SPECIAL ARTICLES

Realities o f A g r a r i a n Relations i n I n d i a
Ramkrishna Mukherjee Any relationship registers a complementary aspect at a point in time and a contradictory aspect over a period in time. Complement or contradiction in a relational matrix is unilaterally stressed according to one's ideological construct to appraise reality. One aspect of contradiction may also he emphasised at the expense of other related aspects in accordance with one's theoretical orientation. These attempts, based on the deductive-positivistic approach to 'sciencing' a phenomenon, distort or obscure the understanding of social reality. This paper attempts to illustrate some of these problems with respect to the realities of agrarian relations and with specific reference to Indian society from the time of the Raj to date. I
A N Y relationship conveys mutually understood and repetitive actions and reactions between two reference points which are identified by distinctive labels: such as, in agrarian Bengal under the Raj, the relationship between a zemindar (landlord) and a ryot (peasant), a supervisory farmer and a wage-labourer, a jotedar (noncultivating owner of land) and a bargadar (sharecropper). These relationships, as we know, emerged all over British India, although the zemindari system of land tenure was enacted for Bengal in particular and as different from the ryotwari system, the mahalwari system, and so o n . Irrespective of the land tenure systems enacted by he British we may therefore focus our attention on these forms of agrarian relations in Bengal and India under the Raj. N o w , w i t h respect to any dyadic relationship as enumerated its complementary characteristic draws our i m mediate attention because of the principle of reciprocity w h i c h makes a relation viable. The zemindars and the ryots are thus identifiable entities so long as these two interacting groups complement each other. A n d so it is w i t h the interacting groups of supervisory farmers and agricultural wagelabourers or of jotedars and bargadars. Similarly, the castes are identifiable entities because they complement one another and so it is w i t h the elites and the masses who may be identified as bhadralok (gentry) and chhotolok (commoner). Our starting point to appraise social reality is therefore the description of the complementary characteristics of the relational matrix depicted by a place-time-people configuration of the w o r l d society. This, in the context of our present discussion, is Bengal in particular and India in general. The relational matrix, composed of various kinds of relationships, denotes analytically distinct and conceptually analogous (parallel) or homologous (common) strains. It appears to us, however, in the f o r m of a symbiosis of role-performance of individuals and their various ways of forming collectivities by performing these roles. Thus, the relationship between t w o reference points of agricultural production can be analytically and conceptually distinguished from the relationship between two reference points in the religion-caste hierarchy or between the bhadralok and chhotolok categories. A person, however, belongs at the same time to a particular category of the agrarian economic structure religion-caste hierarchy, elite-mass distinction, and so on. His or her actions and reactions in society are not, therefore, as isolates w i t h reference to different strains of relationships. Hence, to appraise social reality, we tend to assume the primacy of one or another strain of relationships in the light of our explicit or implicit ideological construct. Various conceptual frames have thus been adopted to explore the realities of agrarian relations such as the frame constituted of the property and production relations in agriculture, the frame depicting the status categories in rural society (which may be further distinguished in terms of the role of the 'dominant caste' vis-a-vis other castes), the frame recording interactions between the elites and the masses of many denominations. These frames do not emerge sporadically. They refer to distinctive theoretical orientations; presently, in all essentials, to the Marxist or the Weberian understanding of social reality. Contemporary social science literature points o u t that most of them are relevant to our understanding of reality. In their respective ways, the conceptual frames draw our attention to what is the composition of the relational matrix and how the matrix operates to uphold the society at a point in time. The frames also provide us w i t h particular sets of data to explain why changes have taken place in the structure and/or the function of the assumed primary strain of relations to depict reality, and, therefore, what is l i k e l y to be of the realities of relations in the near future. Mainly, thus, the realities of agrarian relations in I n d i a are expressed according to the Marxist concept of class relations or the Weberian concept of 'social action' which is characterised by the subjective meanings attached to the relationships of the interacting persons. In the latter context, we examine the dual processes of Sanskritisation and Westernisation in upholding and, at the same time, changing the alignments w i t h i n the social status hierarchy. Pareto's concept of elite and mass is often integrated to Weber's concept of status hierarchy, i e, the 'social classes'. The relevance of the respective theoretical orientations, however, d6es not automatically make them necessary to understand social reality. The elitemass dichotomy in the f o r m of bhadralok and chhotolok categories, or any other, is usually dovetailed into the Weberian status categories and, thus, it forfeits the necessity for a separate consideration to unfold the realities of agrarian relations. Elite is sometimes conceived as a metaphysical entity of power-potential (Bhatia 1974:25). Such a qualification of the conceptual frame, however, makes it redundant for a scientific enquiry. On the other hand, both status and class are found necessary to unfold the realities of social relations. Beteille's formulation of "Caste, Class and Power" (1966) has therefore received 109

