REVIEW of AGRICULTURE_Peasant Communities and Agrarian Capitalism

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Placing particular emphasis on Muzaffarnagar and Meerut districts, which are characterised by high agricultural

productivity, this examination of the development of forces and relations of production in agriculture in the Upper

Doab of Utta r Pradesh is intended as a critique of the view that the green revolution of 1960s introduced a new

mode of production. Analysing the developments with regard to the 'property connection' and the 'real appropria

tion connection' this paper, in tracing the emergence of peasant capitalism in the region, seeks to provide an alter-native to the prevailing view of agrarian capitalism.

I

C ommunal C ap i t a l i s t s

THE 'green revolution' of the 1960s may

have transformed agricultural production in

India, but the common contention that it

also ushered in a new mode of production,

is problemat ic Despite the apprehensions of

numerous scholars that a new class of capitalist farmers is on the rise, the continui

ty in the economic and political character

of agrarian India often seems more strikingthan the change. This is particularly evident

in precisely those areas of the sub-continentthat served as beach-heads for the 'greenrevolution'.

This paper wil l examine the development

of forces and relations of production in the

agriculture of such a region—the Upper

Doab1

of Uttar Pradesh—from the colonial

period to the present day. Particular em

phasis will be placed here, on two districts—

Muzaffarnagar, and Meerut—which are

distinguished by high agricultural producti

vity even by the standards of the region

Indeed, the Jat peasants who constitute thelargest 'agricultural caste' in these districts

(and the region) have become virtually

synonymous with the 'kulaks' who enliven

the pages of many sober works on the rise

of green revolutionary 'peasant capitalism'

What follows is intended as a critique of,

as well as an alternative to, the analysis

presented in such work.

In keeping with much of the literature on

agrarian capitalism, I wi ll draw on a Marxist

framework of analysis, with particular

regard to the theoretical formulation of

capitalism as a mode of production. The

latter has been defined as an articulatedcombination of three elements—labourer,

non-labourer, and means of production-

according to both a 'property connection'

(the relations of production) and a 'real

appropriation connection' (the forces of pro-

duction).2

These distinctions wi l l be

employed throughout the paper in tracing

the development of peasant capitalism in the

Upper Doab.

With regard to real appropriation, par

ticular emphasis wil l be placed upon the

development of a combination of genera

lised commodity production and increasing

organic composition of capital as evidence

of a capitalist trend. In concrete terms, this

wil l mean examining data on the develop-

ment of cash crop production, as well as on

productive investments in agriculture-

mechanisation, the introduction of newimplements and inputs.

In terms of the property connection, I will

focus on the development of private alien

able property in land and free labour as indi

cators of capitalism. This will involve an

investigation of the changing character of

land tenure and agricultural labour, from the

advent of British rule onward.

Our understanding of the capitalist

features of rural political economy will betempered with an awareness of its enduringly

peasant character. We will account for this

in terms that are also derived from Marx and

easily integrated with our analysis of rural

capitalism. Thus, the examination of pro

perty relations will be doubly important here

by virtue of the emphasis I shall be placing

on the 'traditional' communal structures

that mark peasant capitalism to this day. In

doing so, I will be tracing these structures

back to what Marx terms the 'communal

presuppositions of the original forms of pro

perty and production' (in which category he

includes communal landownership restingon the oriental commune, as well as small,

free landed property). Marx writes:

(The) naturally arisen clan community, or if one wi ll , pastoral society, is the firstpresupposition—the communality of blood,language, customs—for the appropriation of the objective conditions of their life'sreproducing and objectifying activity (activity as herdsmen, hunters, tillers etc)... Theyrelate naively to (the earth) as the propertyof the community, of the community producing and reproducing itself in living labour.Each individual conducts himself only as a

lin k, as a member of this community as theproprietor or possessor. The real appropriation through the labour process happensunder these presuppositions, which are notthemselves the product of labour, but appearas its natural or divine presuppositions.3

Following Marx's reasoning, I shall drawattention to the persistent traces of thesecommunal presuppositions among thepeasant castes of the Upper Doab, in termsof continuities in their relation to 'their'land. Landholding data will be importantin this regard. Despite the Marxian basis of the approach outlined above, the argumenthere wil l contradict Marx's own analysis of conditions in colonial India. He clearlyperceived (or hoped for) a dissolution of India's agrarian communities as a prelude

to the development of capitalism: Englishinterference.. . dissolved these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilised communities byblowing up their economic bases and hasproduced the greatest and to speak the truth

the only, social revolution ever heard of inAsia.

