An Investigation into the Condition of Landless Agricultural Labourers in Coastal Karnataka
Feudal exploitation and oppression run roughshod over the people in the State of Karnataka. For centuries the poor and landless peasantry in this region have been exploited to the marrow and any attempt to resist was violently put down. Furthermore, the landed gentry through its paid ideologues created a strong feudal culture of servility to the master: submission to fate, pessimism, self-degradation and prostration to god and the ‘gentle-folk’, and this venom they injected into the people. Thus, with the stick in one hand and the ideology of feudal culture in the other the upper classes carried on their vicious rule. Even after the so-called ‘independence’ of 1947 the same state of affairs continued with only one difference—that more and more of the rural poor were driven to the condition of landless labourers. The situation went from bad to worse.
Under the present set-up the feudal class is deeply entrenched and it cannot stand any opposition to it. Such opposition is easily thwarted, very often with a brutal show of bloody violence. When once we really grasp the fact that the state apparatus belongs to these and other exploiting classes, then the bias shown by the state in their favour is easily understood. Hence the hostility of the police, courts, bureaucracy and the press to the labouring classes. It is also not in the least surprising that the Land Reforms Act has been systematically and quite effectively sabotaged by the landlords of Karnataka. All the parliamentary parties ranging from the right to the ‘true left’, viz., the RSS, Jan Sangh, the ‘progressives’ within the Janata Party, various factions of the Congress, the CPI, CPI(M), have all used and are using this question of land reforms merely as an election gimmick. The pattern of land ownership is perpetuated without letting so much as a scratch to fall upon it.
In the following we will go into the pattern of land ownership and areas of exploitation in a few villages in South Kanara district.
Landlord Class: It is at the apex of the feudal structure existing down the centuries. This class is able to reap huge revenues out of the labour of the agricultural labourers. The surplus thus seized is ploughed back into the fields owned by them. Of late there is a tendency to invest the surplus in oil mills, tile factories and so on rather than in investing to improve methods of cultivation and introduce modern technology. Schemes are drawn up for them by the banks and other financial institutions to manipulate the allocation of funds meant for the ordinary entrepreneurs.
The landlord class enters into professions like medicine, law, engineering and politics. This provides them abundant opportunities to stack up unaccounted money. Besides, by taking up such professions they are in a position to establish immediate rapport with their city counterparts and the representatives of the government machinery.
This class builds its economic clout by becoming the feudal protectors of the people. The age old ‘loyalty’ of the tenants and agricultural labourers is exploited to perpetuate their hold on the lands. Every land reform act is sidetracked by making the tenants swear by the holy plant ‘tulasi’ that they would not file their application before the land tribunal. Hence the slogan ‘land for the tiller’ remains merely on paper.
The tenants of these villages pay exorbitant rates of land rent and the landlords never give any receipt for the amount received. The Land Tribunal while implementing the Reforms Bill insist on documents which the peasants are not in a position to produce. Harassment by the landlords of tenants, poor peasants and landless workers assumes remarkable systematic repression. Land grabbing, eviction, abuse of women and physical violence ate the day-to-day living realities. The police, bought by the landlords, are used as a convenient handle to beat the people with.
Middle Peasants: Everyone in the family works in the fields and the income is just sufficient to maintain the family. Some members of the family have to take subsidiary employment like toddy-tapping or rolling beedies. Until recently these peasants did not enjoy any occupancy rights and were forced to give land rent up to Rs. 2000/- per acre whereas the law demands rent only up to Rs. 100/-. Some get basic education up to matriculation and many go out of the village in order to become bread winners for the family. There is a large migration of the middle peasants due to the lack of sufficient job opportunities.
Poor Peasants: The food procured is not sufficient even for the family. The produce lasts only for six months in a year. Rest of the year the poor peasants have to seek employment as agricultural labourers. In the event of sickness or other situations the poor peasants have to depend on loans, mainly from the landlords and the other money lenders who extort exorbitant rates of interest. The return is wrung out either in kind or by labour during cultivation times.
The children do not go beyond primary school level. Some never go to school at all. Among the Christian families some reach up to high school and then hide themselves in seminaries or convents where they won’t die of hunger.
As the poor peasants do not enjoy any occupancy rights, none of them are ‘beneficiaries’ of the government programme. Whereas the government allots crores of rupees for the ‘uplift’ of poor peasants, the latter because of the feudal structure do not have any access to any of these measures.
Another major hurdle facing the poor peasants is lack of water. They are at the mercy of the weather ‘gods.’ They do not have the financial capacity to store up food grains even for domestic consumption. The year round deprivation compels the peasants to send their children off to metropolitan cities like Mumbai in search of menial/domestic jobs.
This daily struggle for survival, instead of being made the basis for the revolutionary philosophy of change and for revolutionary action, is used by decadent feudal culture to inculcate a stoic renunciation of this-sidedness of life, and a philosophy that nothing will change.