January 24, 1981 so wide an acceptance that Namboodiripad (1977) discussed the con tempo'Castes Classes and Politics in Modern Political Development'. But, which one of the two theoretical schema the Weberian or the Marxist is relatively the more efficient to unfold the realities of agrarian relations? This is the fundamental question we face today. II The question cannot be answered from an exclusive examination of the complementary characteristics of the relational matrix. For, complementarity tells us of the existence and operation Of a relational matrix at a point in time; it cannot indicate why the relationships change in structure and/or function, or why some of these are superseded by others, over a period in tirne; The Weberians may not dispute this point. While stressing the 'achievement orientation' of individuals to Effect changes in the status hierarchy, they are found to examine the conflicts generated in the process of change, t h e conflicts, however, are regarded slit generis; the focus is on the u l t i mate product of human efforts and achievements. For, in the words of Weber (1930): The so-called 'materialist conception of histoty' as a Weltanschauung or as a formula for the causal explanat i o n of historical reality is to be rejected most emphatically. ... We wish to understand on the one hand the relationships and the cultural significance of individual events in their contemporary manifestation and pn the other the causes of their being historically so and not other wise.... Thus, if we are competen in our pursuit ... we can force the in4ividual or at least we can help h i m to give himself an account of the ultimate meaning of his own conduct. Complementarity, at one or different points of time, thus becomes the key to appraise the realities of agrarian relations which was the dominant note up to the 1930s, although the concerned intelligentsia and activists may not have been influenced by Weber or the like-minded thinkers l i k e Popper. They, however, subscribed to the same ideological construct. The zemindar-ryot refetionship before and after the Permanent Settlement of Land was therefore regarded to be the same, as it was true in a large measure b u t status-wise only. A n d nothing new was found in "the jotedar-bargadar relationship in the 1950s, as there were documentary evidence of its existence way back in 110

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY Bengal'' history (Mookerjee, 1940). The understanding of reality began to change from the 1940; for two main reasons: (1) substantive accumulation of knowledge on rural Bengal; and (2) the force; of circumstances. Information had accrued by then to distinguish the zemindars of the 19th and early 20th centuries from the revenue farmers of the 18th century and earlier. Both were found to live on the surplus generated from land, but while thriving on it from the subsistent rural sector the zemindars in colonial Bengal had become cogs in the wheel of operation of the market economy in the urban sector. The previous revenue farmers had lived under a different economic system which was pre-capitalist or proto-capitalist in character. It was also noticeable from the 1930s that as a sequel to degeneration in agricultural production and along w i t h the devitalisation of the subsistence economy in the rural sector, a 'home market' was rapidly developing. Land had definitely become a , marketable commodity under the Permanent Settlement of Land and the laws enacted on that basis in the 19th century. Now, failing to maintain themselves on the continually reduced production from the lands they owned, the bulk of the peasants began to sell or mortgage parts of their holdings for survival, while these holdings went to the few well-to-do persons in the community. This, however, accelerated the break-up of the subsistence economy and led to the rapid growth of a home market in crops. For, under colonial conditions; the disintegrated peasantry had litle opportunity to earn a livelihood from the non-agricultural sector of the economy and, therefore, had to buy or borrow crops for survival from the few prosperous 'peasants'. The process, thus, intensified commodification of crops, forcefully brought out the jotedar-bargadar relationship in; the agrarian economy, unlike as casual instances found in earlier times, and more and more proved the zemindar-ryot relationship w h i c h rested upon a subsistence economy to have become redundant. These points were underscored by the Land Revenue Commission in 1940 which clearly noted that the zemindars had become redundant appendages to the rural society, The Commission also had l i t t l e to say about the 'achievement orientation' of the jotedars; instead, it portrayed the objective conditions which obliged the mass of the peasantry to sell their land and. be transformed into sharecropThe Commission, however, emphasised the complementary aspect of the newly found relationship between the emergent landowners and the disintegrated peasantry. Commenting upon the prevalence of the Jotedar-bargadar, rather than the farmer-labourer, relationship, the Commission remarked that the land-losing peasants wished to be sharecroppers rather than becbme wage-earners because they could then retain their social status of being grihastha (husbandman) instead of becoming kisan or labourer (Land Revenue Commission 1940:1, 67). No doubt, such a 'subjective' meaning to the jotedar-bargadar relationship was attributed by the land-losing peasants, as attested by the scholars undertaking village surveys in the 1940s and 1950s. Was the final choice of being bargadar, however, left to them or to the new landowners who could thus reap a higher profit by employing the land-losing peasants as sharecroppers than as wage-labourers? F r o m the studies available in the 1930s on the cost of cultivation of aman paddy (the staple crop of Bengal) on an acre of land, it was computed that the jotedar received about Rs 14 as the net income while that of the supervisory fanner was around Rs 12.. The sharecropper, correspondingly, received about Rs 7 and the agricultural wage-labourer around Rs 8, The subsistent farmer (ryot) obtained about Rs 17 in the same context, while the Government received, less than a rupee and the zemindary interest around two rupees (tyukherjee 1957:49). It follows logically under the given circumstances that the incentive of the newly emerged landowners to extract as much as possible from the disintegrated peasantry dictated the jotedar-bargadar relationship as against the farmer-labourer relationship. Induction of facts and the force of objective circumstances thus drew the attention of scholars a n d activists away from the complementary aspect of the 'relational matrix. U n l i k e the image projected by the supporters of the new landowning class, T h e M a n Behind idle Plough' was seen hencef o r t h from a different perspective than that which presented an i d y l l i c rural life submerged in misery and squalor (Huque 1930). In this course of change in orientation, the Marxist appraisal of' reatities of agrarian relations, which is founded upon the contradictory as-

