The new office of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) was formally inaugurated on July 9, 2018, in the presence of two of the guiding forces of FAS, Dr M. S. Swaminathan and Shri S. Ramachandran Pillai.
The event was attended by all Trustees and Bangalore-based team members of FAS. Two senior academic collaborators of FAS, Professor Venkatesh Athreya and Professor T. Jayaraman were also present, along with two young research collaborators, T. P. Harshan and Himanshu Pathak. Two delegates of the Rosa Luxemberg Stiftung, a long-standing partner of the Foundation, also participated in the programme.
The programme began at 1130 hrs with M. S. Swaminathan planting a punnai (Calophyllum inophyllum) tree on the premises of the office. Shri Ramachandran Pillai cut the ribbon and was the first to enter the office, followed by the Trustees of the Foundation and Sandipan Baksi.
This was followed by an informal discussion on the work and future of FAS. The discussion began with Professor V. K. Ramachandran, Managing Trustee, FAS, expressing his gratitude to M. S. Swaminathan and S. Ramachandran Pillai for their contributions to FAS.
V. K. Ramachandran spoke about SRP’s contribution in setting the research agenda of FAS. This agenda includes studying the production process and relations of production in agriculture, the special conditions of work and life among socially deprived sections in rural India, the state of basic village amenities, and the access of rural people to the facilities of modern life.
VKR spoke of two organisational principles of the Foundation. The first principle was to meet a felt need in the field of agrarian research that was not part of the mandate of any other organisation. The second principle was that the research of the Foundation should not be set by donors. The University Grants Commission (UGC), the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) have been some noteworthy partners of FAS.
S. Ramachandran Pillai began his presentation with the following words:
I am an activist of the All India Kisan Sabha, and my job is to study the conditions of the peasants and the agricultural workers and to organise them for an overall change in the production relations in the society.
You are all scholars and experts. We need your help in understanding concrete problems and the changes that are occurring in our society.
Your past studies have helped us immensely in arriving at correct conclusions with respect to changes in the agrarian scenario, overall production relations, class, class differentiation, and so on.
SRP said that this help must continue.
SRP observed that the Kisan movement today faces a serious concern. Capitalist development is continuously taking place in the countryside. The intensification and expansion of capitalist development is occurring alongside the existence of archaic institutions and social formations. The expansion of capitalist development has led to the proletarianisation of the peasantry. Vast sections of the poor and middle peasantry have joined the ranks of manual workers, and along with the landless workers, constitute the rural poor.
A dominant class in the countryside that has gained immensely from the capitalist development forms the other end of the spectrum. This class now comprises big capitalist farmers, landlords, contractors, and big traders. The nexus among these sections gives rise to their dominance in panchayati raj institutions, cooperative societies, rural banks, and credit agencies, with their control extending to leadership positions in bourgeois-landlord political parties (mainly regional political parties).
Growing class differentiation in Indian villages is brought out in the studies carried out by FAS, and corroborated by the experiences of the Kisan Sabha. These help us arrive at the conclusion that development of capitalism in agriculture has led to a sharp division between the rural rich and their allies, on the one hand, and the bulk of the peasantry, on the other.
However, the struggles of the peasants and agricultural workers in the last two to three decades do not reflect this polarisation. Their protests have not been against the rural rich. Many struggles took place against exploitation by the landlord and for land redistribution before the advance of capitalism in the countryside. Now, the major struggles are for remunerative price, loan waiver, credit facilities, implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), reduction of electricity and diesel prices, expansion of irrigation and power facilities, compensation for land, and against land acquisition by the government and corporate houses. These are struggles mainly against government policies.
A simultaneous development has been the rapid commercialisation of the rural economy, which has led to a growing market for agricultural commodities and food grains. The grip of monopolistic trading concerns on agricultural produce and the influence of multi-national corporations (MNCs) with direct control over prices of agricultural commodities are increasingly becoming important concerns. The terms of trade are unequal as the peasant sells agricultural produce cheaper to buy dearer industrial inputs. Liberalisation has led to a drastic decline in investment in infrastructure and irrigation facilities. Formal sector credit has dried up, the extension system has weakened, and the State is facilitating land grab from the peasantry by corporate houses. The control of MNCs in agricultural production, seeds, dairy, and other sectors have grown.
These outcomes have, in turn, led to growing peasant unrest in the last few years. The peasantry have agitated and organised struggles. Major struggles have taken place in Rajasthan in which all sections came together to protest the severe water shortage in the region and the policies of the government. There were similar struggles in Maharashtra in the last year; this year, the walk from Nashik to Mumbai received much public attention. The issues on which all sections of the farming population have come together are better prices, access to credit, implementation of the FRA, loan waiver, and lowering the hike in electricity charges. It is striking that none of these struggles have been against the richer sections in the countryside.
The approach of the Kisan Sabha has always centred on building unity for the demands of the poorer sections in the villages and rallying other sections around these demands. It has projected simultaneously the demands of the peasantry and agricultural development. But agrarian unrest in the current times no longer seem to be organised around these demands. In such a situation, how should the Kisan Sabha rally the poorer sections and demarcate their demands from those of the richer sections? SRP said that this is now a serious practical problem for the Kisan Sabha as its struggles will not be powerful without rallying all the poorer sections.
