Abstract
This is a truly impressive work on the exploitation of agricultural labourers in four villages in south Gujarat: Gandevigam and Chikhligam (Navsari district); Bardoligam (Surat district); and Atulgam (Valsad district). It provides a profound explanation of the circumstances that compel the landless in rural India to live in an acute state of poverty and destitution. Though the present monograph is based on the author’s fieldwork between 2004 and 2006 in the four above-mentioned villages, it is rooted in earlier field investigations carried out by him in the first three. His knowledge of Atulgam during the latter half of the last century is based on secondary material. Breman’s study of the four villages over a period of time unravels, in qualitative terms, the unfolding of capitalist development and its adverse impact on the material lives of landless labourers. The knowledge of poverty he has thus generated excels by far the rather soulless understanding of the phenomenon by economists on the basis of highly variable statistical data.
Breman’s research is driven by his great empathy with the tribulations of the rural underclass, which explains his commitment to the stand-point of the oppressed and his conscious rejection of value neutrality as a methodological tool in sociological research. This is evident from the following statement in the Preface to the new edition of the first mono-graph that emerged from his initial fieldwork in the area: Coming from a working class background myself, I knew right from the beginning that my study would concentrate on the segment at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and the rural economy (Beyond Patronage and Exploitation, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993, p.vi [emphasis added]).
The poverty of the rural underclass in the four field sites is a consequence of the interplay between two regimes—one underlying the local political economy of each village, and the other with that of the Indian state, especially since the era of liberalisation beginning in the early 1990s. While the politico-economic domain of each village differs, as shown briefly below, the predominant thrust of liberalisation is the unabashed promotion of the interests of the employers of labour, compelling the landless in all of them to earn a precarious living in agriculture or in other sectors. The overwhelming power of employers is an outcome of two principal factors: the ‘informalisation’ of labour because of the complete withdrawal of the state from regulating the conditions of employment; and the enormously unfavourable labour market as the supply of labour hugely exceeds the demand.
In both Gandevigam and Chikhligam, Anavil Brahmans are the dominant caste. The landowners in the former have prospered because the favourable ecology enables them to grow high profit yielding fruits (mango and chiku). Chikhligam, by contrast, is dependent on the mon-soon, and therefore the uncertainties of agriculture have to be met through non-agrarian employment. In both villages the actual tasks of cultivation are performed by Halpatis (a caste of tribal origin), whose relations with their Anavil employers was, in earlier times, subsumed under halipratha (hali system), a highly exploitative system of bonded labour. The demise of halipratha in the course of the first half of the last century did not mitigate the material deprivation of the Halpatis. Due to their large numbers, they earned a precarious livelihood as casual labourers wherever and whenever employment was available—in agriculture or outside it.
Bardoligam, dominated by Kanbi Patels, falls in a region marked by the extensive cultivation of sugarcane and the setting up of cooperative sugar factories. While the agro-industry has brought prosperity to the landowners, the agrarian underclass of cane cutters, comprising local Halpatis and large numbers of migrants from Khandesh in Maharashtra, remain crushed in poverty. As one khandeshi reported to an inquiry commission, ‘Even dogs are better off” (p. 306).
The fourth village, Atulgam, is located near a complex of companies manufacturing dyes, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The impact of industrialisation on the lives of the residents has, however, been lop-sided. Several Anavil Brahmans, the dominant caste, found employment in the factories among the skilled categories or in the administration. In stark contrast, the majority of the poorly endowed Halpatis constitute a huge mass of casual labourers, continually drifting around in search of employment in agriculture, in factories or in between these two extremes, such as in construction sites, brick kilns and quarries.
The significance of Breman’s work transcends the four field studies that constitute its core. It may be read as a devastating critique of the ‘neo-liberal’ regime underlying the Indian state that deliberately promotes a capitalist economic order and condemns workers at large to be exploited at will by their employers. It is undoubtedly one of the grim ironies of independent India that steps have not been taken to ameliorate the age-long deprivation of the landless masses. Thus, Breman notes that, as in most other Indian states, the land reform programme in Gujarat has ‘systematically excluded’ the landless (p. 89). To add insult to injury, even laws designed, in principle, to protect labourers and make them less vulnerable to exploitation by their employers are not taken seriously. This is a trend in which, as Breman pithily observes, ‘Gujarat has been resolutely at the forefront…since the end of the 1970s’ (p. 411). Some relevant examples are: the repealing of the Contract Workers Act, and the lack of purpose in implementing laws such as the Minimum Wages Act, the Interstate Migrant Workers Act and the Abolition of Bonded Labour Act.
The implicit message of Breman’s remarkable work is that the contemporary Indian state subjects labour to a regime that runs against certain core principles of the Constitution, including social justice and equality. Indeed, it is an uncaring regime driven by the collusion between the state and those who control capital and dominate the market. The book is a model of critical engagement with one of the major contradictions in Indian society.