4Contemporary Marxist scholars do

not generally look to the colonial period forthe capitalist apocalypse, but assert theongoing dissolution of the agrarianeconomic structures as a result of an

incipient capitalism in the post independenceera. This is what Omvedt recently termed the

'traditional Marxist' viewpoint:

—that the growth of capitalism in agricultureleads to the increased concentration of landin the hands of rural rich, now become aclass of capitalist farmers (kulaks).

5

Before we proceed to our reading of

agrarian change in the Upper Doab, we

should briefly examine the central tenets of

the prevailing view of agricultural capitalism

in India. This perspective is well represented

in the work of Utsa Patnaik, a veteran of

the debates on the mode of production in

Indian agriculture. In a well known polemicwith Paresh Chattopadhyay, Patnaik

employs the distinction between property

relations and production relations to argue

that capital never entered the sphere of

agricultural production in colonial times.

She concedes the obvious fact that the

British introduced 'bourgeois' concepts of property but asserts that

the legal system and property relations

introduced by the British in India actually

hindered the development of capitalist rela

tions in agriculture given the context of

colonialism.6

Patnaik emphasises the precariousness of the'external grafting' of 'bourgeois concepts of

transferable private property and enforceable

contract' onto the indigenous pre-capitalist

system. Instead, she and others of this school

have concentrated on the post-colonial indi

cators of a capitalist tendency, relying par

ticularly on evidence of increasing capital-

intensification; "the application of more

constant capital (fertilisers, irrigation, high-

yielding seeds, etc) and variable capital

Oabour) to a given area".7

Patnaik does not

fin d any evidence of this sort for the colon ial

period, and states that "the five or six

decades before independence for which dataare available show a remarkable picture of

stagnation".8

The argument that capitalist tendencies

Economic and Pol iti cal Weekly September 29, 1990 A-135

Peasant Communities and Agrarian CapitalismKai Friese



are a post-colonial phenomenon is useful toPatnaik in overcoming one of the greatest

obstacles facing the Marxist model of capitalist development in the Indian context:the lack of evidence of any concentration of landownership. Patnaik explains this awayby arguing that it is early days yet, and sheinvokes the examples of nineteenth centuryEngland and Germany to argue thatagrarian capitalism in its earlier stages does

not require ownership concentration.

9

Atthe same time, she suggests that "there maywell be increasing concentration of non-land

assets (livestock, productive equipment), of aggregate output and of employment".

10

Finally, we should note that despite theperception of the capitalist tendency as a

recent phenomenon, many writers who sharePatnaik's perspective have emphasised thesudden emergence of 'kulaks' as a majorpolitical force. Thus, according to Byres:

Among the rich peasants, clearly class consolidation has proceeded apace and has beenhastened by the availability of the 'new

technology! They are more and more a classof capitalist farmers. Class for itself actionhas been pursued with relentless skill withrespect to both subordinate rural classes andto the urban bourgeoisie (and urban

proletariat).11

It is widely argued that kulaks manipulatetheir economically subordinate brethrenthrough p rimo rdia l tics. We fin d Terry Byresspeaking of rich peasant ideologues whomanage to hold sway over the smallerpeasantry as well.

12A R Desai

13describes

the same phenomenon, as does Bardhan.14

In fact, many scholars who remain outsidethe neo-Marxist perspective of the peasant-capitalist school share this vision of the newclass's invidious political 'skill'. Andre

Beteille, for example, describes the 'ambidextrous' political style of rich middle castefarmers:

Sociologically the most distinctive feature of the progressive farmers is that they combineownership of land and capital with skills inmanipulating both traditional and moderninstitutions.