Does this have any relation to changes in capitalist development? Earlier struggles between the poor and the rich occurred when landlordism of the old type was prevalent, and the Kisan Sabha was able to rally the poorer sections, who were its major fighters. These struggles now lack unity (for example, the struggles for abolition of landlordism and distribution of land) and the confidence that earlier characterised them is absent. In many places the Kisan Sabha and the Agricultural Workers’ Union (AWU) have become weak. It is the rich that have taken the lead in the struggles in the countryside. These richer sections are the beneficiaries of facilities such as government grants, subsidies, and institutional credit; they control access to water and agricultural implements. But the poorer sections and the peasantry participate under their leadership in their fight against the policies of the government.
SRP cited the example of rural credit to make his point. The poor and middle peasantry mainly take loans from the money lenders. In many places landlords constitute a substantial section of money lenders. These poorer sections do not speak out against the exploitation by private money lenders, but are active in raising the slogan of loan waivers against the government, which largely benefit the rich. Why does this happen?
How do we deal with issues such as loan waivers and remunerative prices? In what form can these demands become demands specific to the rural poor? Can we raise the slogan that “only poorer sections should receive such benefits?” These are some practical questions. Do such questions have any relation to the development of capitalism in rural India, and if so, what is the relation? This change, SRP indicated, should be the subject of future studies.
Moreover, what are the emerging changes among the poorer sections, the middle class, and the rich, in the face of growing capitalism in the countryside? Do we see any change in the class of agricultural workers, and the poor and middle peasantry, under advancing capitalism? What is the impact of such changes on the prospect of unity between workers and the peasantry?
No major struggle for wages is taking place in the countryside at present. With the introduction of machinery, the number of workdays has decreased, casual labour has increased, as has the number of rural workers migrating to other areas and cities, and the contract and piece-rate systems. Instead of an intensification of the contradiction between agricultural workers and the rich, conflicts among workers are growing. Expansion of the tenancy system, particularly in irrigated areas, also appears to be hindering the growth of unity. This is another serious practical problem that the Kisan Sabha faces while trying to organise workers and peasants.
SRP concluded his address with a mention of some other problems – including privatisation of health and education, the shrinking of formal credit, growing liquor consumption among men, which has a severe impact on the poor in the countryside and requires objective study. Caste oppression also continues to persist, though there are some major struggles against it.
SRP’s talk was followed by a brief interjection by V. K. Ramachandran, who discussed the recent work at FAS. The Foundation is in the process of setting its future research agenda and VKR expressed the hope that such interactions would help the process.
Venkatesh Athreya agreed with SRP’s assessment of the absence of major struggles against “the rural class enemy.” He suggested mobilising the rural poor around a “certain minimum living standard, including standard of wages, of education, and healthcare.” The issue of rising cost of living requires careful study to understand its impact on the rural poor. Another point for study is the weakening public distribution system (PDS) in recent years. The dismantling of the PDS has had a severe impact on the rural poor, their food and nutrition security, and should be a part of the agenda of the Kisan Sabha. The undermining of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) should be another important rallying point, as it benefits only rural workers but also poor and middle peasants.
Professor Athreya also suggested that FAS continue with its workshops for young scholars, as these help in building a network. He also proposed that FAS collaborate with universities in order to expand its resources.
T. Jayaraman spoke of the danger of portraying the problems of rural production, incomes, and livelihood as arising essentially from environmental and climatic conditions. In societies such as ours, which are yet to reap the benefits of modernity, such tendencies are akin to claiming “a return to God as the cause of all problems.” He spoke on the pressure within the research community to divert all conversations in this direction. All problems, including that of farmer suicides, are attributed to a change in climate and irrational claims made in support of it. There is consensus among experts that these claims are false, but the pressure is such that claims made in a leading scientific journal are not refuted by the scientific community. For instance, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America claimed that a one degree rise in annual average temperature would lead to the suicide of a few hundred people in rural India. This was not refuted by any climate change expert, despite the absurdity of the statement. The claims were refuted in a press note circulated by T. Jayaraman, Kamal Murari, and Madhura Swaminathan. Professor Jayaraman stated that the confidence to make counter-claims was based on the research carried out at FAS, particularly the Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI) and the detailed knowledge of agricultural production it has generated, along with knowledge of the debate on climate change.
Expressing his agreement, Venkatesh Athreya pointed out that despite all its problems, agriculture has not regressed in absolute terms, even during the neo-liberal era. The productive forces in agriculture have been growing, though at a relatively slow pace.
Madhura Swaminathan briefly talked about the need for FAS to be more active in the public media and quickly respond to topical issues.
In conclusion, V. K. Ramachandran emphasised the need to “keep ourselves abreast of these changes in class relations in the Indian countryside, particularly among the peasantry.” This will be instrumental in shaping the future research agenda of FAS.
Some photographs from the event are below:
