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TRANSCRIPT
CHAPTERS
Conclusion
Substantial changes have occurred in the agrarian structure of rural India
in the aftermath of green revolution. Initially the technology was introduced in
some selected pockets of the country, but it spread over to many other regions in
due course of time. However, the pace and trajectory of agrarian change has not
been the same everywhere. The wheat producing areas have benefited more than
. the rice producing areas and so the green revolution experience of Punjab does not
necessarily apply to other parts of the country. However, in an overall context, the) availability of work throughout the year and a growth in the wage rate gave a new
lease of life to the agricultural labourers. The rate of their migration from drought
prone zones to irrigated zones increased phenomenally and it gave the structure of
rural labour market a new shape. The initial seasonal migration that subsequently
led to a permanent settlement of some of those migrant agricultural labourers in
some of the areas brought a change not only in the labour market but at the same
time in the social structure ofthose areas also. By focusing on this particular issue
in an Orissan situation, this study examines how a bunch of migrant agricultural
labourers became landowners over a period of time and transformed themselves
into small and marginal peasants.
With the construction of Hirakud dam and the subsequent flow of water in
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the canal, farmers of Hirakud Command Area got an opportunity to grow second
crop in their land. When the green revolution package came during the mid-1960s
and its implementation took place, it required more labourers for cultivation and
the local labour market could not provide adequate labour force. This short supply
encouraged the local labourers to demand more wages, and to counter them in this
regard the landowners started looking for alternative sources. During the initial
period they got it in the labour force from the neighbouring state of Chhatishgarh
(then a part of Madhya Pradesh) and later on the recurrence of severe drought in
Balangir and Kalahandi districts of Western Orissa compelled many people from .,--
a number of villages to come and work at Hirakud Command Area. There are also
several instances of even the landlords going to these drought-prone areas and_
motivating the people to go and work in their farms. Initially a few people came to
work as the seasonal agricultural labourers but then the landlords gave them travel
expenses to bring more and more labourers from their villages. These people then lJ motivated their kinsmen and neighbours to go with them and gradually the chain
migration increased.
The study indicates that not all the migrants were agricultural labourers at
their places of origin, rather one-third of them weLe marginal peasams and one.--..
fifth of them were tenants and sharecroppers. Out of all the peasants, some have
sold their lands, some have leased-out but hardly get any share from the lessees,
and some have already abandoned theirs. So far as the homestead land and house
is concerned all the respondents were having their own at their native places.
However, an overwhelming majority of them have abandoned it and only a few
could manage to sell theirs. After migration, employment was not an immediate
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problem for the migrants since due to the scarcity of local labour the landlords
engaged them in their farms. Another reason has been their willingness to work
even for lesser wage than what was then the prevailing rate in the villages.
Having got the cheap labour force for cultivation, the landlords wanted
these migrant labourers for a long time. Their sufficient skill in agricultural works,
willingness to work for fewer wages, obedient and clientelestic attitude wooed the
landlords and therefore instead of employing them on seasonal basis they started
patronizing them for a permanent labour force. The migrants were asked to settle
down at the places of destination with their families af!d given immediate shelter
either in the cattle sheds of the landlords or in the makeshift arrangements, which --
the landlords themselves did till the migrants erect their own huts either in the
plots given by them or in the government lands. The latecomers got help from
their fellow migrants who had migrated before them and initially e!t~ staxed in
their houses for a few months till the construction of their own houses or sought --- _.
the help of the patron landlords of these earlier migrants. Since all the migrant ------------ -labourers got the patronage of one or the other landlord, their establishment in the
villages did not face many hurdles. Moreover, the landlords being economically
rich and socially approved elites of the villages came to the rescue of the migrants
during their troubled times especially to counter the hostility of their counterparts
from the host society.
Thus, having been loyal to their respective patrons, the migrant labourers
worked under the local landlords for several years. From the study it is found that
almost all the migrants have begun their careers by entering into one or the other
form of labour attachment with the landlords. Such an arrangement for them not
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only provided a security of livelihood but at the same time also helped in earning
the good will of the village elites in order to secure a permanent stay. That is why
apart from the heads of the households (HoH), other members of the families also
in a majority of the cases have initially entered into labour attachment before their
families owning land. Most of them have also had long-term attachments to their
respective employers without changing many a times because it has enabled them
the easy access to credit facility from the employers during their need, which they
get extremely difficult from the institutional sources.