15

The academic enthusiasm for caste or'primordial' loyalties has not however beenmatched with any worthwhile analysis of the

reasons for the continued vitality of such

bonds.16

The analysis here will diverge from thereceived view of Indian peasant capitalismin all three respects discussed above. First of all, I shall trace the origins of agrariancapitalism in Muzaffarnagar and the UpperDoab to the late nineteenth century. Thereby,1 will also dispense with Patnaik's explanations of the absence of ownership concentration. By the same token, I will presentpeasant-communal structures as an integraland enduring element of peasant capitalism.As we have just noted, most attempts atexplaining the persistence of these structures

have consigned them to the role of a primordial residue, and/or merely that of an instrument of class domination. It seems to me,at least as important, to account for the

communal solidarities of peasant capitalists.At this point, I should confess that thepeculiar character of Jat society—hoveringbetween caste and tribe, as it were—does

render it particularly fruitful ground for theinvestigation of communal solidarities. Asa result, w,hat follows may have rather moreresonance for clan-based societies ratherthan the usual caste-based ones, but I hopethis will not be taken as a mark of ir

relevance The Jats may be unusual, but theyare not unimportant.

By virtue of our concern with the communal structures of the peasantry we mustdiscuss the specific character of the precolonial property connection at some length.Many scholars, including Patnaik, have

regarded Mughal India as not only a precapitalist, but more specifically a feudalsocial formation. Yet, however indigenisedit may be, the notion of feudalism presumesthe hegemony of a feudal class, and detractsfrom an understanding of the roots of peasant-capitalism. The idea of an 'Indianfeudalism' weakened, but nonethelesspreserved by colonial rule is of courseappealing to those scholars who wish to lendan air of immediacy to 'green revolutionary'

peasant capitalism by depicting kulaks assudden (post-colonial) champions over anarena long dominated by zamindars.

However, the paradigm of feudalism is aninappropriate basis for an understanding of the persistence of these communal presuppositions in rural India. We may,however, find an alternative in Marx's ownwritings on the Asiatic mode of production.

Marx himself saw that feudalism couldnot account for the distinctive features of Indian social formations and sought todelineate a mode of production that was not

derived from the European model for thispurpose. The resultant Asiatic mode of production is undoubtedly problematic in manyrespects, but one of its virtues lies in themodel of property relations that it offers.The Asiatic mode is crucially distinguishedfrom feudalism by the absence in the formerof private property in land. Marx was unsurewhether all land belonged to the communityor to the 'despot' who ruled over it and didnot take a definitive stand on the issue What

was certain, however, was that the Asiatic

nobility who extracted the surplus-produceof the land, were not private proprietors, andunlike their European counterparts did notenjoy hereditary rights to this surplus.

The ambiguous monarchical/communalAsiatic form of property corresponds bothlogically and hi storically to the earliest formsof class society. It is the product of atransition that leaves the property relationsessentially unchanged, in that private ownership of land does not develop. Unlike the

primitive communal society, however, the'Asiatic' society is based on the exploitationof the direct producers by a parasitic class

of non-producers. The state acts in the nameof the community and hence as the ownerof the land, so that representatives of thestate are able to collect taxes/ground rent

from the cultivators. Thus the Asiatic property form corresponds to "explicit exploitation on the basis of tribal communalownership".

17

Conditions in pre-colonial India, and certainly in the Upper Doab region do correspond closely to the Asiatic model of property relations. In the Muslim era, the UpperDoab was increasingly settled by Jat peasanicommunities who would come to be the

dominant agricultural caste of the area.While these communities developed strongties to their farmland and maintained astable tenurial system for its division andredistribution, they generally remainedfeudatories of the rulers of Delhi. The periodbefore the advent of Mughal rule, however,was marked by instabi lity and conflict reflecting the lack of any organic links betweenthe Jat communities and their ephemeralMuslim rulers. Nonetheless, this period expresses a very 'Asiatic' communal/despotic

tension. In a study of a Jat peasant clan of the Upper Doab Pradhan

18finds that this

peasant community expanded its territoryduring the 14th century by capturing villagesheld by Muslim castes and expelling theiroccupants. While such acts affirmed thecommunal basis of landed property as wellas defiance of the despotic state (in this casethe Delhi Sultanate), the proprietorial claimsof the latter could not be evaded indefinetety.

