-tung". Yet, for generated in the colonial agrarian contained entity", since it 'cannot be India, Alavi writes, no one has been economy (as well as that generated in colonial industry is appropnated conceptualised except as 'part of a able to demonstrate "any conflict beby the imperialist bourgeoisie and large whole. The search for an altertween the new rural 'capitalist' class enters into expanded reproduction native terminology, he opines, "may be and the 'feudal' landlords, if they can not directly within the colonial a profitable semantic enterprise". (Alavi, be struclurallv distinguiished at all". economy but rather at the imperialist 1975) centre. (Alavi 1975, cf Patnaik 1972) (Alavi 1975) Again, with regard to generalised comSwift reactions from Ashok Rudra Further Alavi finds it impossible to rnoditv production, regarded as a and Gail Omvedt were largely favourpostulate any contradiction between criterion of capitalism in the colonial able to Alavi. Both suggest ithe use of "colonial 'feudalism' and metropolitan world, this also is created by, and at the term "social formation" for the 'capitalism', for it is precisely the lat- the service of, the imperial economy. constellation of traits characterisingthe ter which generates and supports the Whereas fetudalism implied localised economy of colonial India. Rudra raises former". The specific structures of the production, localised appropriation and the problem of Alavi's vagueness with colonial agrarian economy result direct- a 1ocalised power structure, the coonial regard to the post-colonial phase. lv from the action of imperial capital regime "subordinated the power of the Om'vedt holds that conflicts between which "disarticulates the internal local lords" to its own framework of capitalist and feudal elements do exist. economv of the colony [to use Amin's the "colonial bourgeois state". (Alavi "The expanding thrust of the capitalist fruitful. concept]" and integrates these 1975) sector," she writes, "is continually disarticulated segments into the metroA particular feature of the colonia! frustrated by agrarian stagnation." This politan economy. Alavi cites approvingmode in ILidia has been the creation stagnation together with the lack of lv Chattopadhbay with regard to the reof "large ntumber of desititute small developmnentof the internal mnarket preservation/destrtuction of the older holders - 75 per cent of all farms in sult "in the ultimate analysis from Indian economy by imperialism. (Chat- modern India". Since these holdings continuing semi-feudal relations". But topadhyay 19721)) He also refers are too small to assure even a bare these contradictions "are muted by favourably to jairRLs Banaji's concept subsistence, they- serve as a "valued their integration in an imperialist of a colonial mode of production supplier of cheap labour" both for agri- sysstem". Omvedt criticises as too "neither feudal nor capitalist, though cuilture and for urban indu-stry.In this simplistic Alavi's proposition that the resembling 1)oth at different levels". way the class of small-holders is in- l)asic cceriflictis between "the workers (Banaji 1979) tegrated i-intothe colonial mode of and the rural poor (including shareArguing 'that the colonial impact Production, and cannot be described croppers and middle peasants)" on the wrought ftundamental transformations as a 'pre-capitalist' stirvival. (Alavi one hand, and the landowners pluls the bourgeoisie on the o'her. In her in the subject economies, Alavi attacks 1975) the "excessive and misleading emphasis With regard to class contradictions words this analysis "hardly seems to on the form of the relationship between as we.l, the colonial mode has its own do jtstice ,Io the developing comthe producer and his master". (Alavi pattern. There is no conflict of in- plexities of contradictions in a colonial 1975, italics in the original) It is terest between the so-called 'feudal' or society". (Rudra 1975, Omvedt 1975) wZrong, he declares, "to describe 'semi-feudal' class of landlords on the A K Bagchi portrays the colonial colonial economies as those in which one hand, and the bourgeoisie (urbanor period as a time of de-indusltrialisation 'pre-capitalist' relationships 'co-exist' rural) on the other. Nor is there a con- and possihly even de-commercialisation with 'capitalist' relations", since such flict in which the "wa;ge labourers of agriculture. Reviewing the evidenice, traditional relations, e g, share-crop- (the rural pro!etariat) are aligned dif- he judges that in te period up to 1900 ping, "are no longer 'pre-capitalist'. ferently fromnthe other subordinate "the share of the secondlary sector in 1997