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY pect of the relational matrix, became increasingly formidable from the 19508. The complementary aspect of the relational matrix was, however, freshly underlined since the 1950s by a school of social scientists who brought forward the concepts of Sanskritisation and Westernisation, undertook the study of agrarian social structure in terms of 'how the people themselves divide up the social w o r l d ' (Beteille 1974:8), and how thus a consensus can be forged evermore strongly among the social strata in terms of the socalled 'rational behaviour' of the cultivators, 'modernisation' of the rural society, and so on. For a precise and comprehensive appraisal of the realities of contemporary agrarian relations, we should therefore examine (1) the relative efficiency of focusing our attention on the contradictory or the complementary aspect of the relational matrix, (2) whether the efficient focus needs to be further sharpened under the present circumstances, and (3) how then should we proceed to unfold the realities of agrarian relations. Ill Obviously, each and every relationship has a complementary and a contradictory aspect For, in however slow or rapid a rate, all place-time-people bound configurations of the w o r l d society are constantly in a process of change; and, so are their relational matrices which arc in being at a point in time and are becoming over a time period. This is evident today from the accumulated knowledge on social reality. Even the arboreal society of Bengal in ancient times was not static. Marx had w r i t t e n in 1853 that "however changing the political aspect of India's past must appear, its social condition has remained unaltered since its remote a n t i q u i t y " (Marx 1853a). His later studies, however, underlined the changing social conditions in India (Marx unpublished). Summarily, the concept of static equilibrium has given place to the concept of dynamic equilibrium of the w o r l d societies. A n d , in the context of social dynamism, no one doubts that contradictions set changes in motion and, therefore, represent a dimension of reality concomitant to that represented by complementarity. Complement and contradiction thus operate as the unity of opposites, and life proceeds dialectically from one phase of complementarity to another by resolving the contradictions inherent in the former phase. Issues are raised, however, regarding the necessity and efficiency of examining contradictions per se while appraising the realities of a relational matrix. As representing a forceful school of thought, Weber argued that "so long as life remains immanent and is interpreted in its own terms ... the u l t i mate possible attitudes towards life are irreconcilable" and "thus it is necessary to make a decisive choice" (lac cit). The choice, as noted, provides the 'ultimate meaning' of a person's conduct. F r o m this perspective, therefore, an examination of contradictions is neither necessary nor efficient to understand reality which is provided by the choices ultimately made by individuals out of all possibilities open to them. Realities of agrarian relations are examined, accordingly, in terms of 'rationality' of peasants, the extent to which they can break through the thackles of ' t r a d i t i o n ' in Rostow's (1962) portrayal of the 'traditional society' and take to 'modernisation'. The fallacy of the so-called 'rational behaviour' of the peasantry and the inadequacy of the tradition-modernity schema to appraise the contemporary social reality have lately been discussed by many social scientists all over the w o r l d (some details in Mukherjee 1978:34-55, 94-100, 207-15). In India, since the 1970s, there have been substantial discussions on the necessity of the models of Sanskritisation and Westernisation or the concept of Dominant Caste to unfold the realities of agrarian relations (some details in Mukherjee 1977:48-112). We may, however, examine the usefulness of the basic postulates of this school of thought. No doubt, individuals make decisive choices, but they do not make it at random out of all possible alternatives. If they did so, any configuration of the world society would not be viable, as it would contain an amorphous assortment of actions and reactions of the people. Society, on the contrary, exists because it represents a viable pattern of actions and reactions of the people, i e, of its relational matrix. A n d society changes, while surviving, owing to distinctive and not random changes in that pattern. A l l of which means that we would have failed to 'science' society comprehensively if we d i d not examine the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix. Otherwise, by focusing our attention on complementarity, we would