After getting them established at the places o( destination, gradually the
migrants enhanced their economic conditions. T. he long-term attachment not only Jj helped them in settling down, but at the same time_also played a major role in the II ~ ---. ___ _
peasantisation process. Of course, the principal reason behind their becoming
landowners is the relentless effort put by all the family members in the formation
of capital, which gets reflected in their sources of income and expenditure pattern
even today. They always draw their incomes from a variety of sources including
both farm and non-farm activities by welcoming all the avenues of employment./
Besides hiring-out of labour, their income comes from domestic animals, various
skills and subsidiary activities. A significant number of households are found to
have possessed domestic animals and birds. Bullocks and he-buffalos, apart from
being used for their own agricultural works, are hired out to others for plough,
harrow and plank services on payment. Cows and she-buffalos produce milk and
milk selling is a great income generating activity since the Orissa Milk Federation ~
(OMFED) purchases milk from them everyday for its milk processing industry.
Goats, sheeps, chickens and ducks are reared to be sold in the market for meat. A
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substantial amount of their earnings also come from various skill-based secondary
occupations and subsidiary activities. Some of them possess special skills like
carpentry, masonry, tailoring etc. and some others' incomes come from general
skills like brick making and country-tile making. The subsidiary activities include
different types of small shops, petty trades, vegetable selling and Hemali. All the
able-bodied members of all the households including women and in some cases
even children of ten years or more contribute to their family income through one
or the other form of occupations. Availing of the government welfare schemes has
also enhanced their capital base. However, the most .. important aspect of their
economic improvement is their expenditure pattern. They have always tried to
minimize the cash expenditure in order to save as much money possible, which
can be invested in land. The adoption of a home-produced food habit, avoidance
of intoxicants and restraining from the purchase of costly electronic gadgets are
some of the highlights of their cash-low consumption pattern. This characteristic,
apart from their entrepreneurial and innovative attitude, not only distinguishes
them from others but also has played the most crucial role in the peasantisation
process. And this is why not all the migrant labourers could transform themselves
into landowners; rather a few of them only harvested the benefit.
However, it is not to deny that patron-client relationship has played the
facilitating and boosting role in the peasantisation process in a number of ways.
Some of the respondents got the small patches of Bartan land from their patron
landlords as gifts out of compassion, some others got it registered in their names
by their long-term employers in order to escape from land ceiling and many of
them had the opportunity to purchase it in a price less than the prevailing market
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value. Beside this, the landlords have also helped their clients in some other ways
like playing the role of arbitrator in land transactions where they are not a part, by
providing monetary help through lending money when their clients fell short of it
after getting an opportunity and lending animals and agricultural implements for
cultivation. Of course, a few exceptional cases do exist but in the overall context,
it is the constant effort being supplemented by benevolent patronage that has
played the most crucial role in the transformation of migrant agricultural labourers
into owner cultivators.
The ownership holding of the respondents shows that almost half of them
possess below two acres of land each and next to them, those who possess in1
between two to three acres constitute slightly more than one-third of the sample. It
is also found that in majority of the cases their landholdings come under Mal
category of land, which is not of a very high quality. Land under their operational
holding comprises of two categories: leasing-in land from others and keeping
others' land under mortgage. Keeping land under mortgage is not very popular
among the respondents due to the fear factor of getting it snatched away from
them in case the deal went wrong with a person especially from the host society,
since normally the transaction takes place between the two parties through oral
conversation without any pen and paper. But many of them (almost three-fourth
of the sample) are engaged in leasing-in land from others that shows the intensity
of their interest in farming. Only those who are skilled workers like carpenter,
mason, tailor etc. and do not get sufficient time to look after the agriculture, keep
themselves away from leasing-in land.
The crops grown by the respondent households is confined to paddy only,
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which is the staple crop in the region and also commercially viable. Although they
practise modern agricultural methods by adopting high yielding variety (HYV)
seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the consumption amount is very limited.
This is because of their inability to take risk and invest a lot of money in it and at
the same time they hardly can afford the mechanization of agricultural operations.