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national income would on balance have been declining". Similarly, the share of the secondary sector in the \7orkiing force fell until about the miciddeof the 1920s. In agriculture share tenancy was pr-evalent in the nineteenth century, and in somle areas muav liave increased. There nmav vell have been, Bagchi esteems, a net imovenment frorn cash rents to kind rents. Bagehi speaks of "a symbiotic relationship between precapitalist and capitalist modes of exploitation", and gives examples: Most European 'capitalist' planters (including the Government as cultivator of opium) used non-market coercion to exploit the labourers and the peasantry... tmany (in fact most) sugar factories found that it was imore costly to cultivate sugar on their own with large-scale 'scientific' methods tllan to rent out land to tenants on a share-cropping basis. (Bagchi 1975) Even after indepenidence, Bagebli holds, "this continual interchange between capitalist and pre-capitalist relations has not ceased". Partly this continuity is due to the lowV rate of capital accumulation and to a permanent state of relative oveipopulation in the countryside. It is also the case that "capitalist profit-making itself uses precapitalist methods", and capitalist farmers "depend on other propertv-owning strata for maintaining their political and social power". (Bagchi 1975) Bagchi is cautiouis about how to label the "amalgam of usury, bondage, wage-labour, and tenancy prevailing in the Indian countryside". He lists 'semifeudalism', 'semi-capitalism', 'neither feudalism nor capitalism', and 'both capitalism and feudalism' as possibilities, but does not mention a 'colonial mode of production'. He announces that he would accept any of the listed terns "so long as the basic laws of motion of such a society are correctly understood". {(Bagchi 1975') Britain's position as the first country to industrialise didl not lead it to carry through a similar revolution in its Indian colony, Bagchi observes. In fact, he is not suire "that the' 'transition' to capitalismncan ever be complete in the countries of South Asia". It is not the least of the harmftul legacies of co'onialism, Baachi avers, "that while it modified the precapitalist relations to suit its purpose, it also preserved tbheci". \Bagchi 1975) Another stuldy dealing primarily with the British period, in particular with the late nineteenth cenltury, is contribouted b)y Jairus Banaji. But this time he also eschews any ref~erence to a
1998

In a paper prepared for a Workshop on "African and Asian Societies in These capitalist relations "which at Confrontation with Westemr European their limit formed the system of the Colonialism" held in Berlin in 1979, formal subordination of labour to capi- Hlamza Alavi modifies considerably his tal" existed in the Deccan economy of earlier position. He restates, however, the nineteenth century in various stages his objections to characterising as of crystallisation. The same form of feudal Indian agriculture in recent capitalist exploitation through debt years, prior to the current wave of which prevailed in the countryside large investment in farm mechanisation. could also be found in the towns in Referring to Utsa Patnaik, be writes: the case of the "smaller artisans". To prove that there has been, in (Banaji 1977) recent years, a decisive mnovement toward capitalism in Indian agriWhere Banaji had earlier intervened culture, her problem, paradoxically, was to prove that what went before as a supporter of Utsa Patnaik, he now was in fact 'feudal'. classes her with Amit Bhaduri as a practitioner -if "extreme formalism". In Alavi's view, "social relations of He argutesthat they incorrectly identify production in Indian society were altered forms of organisation of the labour- in the course of the colonial transforprocess" such as sharecropping or mation". The result was the creation other types of tenancy with particular of what, having abandoned the colo"relations of production" which they nial mode of production, Alavi now label "pre-capitalist" or "semi-feudal". calls "peripheral capitalism". In India, On the contrary, he insists the parti- this development took a long time. cular form of wage-labour or of tenant Agriculture turned progressively tolabour which a big peasant or land- ward the production of crops for metroowner chooses to employ for technical politan markets, luch as cotton, jtute or personal reasons does not affect the and indigo. Elsewhere peasants pro"social character or content of the (iuced food crops as cash crops to feed production-relaltionsthat these labour- the colonial towns and also peasants arrangements embody". (Banaji 1977, in other areas who had shifted to exitalics in the original) port crops. This constitulted "a formn Distinguishing among the regional, of generalised commodity production" national and international levels, Banaji specific to peripheral capitalismn,in concluels that in the late nineteeth cen- which the circulation of commodities