January 24, 1981 be able to answer what are the structure and the function of a place-timepeople bound configuration of the world society, and how it operates by means of its relational matrix. We would fail, however, to answer why the society and its relational matrix have changed over time, and what are I he future probabilities of change in that society, i e, in its relational matrix. Interestingly we notice that those social scientists who wish to avoid a causal explanation of social reality because of the logical constraints in their ideological frame of reference are n o t oblivious of these gaps in their appraisal. Indirectly, therefore, they may attempt to fill i n the gaps by equating their answer of how a society operates to a plausible answer of why the society operates in that particular manner. Weber's elaboration of "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1930) and Tawney's rebuttal entitled "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" (1948) somewhat illustrate this inherent l i r n i tation of the school of thought w h i c h tends to bypass the necessity of focusing our attention on the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix in order to appraise reality. IV The appraisal, however, would be inefficient if we focus our attention exclusively on contradictions, i e, w i t h out taking note of their complementary bases, As Engels (1894) wrote to Starkenburg while explaining Marx's and his views on historical and dialectical materialism: " M e n make their history themselves, only they do so in a given environment which conditions it and on the basis of actual relations already existing". The existing relations are organically related to one another so that the mounting contradiction in one strain of relationship may be compensated, for the time being, by the stronger bond of complementarity in an analogous (parallel) strain of relationship. Bengal in 1946 provides a good example in this respect. In Bengal, the peasant organisations were strong, the zemindars had virtually receded from the social scene, and the contradictory aspect of the jotedar-bargadar relationship was directly observable. Also, these characteristics were noticeable in similar magnitudes in the respective communities of Hindus and Muslims. Out of their total number of households, five 111

January 24, 1981 and three per cent of the Hindus and Muslims were essentially jotedars, 37 and 44 per cent were subsistence farmers, and 58 and 53 per cent were share-croppers and, occasionally, agricultural labourers (Mukherjee 1978: 192). Yet, the unequal exchange between the urban Hindus and Muslims was so clearly manifest that complementarity as Muslims asserted over the contradictory class relations w i t h i n that community, although 96 per cent of the Muslims and 88 per cent of the Hindus belonged to the rural society (Ibid: 188-196). Bengal was therefore divided, apparently on grounds of religious contradictions, which enforced a lasting alteration in the realities of its agrarian relations especially in Bangladesh w i t h the exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan, Apart from neglecting the complementary bases of contradiction, we may overlook the possibility that contradictions in one strain of relationships may emerge as contradictions in another strain of relationships in case the strains are homologous, i e, they have a common origin. The oversight leads to an inefficient appraisal of the contextual reality, of which a case in point is concerned w i t h caste contradictions and class contradictions in Indian society. The Weberians used to overlook the class contradictions, and the Marxists the caste contradictions, u n t i l the force of circumstances compelled either side to consider caste and class as parallel, i e, analogous, phenomena as we have pointed out earlier. But can the realities of agrarian relations be depicted precisely and comprehensively in this manner? Should we not ascertain which one of the two sets of contradictions has more explanatory power to denote why the relational matrix changes? Should we not further ascertain the relative alignments of caste and class to contradict the complementary relations at one time-point and consolidate complementary relations at the next time-point? Marx had made significant remarks in this context He noted (1853b) that "modern industry ... w i l l dissolve the hereditary divisions of labour, upon which rest the Indian castes"; and he also pointed out that the caste system emerged as a "negative analogue" to slavery and serfdom (1953:399-400). Now) contemporary India registers Strong moorings from the past for reasons beyond our present discussion. A r e not these moorings reflected in the current class contradictions being 112

ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL WEEKLY expressed as caste contradictions? Interestingly, we notice that the concept of 'dominant caste', which is regarded by the non-Marxists and antiMarxists as the lever of change in agrarian relations, is characterised by the elements of class relations in society and leads eventually to the identification of those who have land, education and high position in rural society, w i t h their relational nexus spreading into the urban economy (Mukherjee 1978:51-54). In order to appraise the contemporary realities of agrarian relations, one cannot therefore either ignore caste or class contradictions or take the two into account compartmentally. To be sure, caste and class denote several characteristics specific to themselves. Castes are distinguished on a purity pollution scale, the classes w i t h respect to production and property relations emerging from a mode of production in accordance w i t h the state of development of the productive forces. Prima facie, therefore, the two phenomena are conceived to express different forms of social stability and change, just as the lews, the Gentiles and the Moslems are conceived to express different forms of social stability and change other than in terms of class relations. At the root of these different forms of social organisation, however, there are the common causal factors which have brought caste-religion and class on the same political and economic dimensions whether in India, Israel, Iran, or elsewhere. For example, caste-riots are frequent in those parts of India where the caste-wise 'social' deprivations are manifestly correlated w i t h the classwise 'economic' deprivations; such as, in Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, etc. Do these riots register (a) a casual disruption of complementarity in caste relations, (b) an instance of induced politicisation, and/or (c) manifestation of class contradictions, albeit through caste groups? In order to answer these questions. we should examine how and why the caste contradictions reflect, basically, inherent class contradictions so that the former can be resolved by the resolution of the latter, Theoretically, one may argue that the explanatory power of caste and class, and their relative alignments, are just the opposite. Such arguments must not be discarded provided they are not mere assertions and are, on the contrary, based on a systematic examination of the relevant information-sets, as we find M a r x and Weber to have done to understand the Indian social reality (Ibid: 65-70), The point to bear in m i n d , however, is that caste-religion and class are not disparate and, therefore, incommensurable entities (Ibid; 70-74). Hence, so long as we do not rigorously ascertain their causal nexus, our understanding of realities of agrarian relations cannot but be obscure as it is today to a large extent. V The appraisal of reality may be i n efficient on another count which contemporaneously has attained the most serious dimension. It emerges f r o m the assumption of primacy of one facet of an established f o r m of contradiction which appears plausible from spontaneous observation and/or in the light of the overall theoretical framework. The assumption, however, may not be substantiated by a deeper analysis of the empirical facts, and this limitation in appraising social reality may be found due to the inadequacy of one theory or the failure to consider the sequential relations in another theory. That class contradiction is an i m portant lever of social change is not doubted today even by the anti-Marxists. They will not, however, accept it as the decisive form of contradiction, and dilute the concept of class by equating it to a mere occupational stratification of society or the status categories of a 'social class* hierarchy. Parsons' address to the American Economic Association in 1948, entitled 'Social Classes and Class Conflict in the Light of Recent Sociological Theory', is revealing in this context. Parsons stated that "the structure of the productive forces which Marx outlined for capitalist society is real and of fundamental importance", but "the primary structural emphasis no longer falls on the orientation of capitalist enterprise to profit and the theory of exploitation but rather on the structure of occupational roles w i t h i n the system of industrial society . Hence, "conflict does not have the same order of inevitability, but is led back to the interrelations of a series of more particular forces, the combination of which may vary" (Parsons 1954: 322323). Consensus building in terms of complementarity in the relational matrix thus attains primary relevance in order to resolve contradictions in occupational roles and status differences under

Free Enterprise, In India this was attempted w i t h respect to the agrarian relational matrix by launching from the 1950s the Community Development Projects and Programme. The mute protest of some Marxists in thus denigrating the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix was overruled by the contemporaneously dominant viewpoint that Marx was dated. Loomis' "SocioEconomic Change and the Religious Factor in I n d i a " (1969) is one of the examples in this context. However, after three decades of labour of the neo-Weberians to dilute and eventually negate the primacy of class contradictions in the appraisal of social reality (about which we have given other instances also), the attempt has been empirically found to be i n adequate not only in the w o r l d context but also in the context of the affluent nation-states like the U n i t e d States. A n d , as a corollary to this realisation, the Marxist's emphasis on class contradiction has attained renewed vigour not only w i t h respect to the industrial but also the 'peasant' society; pointedly, w i t h reference to the realities of agrarian relations. We thus notice that the Land Gift (Bhoodan) Movement in India, w h i c h was launched in the 1950s to change the realities of agrarian relations by means of a 'change in heart' of the landowners, proved futile and led its most powerful and sincere exponent, Jayaprakash Naram, to rethink in his last years in terms of class contradictions in agrarian relations. Some Marxists, however, are seen to undermine the crucial distinction drawn by Marx between 'class in i t s e l f and "class for itself. There is a processual gap between the two stages of understanding reality, which requires a dialectical intervention at the optimum phase of the process to link up the two and thus transform the texture of real i t y . These Marxists, however, not only tend to bypass the aforesaid distinction in the development of a course of contradiction but also to readily identify class exclusively in terms of property relations which, incidentally, is easily observable. M a r x described property relations as the 'legal expression' of the production relations which emerge from the state of development of the productive forces w i t h respect to a mode of product i o n . He is thus seen to deal w i t h the four variables of (1) mode of product i o n , (2) state of productive forces, (3) relations of production, and (4) property relations. The last as a legal expression obviously takes time to establish itself. Meanwhile, we are concerned w i t h 'single epochs and events'