Once Mughal rule established itself, rela

tions between the central authority and thevillage communities were regularised andmany village councils of the Upper Doabreceived charters recognising their authorityin village affairs and entrusting them withthe collection of revenue. It is sometimes

argued that even this system of revenuecollection was likely to produce a class of exploiters from within the peasant community, as the responsibility for realising therevenue would finally fall to the village head

man or muqaddam who could use thisposition to enhance his personal wealth andproperty. This was not generally the case inthe Upper Doab. Here the prototypical Jatcommunity had a strong segmentary structure with several distinct kinship groups(known as thoks) co-existing as equal partners. The equitable representation of thoks

with in the village council or khap panchayal

and the fact of inter-thok rivalry served asan effective barrier to the aspirations of any

ambitious headman (known as chaudhun

among the Jats). The latter's position wasin any case based on election rather thanhereditary principles. Finally, the elaboratebhaiachara system of land tenure ensured anequitable distribution of land among themembers of a thok and proscribed thealienation of land outside a lineage group.

None of this is to deny the existence of the elite of revenue collecting intermediarieswho were so prominent in Mughal society.I do however dispute their importance as a

feudal class. Local lords or zamindars werenot, as we have seen, the norm among theegalitarian peasant communities of thisregion. Meanwhile, the higher echelons of

A-136 Economic and Pol iti cal Weekly September 29, 1990



jagirdars and mansabdars were subject toperiodic transfers and reappointments,preventing them from establishing feudalproprietary rights over any particulararea.

19

Finally, we must deal with the inter-caste jajmani relations which are often referredto as yet another element of Indian feudalism. Although zamindars and jagirdars mayoften have exploited the labour of workers

bonded to them through jajmani ties it isimportant to bear in mind that this exploitativ e relation was rooted in communalrather than feudal social relations. There wasabundant evidence of this in the UpperDoab, where peasant communities such asthose of the Jats were involved in a jajmani

relationship with members of lower castegroups, notably the Chamars (now knownas Jatavs) who would work as labourersexclusively on the fields of the particularthok to which they were bonded. They wouldbe renumerated by a customary share of theproduce of the jajman's fields. The servitudeof these castes to the peasant communitieshas been traced to the conquests of theScythian forbears of the Jats, and as suchis illustrative of Marx's analysis of the sub

ju ga ti on of one clan by another in the context of communal property relations.

The fundamental condition of propertyresting on the clan system (into which thecommunity originally resolves itself).- makesthe clan conquered by another clan property-less and throws it among the inorganic conditions of the conquerors reproduction, towhich the conquering community relates asits own. Slavery and serfdom are thus onlyfurther developments of the forms of pro

perty resting on the clan system. Theynecessarily modify all the latter's forms.

20

European scholars of the nineteenth century

seem to have been well aware of the strong

communal structures of the Upper Doabpeasantry, and certainly of the Jats. Thus

for Karl Marx, the Jats recalled 'the type of the ancient German' whose communalforms feature prominently in his discussionof pre-capitalist social formations. Similarly,Baden Powell would write that;

We find the Jat village settlements to beamong the most strongly constituted, oftenthere is a considerable clan feeling, and not

infrequently much pride of descent fromsome noted ancestor to be found amongthem; and there is always a co-sharing or

jo in t claim to the whole village area.21

Having examined at some length, thecommunal characteristics of agrarian societyas the British first encountered it ip theUpper Doab, let us now investigate theimpact of colonial rule in the region. Wemay begin by considering the significanceof the introduct ion of the notion of alienableprivate property in land. This has alreadybeen mentioned as a necessary condition for

the capitalist transformation of the 'property

connection

1

, and it is interesting to findnineteenth century authorities such as

W Crooke stressing the importance of theBritish achievement in bringing this about

and anticipating its dire consequences for the'communal system'. In his words:

Our system of administration is framed tovindicate the rights of the individual to protection for himself and his property, and thegrowth of private rights is inconsistent wi ththe theory of the communal organisation...Communal life thus tends to become sordidand unkindly: everyman's hand is against hisbrother; ancestral feuds are actively fostered,

and once a stranger forces his way into thecommunity by purchase of a share, he spendshis time devising schemes whereby he mayabsorb more of the estate.