colonial mode of production. Arguing that; in the absence of a specifically capitalist mnode of prodtuction on the national scale, "capitalist relations of exploitation mnay nonetheless he widespread and(I domoiinant", Banaji takes up the case of the Deccan fromii1850 to 1890. I-le cites evidence for the expansion of commodity production during those years: cotton and groundnuts for export; sugar, foodgrains and garden crops for the growing population 6of Bombay and Poona cities. The process of commodity expansion implied an increasing conversion of labour-power into a commodity. hy means of proletarianisation. Immediate causes such as drought, scarcity and famine appeared to play a major role in reduicing the small prodtucers to this state, but this was possible "only becauise of the already exhausted and decrepit condition of the Deccan smallproduction econonmy". A system of capitalist exploitation operated through the advances by merchant-moneylenders for the subsistence of the small peasants. The "purely capitalist nature of relationship between the peasant and moneylenders" was concealed by the fact that the "surplus-vxlue extorted from the small producer would be called 'interest". (Banaji 1977, italics in the original)

tury Deccan "capitalist relations of. exploitation signifying the less developed formnsof capitalist production hb(a
emerged ... and were widlespread an(d

in some districts dominant". But for India as a whole "the bourgeois mode of production in its developed or 'adequate' structure was neither doominant nor widespread". The specific form of capitalist production which evolved in the Deccan constituted "a subordiinate aurd transitio-tal system within the bourgeois mode of production in its workl extension". Banajisets himself off sharply from Gunder Frank, whom he criticises for supposing "that it is sufficient to point to the domitnance of the specifically bourgeois miiode of production on the world scale in order to establish the prevalence of bourgeois relations in Indlia'. Yet the political lesson which he draws for present-day India is the same as Frank's.Banaji judges that in the Indian cotuntryside"the struggle against capitalist forms of exploitation has already l)egun". He urges that it be conduc!ed "with a clear understanding of its own character", that is, "on the basis of a programme for the abolition of the system of wage-slavery". (Banaji 1977, i'-alies in the original)

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY was completed via the export-import of labour under capital". (Gough 1980) link wvith the inetropoGis.(Alavi 1981) Cough gives six reasons for dubbing the relations-obtaining in Thanjavur in Although peasanit farming continued the illil)erialist period capitalist: on the basis of largely unchanged techniques, it was nonetheless subject (1) With the abolition of slavery the labourers all becamiiefree of polito foxrmal subsumptioni by capital, a tical folrns of bondage. conditioln which, in Marx's definitioin, (2) Teinants, artisans, village servants "does not by itself imply a fundamental anid labourers had already in the modification of the nlature of the lab18th aind early 19th centuries been of capilater phase our process". In a "freed" from the means of productalist transformation, the real subsumption and forced to sell their labour tion of labour under capital, the process of production is subject to conJinual transformation, "concomitantly with rise in organaic comiipositionof capital". (Alavi 1981) Alavi takes up cudgels against the cunservation/dissolution formiula put forwarrdby Charles Bettleheim and used by Claude Meillasoux "which views the persistence of peasant prodeuctionin colonised societies as a case of 'conservation/dissolution' of precapitalist modes of production by colonial capital". In Alavi's view this concept obscures rather than clarifying the underlying theoretical problem of explaining why peasants do not disappear in the course of the transition to capitalism. Alavi argues that peasants are more resilient than urban petty commodity producers becauase they do not need to pass through the market for their food and shelter, they receive some of the earnings of family members who have migra ed in search of employment, and their being physically displaced by large-scale farms is impeded precisely because they hang on desperate&yto whatever tiny holdings they may have - preventing the fornmationof the substantial contiguous blocks of land required for mnodern cultivation. Nevertheless, Alavi believes, the conditions of the peasants' existence are being "progressively uindermined" by the "d-namics of peripherall capiLtalistdevelopment". (Alavi 1981) Kathleen Gough's contribution to the debate is a major article tracing the political economy of Thanjavur district in Tamil NaduL from about 85() AD to the present. When she come.i to the late nineteenth and early .\ventieth characterises this centuiries, G(ugh period in mnuchthe same wvayats Alavi anid Banaji. During these years, she w7rites,"the capitalist mode of production was (lorninant in Thanjavur"; milost of the actuial relations of production "althouLg1h 1of a colonial character,
became essentially those of what Marx power.