in Engels' terminology (used in " L u d w i g Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy"), in which life runs in a 'zigzag' course. W i t h reference to short time periods, therefore, the four variables in determining class formation and class consciousness may have independent variations as w e l l as concomitant ones. The failure to take note of these possibilities keeps our understanding of the realities of agrarian relations covered, and may even distort our perspective. For example, the central slogan of the peasant organisations in the 1930s and early 1940s was: 'Land belongs to those who hold the plough'. This is entirely based on property relations and follows automatically from the fact that sale of land was increasing at a faster rate while their average values were decreasing. F r o m 25,000 in 1930 the deeds of sale registered in Bengal rose to 169,000 in 1943, while the average value per document decreased from Rs 292 in 1930 to Rs 187 in 1943 (Mukherjee 1957: 39). Evidently, the sales were of relatively small holdings of subsistence fanners and not of the substantial estateowners. There is hardly any evidence, however, that the landless peasantry fought to make the slogan of 'Land to the Tillers' effective. Instead, their participation in the Tebhaga Struggle, which demanded a higher share of crops from the jotedars than that usually given to the bargadars, underscored the contemporaneous efficacy of the variable of production relations. That is, in place of the subsumed primacy of one facet of class contradictions, another facet was found to conform to the realities of agrarian relations. In the long run, the subsumed facet of 'legal expression' of class contradictions was found to be the kingpin of changes in the agrarian relational matrix. But that had to commensurate w i t h the understanding of reality by the mass of the disintegrated peasantry in terms of class in itself and class for itself. By the middle of the 1960s, i e, after two decades of the height of the Tebhaga struggle, the landless mass was found to realise that their respective interests in terms of production relations must be safeguarded. On the other hand, the landowners were evaluated n o t merely as jotedars or supervisory farmers but as a conglomerate of these reference points as well as of moneylenders and wholesale merchants l i n k e d w i t h the urban nexus of the exploitative system. While, therefore, a distinctive organisation of the agricultural labourers came into existence

in the 1960s, the peasant movement henceforth attained a comprehensive political character as based on the contradictory aspect of property relations in the agricultural mode of production. The variable of property relations, which eventually epitomises the other three variables to constitute the class structure, thus asserted itself in course Of time, w i t h the intervention of a powerful sector of the Left movement in India at the optimal point of changes in the historical circumstances. One cannot undermine the significance of the symbol of Naxalbari in this context. However, this logical sequence in the theoretical construct of Marxism was neither inevitable at all 'single epochs and events' in the life process nor could it be established at the expense of ignoring the distinctive roles of the other three variables. VI A latency is thus noticed in the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix, unlike in the case of the complementary aspect which is directly observable or enumerable. For by referring to the process of change in the relational matrix and not to h o w the matrix operates in upholding the society, a large part of contradictions remains submerged at any point in time under the observable social surface. The submerged portion of a set of contradictions may come up on to the surface and become observable during a movement or an upsurge. That set of contradictions may, on the other hand, be sublimated by a dominant set of complementary relations, as we have illustrated. At any point in time, however, contradiction perse Is in a latent stage while complementarity is always manifest, A precise and comprehensive understanding of the contradictory aspect of a relational matrix is not therefore a matter of observation. It is also not a matter of deduction because the given field of variation in the nature, direction and intensity of a l l sets of contradiction cannot be fully deciphered at any point in time. It is therefore a matter of probabilistic inference to be drawn inductively from the field of variation in the light of our a priori and immediately ascertained knowledge on all theoretically possible variations in this aspect of the relational matrix. In order therefore to assess the nature, direction and intensity of the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix, scientific labour as a distinct category of labour is essent i a l 'Sciencing' and 'practising' need . 113

to be distinguished in this manner, on the one hand, and integrated, on the other, in order that the concept of praxis acquires an effective meaning instead of expressing a romantic view of labour. For knowledge can then purposefully intervene in changing the relational matrix and not be employed pragmatically on a spontaneously observable or immediately deducible base. Pragmatism in this context would tantamount to building breakers in the course of history and not moulding its course. Of this, many examples are available in India from the 1950s w i t h respect to various kinds of action-programmes launched by the protagonists of different ideological nuances. Hence, in the light of our appraisal of the realities of agrarian relations under the Raj, we should examine the contemporary situation. A n d if we do so w i t h o u t sectarian bias and methodological ineptitude, we may find that a resolution of contradictions between the landowners and the landless bears topical relevance and necessity but its efficiency may be shifting ovef time, as it d i d w i t h regard to the zemindar-ryot relationship w i t h the creation of a home market in rural society. In that event, further efficiency in understanding the realities of agrarian relations may require a shift in our focus of attention. Thus, there are indications, neither precise nor comprehensive as they are, that in the present state of historical circumstances our unit of analysis should be beyond the rural society, the level of analysis beyond the agricultural mode of production, and the level of comprehension ought to comprise the w o r l d system and not exclusively one of its components operating in a nation-state like India. As an Unesco document, concerned w i t h the programme for the 1980 United Nations Development Decade, has stated in its preamble : ' T h e postwar era of unrestrained optimism w i t h respect to social and economic progress is definitely o v e r N o t only have we encountered serious set-backs and major upheavals in the world economy, but people are starting to raise doubts about the ultimate benefit of technological progress and economic g r o w t h " . Nonetheless, the resource mobilisation in the T h i r d W o r l d in the last three decades has left a lasting i m p r i n t on the infrastructure of the nation-states like India; and despite the neglect Bengal has suffered from, the reference points to denote the agrarian relational matrix have thus undergone drastic alterations 114