Landless Labourers: The landless constitute the most exploited rural majority. They are literally enslaved to the landlords, and throughout their lives they are dependent on the dominant classes for survival. Their marriage deaths and festivals are conducted under the patronage of the landlords who liberally contribute on such occasions and lend their presence. Religious myths are also deftly used to further entangle them to the landlord class. As a result of all these manipulations, the landless peasantry finds ‘security’ of some sort in its de-humanized condition. The philosophy of escapism easily grips them and some among them slide into habits like drinking, gambling and cock-fights. In a study conducted on them this harrowing account is given:
“Generally they do not have dignity as human beings. They would tolerate their sons being beaten up by the landlord in their presence even for the slightest defiance; and on top of it take him home and beat him up for showing disrespect to the landlord. Poovapamullya, a young boy, was disowned by his parents before the landlord for submitting application before the land tribunal and for associating with the people’s movement. His parents encouraged the landlord to kill him and hang him in the forest. As a result the mother became one of the favourite keeps of the landlord...A section of the landless peasants is retained as agents and goondas for the landlords. Occasional crumbs are thrown to them and they are trained to defend the landlords. The ritual answer (if questioned) from them would be: “The landlord gives me food, shelter and security. Even if he comes and rapes my daughter I will not speak against it”...
This class of peasants live in dark, dingy and unventilated huts. Their health condition being what it is, they spend half their income on doctors. Purchase of clothes is done once a year. None of the landlords pays the minimum statutory wages. They demand ten to twelve hours of work per day from men and women. Once women get into the fields they cannot even get out of the boundary for nature’s calls. If a particular target of work is to be finished, they are dragged into the fields and made to plough till they gasp for breath.
Beedi Workers: The beedi industry in South Kanara district rests on the lakhs of families in the villages. The degree of exploitation is of gigantic proportions. The workers are without any union. The minimum statutory wages for rolling 1000 beedies is Rs. 5.20. But nowhere is this amount actually given. A powerful middleman system operates between the workers and the factory. The worker gets somewhere between Rs. 4.50 and Rs. 4.90. Being a cottage industry there are no regular working hours. They are given a target of 1000 beedies for getting the paltry sum and it takes them 10 to 12 hours per day. With rare exceptions none of the existing factories provides any bonus, maternity or other statutory benefits.
When Ymanunakki, a beedi worker, protested for proper minimum wages along with two other women workers, the middlemen granted the amount, but took to all possible harassment to throw them out of employment. Child labour is a natural corollary to this industry: children are introduced at the age of 7. In other skills, as one progresses in years, the efficiency increases. But in this industry, the reverse is true. The speed of a woman worker before marriage reaches up to 1000 beedies a day, but after a few child births, she drops down to 500 beedies per day.
The middleman exploitation extends to all areas of work. They give lesser amount of tobacco leaves and demand greater output. If the provident fund is 33 paise per head the middlemen collect up to 40 paise. No proper log books are maintained and the other benefits would filter down to the workers only after commissions and slicing away of considerable amounts. As a result of constant inhalation of tobacco 40% of the people become victims of TB. In spite of the fabulous profits the company and government reap out of the labour of these lakhs of men, women and children, no programme has been evolved for their healthcare. Apart from the direct health hazards, the beedi workers develop a lot of psychosomatic complications as a result of the monotony involved in the work. The attitude towards life tends to become negative and a kind of passivity is developed by them. Their creativity is continually sapped by this work, which is done in dark, dingy and unventilated shacks.
The following rough break-up of various inputs involved (for every thousand beedis produced by the workers) and the retail selling price realized (from the consumers) is a real eye-opener:
For thousand beedis:
Price collected: Rs. 22
Costs incurred:
Paid to government ST and other tax Rs. 2
To retailer Rs. 2
To middleman Rs. 2
Wages paid Rs. 4.90
Tobacco leaves and company profit Rs. 11
Total of costs incurred Rs. 22
The company cuts out a clean net profit of at least Rs. 4. The worker after all incidental expenses and exploitation gets only Rs. 3. For this he has to put in 10 to 12 hours of work per day plus the health and psychological hazards.
Toddy Tappers: About one-fourth of the population in South Kanara district belongs to the toddy tapping community. But as increasingly the Palmyra trees are being cut down for commercial purposes, a large-scale employment problem is being created. Since an average tapper requires 20 to 30 trees to eke out a livelihood, this problem of employment places a demand before the toddy tappers to learn new skills and begin life from the scratch. Even those who were regularly employed can hope for regular income for only six months in a year—from November till the beginning of May. In the remaining months alternate employment has to be found.