Therefore their agricultural practice is a mixture of modern inputs with traditional
implements in a changing agrarian setting. For their agricultural operations, the
respondents mostly depend upon the family labour. But during the peak seasons
when family labour becomes inadequate, they try to get most of their works done
through the mutual exchange of labour at individual household level. Sometimes
they also get the labour service oftheir friends and relatives in the form of relative
labour to perform some of their farming tasks. This enables them to get the job
done at a very low cost in a smooth manner. Only during the extreme necessity,
they hire-in one or two daily wage labourers for a few days till the completion of a
particular operation.
Although the migrants have improved their conditions from labourers to
landowners, it is not well enough to be called as prosperous and they are still in l the clutch of poverty. Most oftheir houses are of kuchcha type with thatched roof
or it being covered by country-tiles. A few of them of course have the mixed type
houses built-up of bricks but the concrete houses are almost non-existent. Most of
the houses have two to three rooms and there is no separate room for kitchen.
Toilet facility is almost absent barring a few houses and open fields are used for it I Ponds and canals provide water for bathing purposes and drinking water is taken
from village tube wells. Among the agricultural and non-agricultural assets they
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possess, small assets like axe, sickle; crowbar, hoe and spade are found in all the
households, but big assets like plank, harrow and cart are possessed by only a few
households. However, the possession of non-agricultural assets is very few among
them in general except the torch, which almost all the households have one. Cycle
is another asset owned by more than half of the households and most of those who
possess watch and radio have got them through dowry during their marriages.
The social life of the migrants at the places of destination shows that
members from a large number of households have entered into various kinds of
ceremonial friendships not only with persons from the migrant community but at
the same time also with persons from the host society. Of course, their friendships
with the native people is less as compared to the migrants but there are also more
than one-fourth of the total households from where the members have established
their ceremonial friendships with both the migrants as well as the natives. Marital
alliances after migration shows that most of them have chosen their life partners
either from the migrant community at the places of destination or from the native
places, and there are very few households from where marital alliances have taken
place exclusively with natives. The migrants' participation in the common village
festivals is very encouraging. However, in most of the cases it is confined to
subscription only although a few of them have actively participated by playing
some special roles assigned to them. So far as the relationship with the places of
origin is concerned, it is found that one or other member from half of the total
households pay regular visits to their native places every year, more than one
fourth go occasionally but not in every year, and a few visit more than once in a
year. Those, who are born at their native places and have migrated later on, attach
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some kind of importance to their places of origin; where as, those who are born
after migration and brought up at the places of destination, hardly find any sort of
attachment. Therefore, almost all of the respondent households barring a few want
to settle down at their present places of destination permanently.
Although it seems that near complete assimilation ofthe migrants with the
host society has already taken place, a close observation indicates something else. ij Despite having stayed for more than three decades, complete assimilation with the
natives is a distant feature. The natives still consider the migrants as outsiders and
so they are identified as the pardeshias, a derogatory term that means outsider.
Migrant settlements, situated at the periphery of the villages, are called pardeshia
paras. The first and second-generation migrants, who have the direct experiences
of migration, do not mind it much since they are habituated to it from the day of
their migration. But, some of the second-generation and the entire third-generation
migrants, who are born and brought up At the places of destination, never accept
the term for them and argue that they are parts of the host society by virtue of
their place of birth and at the same time they do not have any relationship with
their parents' places of origin. Besides this, the economic mobility of the migrants
over a period of time creates envy among the native people especially among the
labourers, who could not harvest the benefits, and so a kind of antipathy develops
among the local labourers towards the migrants. The factionalism among the elites
in the villages also makes them vulnerable and they find it extremely difficult to
take a side especially when their patrons are involved in it. The leaders of other
factions always threaten them to evict from the villages. Since they do not have
any organized pressure groups to protect their interests, their opinions are not
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given due importance in the village affairs for the welfare of the common mass
and they are considered as the secondary citizens of the villages. However, despite
all these social discriminations against them, the migrants some how manage to
overcome the difficulties and live at their places of destination with the hope of a
better future in the years to come.
After summarizing the whole story in a concise manner, the questions that
do bear importance and need to be addressed in the context of the present study
are: i) how far migration plays an important role in the economic improvement of
the migrants? ii) why do the migrants prefer to possess land and go for cultivation
than any other occupation? and iii) what may be the reasons behind the landlords
patronizing the migrant labourers instead of their native counterparts? In order to
answer these questions from a sociological perspective, one needs to contextualize
the events, activities and their repercussions within a rural institutional framework
from the viewpoint of normative social order. Such an analysis is not only to fill
up the essentiality of one of the bypassed aspects of sociological research in the
area of green revolution but at the same time is also to inquire about the changing
nature of rural social structure as a result of large-scale rural to rural migration.