w i t h reference to those prevailing under the Raj. The rural-urban dichotomy, clearly delineated up to the 1940s, is now virtually replaced by rural-urban continuum w i t h a rapid growth in transport, communication, and the use of land for non-agricultural enterprises Agriculture as a mode of production may thus be losing its autonomy in the economic system, and be replaced in course of time by agro-industrial, agro-commercial, and similar metaagricultural complexes. In this light of these actual and potential developments, the realities of contemporary agricultural relations may not be unfolded, precisely and comprehensively, if our unit of analysis refers exclusively to the rural horizon. The appropriate unit in this phase of rapid change in the infrastructure of Bengal or Indian society is a matter for research, and not of mere search according to one's ideological construct. It should, however, comprise a viable ecological region w i t h rural and urban nodules. The level of analysis, correspondingly, should: not be restricted to agricultural product i o n . It should comprise, instead, the totality of production and appropriation in the region identified as the unit of analysis. The economists are now seen to have thus shifted their focus of attention for the appraisal of realities of agrarian relations, especially after the not-so Green Revolution in India. The sociologists' attention in this context, however, is still more or less restricted to the rural horizon, while the anthropologists remain engrossed in 'village studies'. The newly emerged or emergent reference points in the agrarian relational matrix are not thus fully identified, especially w i t h reference to their roles beyond the production, distribution and consumption of material goods and services. The upshot is that the appraisal of reality remains fragmentary. Even if these reference points were comprehensively identified and their roles were precisely elicited, the relative importance of the existing and immanent reference points in unfolding the social reality may not be elicited exclusively from a shift in the unit and level of analysis. So long as the rural life was characterised by subsistence of the people or the predominance of a home market, the level of comprehension of the realities of agrarian relations could have been the rural society itself. If, however, there are indications that not only the subsistent rural life has been succeeded

by a home market but the home market also is in the process of being out-distanced by the external market, and that market is not largely confined to the nation-state under reference, then our level of comprehension should be geared to a precise understanding of the prime forces of this market. We notice in this context that while the state of productive forces in agriculture has spectacularly developed in the last three decades, the benefits are appropriated neither by the mass of the peasantry nor by the bulk of the people in the society as a whole. In addition to the findings in the 1960s that the rich have become richer and the poor poorer, we find from the published official figures that during 1950-51 and 1970-71 the population of India has grown by 52 per cent (from 361 to 548 millions) whereas the production of foodgrains has gone up by 113 per cent (from 50.8 to 108.4 m i l l i o n tonnes) and oilseeds by 79 per cent (from 5.2 to 9.3 m i l l i o n tonnes). A n d yet, although the Parliament came to know of the marked disparity in life conditions in India from the Mahalanobis Committee Report (1964), the per capita consumption of fats and oils, m i l k and sugar remained as absurdly l o w in 1971 as they were in 1967, while the cereal consumption increased by 11 per cent. (The actual figures in grammes for 1967 and 1971 a r e : cereals 346 and 384, sugar 50 and 49, m i l k 110 and 116, and fats and o i l 9 and 10.) The situation has not changed much in the 1970 decade. Clearly, agricultural production has sharply increased but it is geared to the external market and, substantially, beyond the confines of the nationstate. In other words, the agrarian economy of India is now fully caught in the mesh of the w o r l d system so that the level of comprehension of the realities of agrarian relations may be fallacious if one isolatedly examines the local, regional or the nation-state situation, i e, without taking note of the course of unequal exchange between the core and the periphery of the w o r l d system. What Engels wrote in 1894 (loc cit) has thus attained a topical urgency; " M e n make their history themselves, but not as yet w i t h a collective w i l l according to a collective plan or even in a definite, delimited given society. Their aspirations clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity". VII The core-periphery relationship, however, is not unilaterally determi-

nistic and, therefore, the w o r l d system perspective has yielded the counteracting, category of semi-periphery (Wallersein 1974; Mukherjee 1980). Similarly, the jotedar-bargadar relationship may not remain as the exclusive determinant of the contemporary agrarian relations, although its present virulence and viability must not be ignored. For there are instances of sharecropping being turned into a large scale enterprise w h i c h cuts across property and production relations in agriculture a n d even the mode of production as exclusively agricultural. In Bengal, as elsewhere, entrepreneurs are now found who possess small holdings of their own and take surrounding holdings for sharecropping. Such a large holding may also be taken wholly on the basis of sharecropping, i e, on tenant-cultivation. Anyhow, w i t h respect to these holdings, the entrepreneurs are found to make use of efficient irrigation facilities and developed technologies for rotating crops and using the high yielding varieties while employing wage-labour as supervisory farmers. In the last ten years, in particular, the field workers do not find these entre' preneurs who are simultaneously sharecroppers and supervisory farmers to be of just sporadic occurrence. Whether they w i l l form a viable group against the jotedar-bargadar relationship is a moot question. Their current manoeuvres, however, demand notice. Incidentally, we may note that our current image of a sharecropper is one who barely survives on a small h o l d ing taken on rent and, as conforming to this image, the Agricultural Census of 1970-71 showed that 80 per cent of the operational holdings in India which are wholly taken on rent is of size up to two hectares. These 80 per cent holdings, however, account for only 37 per cent of the total area wholly under tenant cultivation. Whereas 19 per cent of such holdings of size above two and below ten hectares account for 47 per cent of the corresponding area, and only one per cent of such holdings of size ten hectares or more accounts for 16 per cent of that area. As for West Bengal, the Planning Commission noted that over the 13 years of 1952-65 the state had not made a mark in the compound growth rates of agricultural production as compared to s o m e other states like Punjab, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Even so, we find from the Agricultural Census of 1970-71 that while 91 per cent of the operational holdings In