It is a very adverse work in nature when the tappers have to climb trees up to a hundred feet. They have to climb thrice a day, morning, noon and evening. Since this is a hazardous job, death and mutilation by way of accidents are not uncommon. Nevertheless, they do not enjoy any life security or insurance or any other provisions for compensation. In order to make the toddy sap drip down, the tapper has to work on it somewhere between a week and ten days. If he gets sick during this time or if he is disabled from tapping for a day, the whole process comes to a standstill. Besides, all the work done previously becomes futile. In that eventuality the tapper has to go in for a new cluster (‘Kombus’). During the toddy season all the tappers will be in full swing, and if one individual is thrown off gear, there will be nobody to replace him.
Toddy tapping is a contract labour where the owners of Palmyra trees enter into direct contract with the tappers. As per the agreement out of the three days’ yield one day’s yield is for the tapper and the rest for the owner. Until the worker actually produces today, there is no income—all that he has to do is to just keep up the ritual of climbing. However, one square meal for the whole day will be supplied by the owner.
Apart from this, the toddy shop owners take up the position of middlemen and intensify the exploitation. Quite often the shopkeeper has a large measure which is equivalent to one and a half litres. This is posed as one litre when purchasing from the tapper. The shopkeeper adds one and a half litres of water and makes a clean three litres, where he gets an outright margin of two extra litres. Over and above this the shopkeeper adds chemicals which are injurious to health. The ordinary toiling people who are the consumers are thus at the receiving end.
The shopkeeper purchases the toddy from the worker at the rate of 50 paise per litre and sells it for Re. 1 per litre. So under normal circumstances after all incidental expenditure on the part of the shopkeeper the latter collects a net profit of Rs. 1.50 per litre. An average tapper is capable of tapping up to 20 litres per day during season time. His income every three days is thus Rs. 10/- considering that he is not cheated in measurement. The owner living off the labour of the tapper makes Rs. 20 once in three days. The shopkeeper makes a profit of Rs. 30 per day per tapper.
The role of the government vis-à-vis the toddy tappers is dismal to say the least. By way of issuing license it gets Rs. 1000 per month in setting up a toddy shop. On an average the revenue for the government is Rs. 30 per day. This accumulates into crores of rupees every year. In spite of this the government has done nothing either by way of giving loans during monsoon times or creating alternate jobs or making any other benefit. There is no scheme whatsoever for the tappers.
The toddy shops are owned not by the toddy tappers but by businessmen or the landlords. In the rural set up making quick money by living on the hard labour of the tappers is the normal thing. The consumers of toddy are again drawn from the poorest sections. By a strange quirk of irony the tapper is forbidden from taking toddy home for consumption. Such attempts would be branded as selling illicit toddy and such complaints are lodged against the producers of toddy!
The tapper has to spend Rs. 5 per tree for getting licence from the government. Now in order to get a licence the tapper has to spend some packets of jaggery as well as some grease money over the informed middlemen between the illiterate tapper and the government. The government makes fantastic profit out of the lives of thousands of toddy tappers. The toddy tappers are totally unorganized and there is no way of coming out of the vicious circle of deprivation and exploitation year after year. The tapping of toddy requires bright sun and when this is not forthcoming all his labour ends up in a fiasco.
Many of the tappers are engaged in making jaggery too. Everyone in the family works four to five hours to get through this process. Making jaggery involves greater expense and more daily labour. Generally making jaggery requires the labour of three people. The same exploitation as in the toddy business is carried on into this field. One day’s produce will go to the labourer and two days’ labour to the owner.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
From the foregoing class analysis we can see the degree of exploitation and the methods used by the landed gentry in holding its sway over the peasantry. The poor and landless peasants, beedi workers and toddy tappers are left with no other alternative except to take to the path of armed struggle. They have to seize their destiny in their own hands by the force of arms and build organs of genuine people’s political power.
The land reforms have been of no help to the landless peasants who constitute 40% of the South Kanara population. They have been left out of all programmes of the various governments. They continue to be the most disorganized section and whenever they have tried to organize they have been met with absolute, brute force from the reactionary landlords and the fascist police. Also the ‘true left’ parties such as CPI and CPI(M) have not so much as moved their little finger for them. MLAs belonging to such parties and even ‘Kisan leaders’ have turned a deaf ear to their urgent needs, engrossed as they are in their historical role of protecting this man-eating system from the ‘left.’
Also, notwithstanding some sincere and heroic social work carried out by well-meaning individuals and organisations in support of people’s interests the feudal political power structure has remained intact. Consequently, the goal of a new society, a just society in which the peasant will live in human dignity has eluded them. And in the face of the white terror let loose by the landlords this social work has proved to be ineffectual – disorganisation and demoralization did set in.
But with the realization that power is not given, it is grabbed; justice is not offered, but is taken by the people the question of organisation to lead the people through armed struggle for seizing political power has been brought to the fore. The class conscious working class of Karnataka, inalienable detachment of the Indian proletariat, are flexing their muscles to meet the challenge. They are sure to rise to the occasion and it is inevitable that the New Democratic Revolution will be carried forward in South Kanara as elsewhere in the country.
(A Study Team, Dec. 1979, published in Massline Feb. 1, 1980)