The present study, in this context, leads to find out the possible answers for the
above questions. Of course, being a micro level study and comprising of only 1 0
villages, findings from here cannot be considered as a generalization in the overall
context of larger India, but it certainly opens a door to find out such instances in
other parts of the country through further sociological investigations in order to
get a broader picture of it. Besides, although the study tries to make a comparison
between other castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in the peasantisation
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process, it has its own limitations and caste dimension of peasantisation needs to
be addressed and understood under the framework of patron-client relationship in
a larger perspective across generations. But despite all these limitations let me try
to find out the answers for the above addressed questions.
The first question itself partially bears an answer to it. Yes, migration does
play an important role in the economic improvement of the migrants because it
makes them enterprising, provides them the energy and enthusiasm to overcome
all the difficulties and more importantly enables them to overcome the temptation J} of status consciousness. It is found that migrants never let any income opportunity
to go out of their hands whenever it comes and in whatever way. On the other
hand, local labourers sometimes refuse to perform some works, which they feel
may denigrate their status in the village among their kith and kin. For example,
even after possessing land the migrants have not withdrawn their women from
hiring-out of their labour to others in agricultural operations, where as, such a case
can hardly be found among the native peasants. The migrants never mind when
their cash-low consumption becomes a laughing point in the village, where as, the
native peasants always feel the pressure to live a specific way of life in order to
maintain their status, no matter how much it costs them. For instance, to perform a
marriage ceremony the migrants do not need to throw a big party to the villagers,
where as, it is not the case with their native counterparts.
Now coming to answer the second question, the migrants always prefer to
possess land and go for cultivation than any other occupation because in the rural
society land apart from being a source of livelihood also happens to be a source of
identification. It's a symbol of status; the more one possess land, the greater is his
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status. In case of the migrants, it is of course a symbol of status but more than that
it provides them a security of stay at their places of destination or in other words a
permanency of residence. Once they possess land in a particular village, they feel
that they have already got a certificate of permanent stay there and it enables them
to resist the threat of eviction from their counterparts in the host society. Having
said this, however, it is not to deny that they never dare to go against the will of
the landlords in the villages who have their networks in the bureaucracy and play
a crucial role in the implementation of policies, at least at the block level. But it's
a different story and becomes clear in the answer to the third question.
The reasons behind the landlords patronizing the migrant labourers instead
ofthe natives are of two types: manifest and latent. Let's first look at the manifest
reasons. In the initial period of green revolution, there was a scarcity of labour,
which the local labour market could not provide. So in order to counter the local
labourers in terms of their demand for a hike in the wage rate, migrant labotlrers
were considered as a solution since they were ready to work even for fewer wages
than the prevailing rate. Besides in a later stage, migrants were preferred over the
natives in terms of tenancy, share-cropping and leasing-out of land because it is
almost impossible for a migrant to cheat or overpower a native landlord in paying
his share, where as, a native belonging to a numerically superior caste or having
the tacit support of the rival faction may dare to do so. However, the latent reason
behind the patronage seems to be "dominance without hegemony". The landlords
never want the migrants to move out of their villages or be perished out of sheer
suppression. They want them to grow but always being under their shadows. They
cannot do it with the natives because the natives have their roots in the soil of the
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villages and so they will never allow the landlords to dominate over them. Instead.,
given a chance they may challenge the landlords and go against them, which in
turn may pose a threat to their existing power in the village. On the other hand, the
migrants always need the support of the native landlords in order to secure their
permanent stay. So they can be dominated easily without any sort of resistance.
There is also the least possibility of migrants forming an interest group of their
own and going against the landlords because competition is there even among the
migrants in getting the patronage. So on the one hand by patronizing a handful of
migrants, the landlords are able to divert their attention .from class formation and
on the other, by supporting the migrant community in general and their clients in
particular they are able to counter the pressure of the local labourers. By allowing
the migrants to "strive to survive", they are able to suppress the will of the natives
to "survive to strive". And in the process they not only restore their positions in
the villages but also exercise their dominance over the common mass.
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