West Bengal which are wholly taken on rent are up to two hectares and these holdings account for 73 per cent of the area wholly under tenant cultivation, land per cent of such holdings are of size above two and below ten hectares and account for 26 per cent of the corresponding area. Furthermore an infinitesimal number of such holdings are of size ten hectares or more but these few holdings account for one per cent of the total area wholly under tenant cultivation. These figures may portend a situation analogous to that faced under the Raj in the 1930s; namely, the Permanent Settlement of Land of 1793 created a new relationship between the zemindars and the ryots, and that relationship had become redundant even though legally the relationship was in force u n t i l the 1950s. Are the contemporary agrarian relations undergoing such a change that the property relations w i t h respect to land would become redundant in so far as the jotedar-bargadar relationship is concerned? In that case, what should be the policy in place of the current schema of land reform? Admittedly these are bold questions based on sketchy experiences and rudimentary documentation. They may not however be far fetched while they need not affect the current necessity to resolve the contiadictions epitomised in jotedar-bargadar relationship. What they endorse, therefore, is that not only the spontaneously observable complementarity cannot explain the realities of agrarian relations but the primacy of one or another facet of contradictions also cannot be established in a deductive-positivistic manner. Instead, the prime mover of change in the contemporary relational matrix in agriculture must be ascertained probabilistically on an inductive-inferential base. For, as noted, the latency in contradiction, which goes on changing the relational matrix, can neither be observed nor deduced; it can only be inferred on a probability basis. VIII This, therefore, is our task to unfold evermore efficiently the realities of agrarian relations; namely, (1) to focus our attention on the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix but not to disregard the multidimensional tenacity of its complementary base, (2) to broaden our unit of analysis from exclusively rural to a viable region of rural and urban nodules, (3) to shift our level of analysis from

agriculture as the mode of production to the multifarious instrumentalities of the overall mode of production in terms of capital and labour, and preand post-capitalist formations in that context, and (4) to extend our level of comprehension from an exclusive consideration of the local, regional or the nation-state milieu to the w o r l d systemic forces which condition the relational matrix under examination to exist and change. The task, however, cannot be accomplished unless we adopt the i n ductive-inferential orientation of probability science instead of the deductive-positivistic orientation of the so-called humanistic studies, the main objective of which is to search for those information-sets which are required to substantiate the thesis already accepted. The inductiveinferential orientation, on the other hand, calls for systematic and unconstrained research into the field of variation in order that our knowledge can be more and more enriched w i t h the not yet known but knowable variations. It can therefore avoid the possibilities of fallacious generalisations from spontaneous observations or immediate deductions as we have illustrated. Moreover, if we adopt the inductiveinferential orientation and the corresponding methodology, we shall move toward bridging the gap between theory and research and, thus, resolve the perennial controversy between the two schools of thought posited here by the viewpoints of Marx and Weber. For, as noted, it is the magnitude and complexity of variation in social actions which forbid thinkers like Weber to proceed beyond answering the two existential questions in appraising a field of variation, namely, 'what is i t ' and 'how is i t ' of the relational matrix, To them, accordingly, any attempt to answer the causal question 'why is i t ' and the diagnostic question 'what w i l l it be' is fraught with the danger of 'unscientific' bias and the risk of conjectures and speculations. The Marxists, on the other side, are oriented to answer all these four questions but the presently dominant deductive approach fritters away their energy in partisan polemics although they are the ones who substantially unfold the realities of relations by focusing their attention on the contradictory aspect of the relational matrix. The adoption of the inductive-inferential approach, therefore, w i l l enbance their understanding of reality. For, on the null base of no contradiction ( l e , of complementarity), the 115

relative force of different facets of contradiction w i l l be appraised evermore efficiently in order to ascertain why the reality is as it Is and what it is likely to be in the immediate future as the prelude to what it should be. To be Indian sure, edireality w i l l never be Fage references to the realised fully and finally, for knowledge cannot but form an asymptotic relation w i t h reality. But, then, the Sap between knowledge and reality w i l l be increasingly small which is the ultimate aim of all those concerned w i t h society and people Marx, Weber, and all other theoreticians, researchers and activists.

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