December 11, 1982 tion". There has been some crop diversification but the proportion grown for export has actually risen. Farming has been transforimeed throu(rh the use of chemical fertilisers, hybrid high-yielding seeds, pesticides, tractors, tubewells and electric irrigation pumiips. Especially on the larger fanns "there is a continuing rise ihl the organic composition of capital". Correspondingly, "the extraction of relative surplus value has greatly increased". The profits of increased production, Gough asserts, have gone mainly to metropolitan capital which supplies much of the new mnachineryand chem-licalinputs, to Indian big business, and locally to the lbigger landlords akcdmerchants. These households "now enjoy such accessories as radios, mopeds, cars, aircomditioning, a range of electrical applicances, and other luxury consumer goods". At the other end of the social and economic scale, Gough f.ound that the standard of living has remained stationary or declined. In two villages at opposite ends of the delta she discovered that half of the inhabitants could afford on:y onie cooked meal a day duriiag most of the year. Since they were unable to buy meat or milk, "large nurnbers in the general population had adopted the Harijans' custonm of eating field rats". (Gough 1980) Cough reviews briefly the history of the Communist movement in Thanjavur, wvhich arose in the 1930s and has been stronv, "among agricultural labourers, most notably Harijans Nvho form 22 per cent of 'the population". In recent years the demands have conceotrated on raising the level of daily wages, and when that failed because of the declining number of days of work per year, on 'jobs or dole'. Cough opines that struiggles of this kind "though temporarily palliative, cannot solve the structural contradictions of the capitalist moce of pro(luction in Thainjavtir".(Gough 1980) Aui op)po';itepoinit of view with regard to the colonial period is voiced by Gail Omvedt, who states that "imnperialism essentially maintained feu(lalisin -- thoucghin a suibitjgatedanrd form- as the (lominant mode mondifie(l

(3) Landlords becanme private owiners of the means of production, which they could sell; they marketed more than half of their crops. (4) Extended reproduction in agriculture took the formnof greatly increasing the area of land under cultivation, especially in the case of rice, the chief export crop; there was also some investment in
irri(alion.

(3) Extended reproduction as well as a rise in the organic composition of capital occurred in the mills and iel industiral transport. In these areas the real subsumption Of labour under capital' developed. (6) On the world scale Thanjavur became a specialised producer of rice and a few other exports as a part of the increased internationialdivision of labour.
GouLgh nonetheless acknowle(dges the persistence of certain pre-capitalist features in production relations in agriculture: "traditional gifts of clothing and other perqiiisi-es by masters to their labourers at festivals and lifecrises"; the formally subservient behaviour "prescribed by caste" of labourers to masters; the admissibility of nmasters'inflicting coriporal punishment on labourers. She maintains that despite these practices, relations of pro(luctioii were enforced "primiarilyby economic andc not extra-economnic coercion". She is riot prepared to accept Alavi's earlier formmlation of a 'colonial mnodeof produiction'separate from the capitalist miiode. Rather, she proposes, India (lid not develop along the

called the 'formal subsumption of labThe' -were not cur uin(ler capDital'". yet the< relat;Clns of "real sublsulmption

saine path as Britain, as Marx exproduction in agyricultuire"'. She pected it tio do, that it developed of along a complementary and specifi- argutes that the "specificity of the feucallv colonial trajectory, yet that it (lal mio(le of production in India was (leveloped within the (.single) capito caste". Here she talist mode. (Gaugbh1980, italics in la-rgel re'ated refers in partictular to the role of the the original) The perio(l from 1947 to 1980 jOlinlulilbaltltedarj svstein and to the Gough characterises as ineo-imperial-Lsti.relatious between high caste landlords Thanjavur, she tells iis, has continued an(I low-caste seifs or tenants. (Omve(dt to be "an agricullturala] hinterland within 197i8) the worldl capit;alist modle of prodllc(To be concluded) 1999

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