Crooke seem to anticipate a process of 'primitive accumulation' just as Marx did.His perspective is mirrored in the work of at least one modern scholar—Alavi—whobelieves that the colonial period saw 'theseparation of the producer from the meansof production, land!

22However, an in

vestigation of colonial relations of production in the Upper Doab does not supportsuch assertions. Rather, we find a convolutedprocess, in which cultivators are initiallyfaced with expropriation but ultimatelyemerge on the road to a regime of peasantproprietorship, the 'communal presuppositions* of their agriculture intact.

The notion of alienable private propertyin land came to the Upper Doab as part of the panoply of colonial laws, in the earlynineteenth century. This was the periodduring which 'India was made to pay for itsown conquest' (as Alavi puts it), and landrevenue was extracted from the peasantrywith an unprecedented rapaciousness. Thecombination of the new alienability of landand the unrelenting revenue demands forced

many of the Upper Doab's co-parcenarycommunities to sell their proprietary rightsand farm their ancestral fields as tenants.At this point, elements of the rural elite wereable to profit from the dire straits of thepeasantry and established a number of vastestates, notably that of the Jat raja of Kuchesar. Thus, the evidence of the pre-mutiny years seems congruent with Crookedopinions. Yet, the peasant communities,while under pressure, had by no means beendestroyed, and they retained a capacity forresistance. Their discontent soon foundexpression in the mutiny of 1857 during

which the Jat peasants of Muzaffarnagarrose in large numbers against the British.The post-mutiny years saw a sharp rise in

the fortunes of peasant cultivators, and acorresponding decline in the importance of the rural elite. The British had evidentlydrawn some lessons from the revolt, and theexcesses of revenue collection became a thingof the past. Relieved of this burden, andencouraged by developments in the forces of product ion which we wi ll presently examine,peasant communities steadily strengthenedtheir hand in the landholding structure of the Upper Doab. This process can be seenat work among both peasant proprietors and

tenants of the region.

With regard to peasant proprietorship wefind numerous instances of peasants acting

as a communi ty to expand their patrimony.Ian Stone cites an instructive case from asettlement report of 1874 regarding the saleof an estate on the Ganges bank of Meerut:

a large number of jats from scattered villages,in no less than three pergunnahs on theJumna side of their district, clubbed theirresources, bought the village, and sent fortha colony to inhabit and cultivate it. 2 3

Not surprisingly, such modern manifesta

tions of communal appropriation sometimescarried elements of older style of collectiveaction. Thus, in another instance of villagepurchase by the Jats of Meerut:

the purchase was effected not only throughclear proposals but also by force, arson, andeven murder. Manipulations were practised.The patwari (village accountant) was bribedto change names of the owners in revenueregisters.24

Such 'manipulations' do not alter the factthat more purely commercial transactionswere increasingly the norm. At any rate, theinstances cited illustrate the persistence of

the peasant's communal presuppositions ina most crucial activity—the acquisition of the means of production.

Having observed how the peasantry extended their propr ietary holdings, we shouldalso note that they were able to extend theircontrol over rented land in a manner thatincreasingly approximated proprietorship.The British had in fact created categories of protected 'occupancy' and 'sub-proprietary'terants in the pre-mutiny years. It wasduring the latter half of the nineteenthcentury, however, that the protection afforded to tenants became significant in bothscope and scale. As colonial administrators

brought their tenancy laws into force theyseverely curtailed landlords' rights toincrease rents, and guaranteed a substantialportion of tenants an almost unassailableand heritable security of tenure. Indeed, asone scholar recounts it, colonial legislationpaved the way to the land reforms whichultimately disposed of the landlords. Theprocess began with

The North Western Provinces Act XII of , 1881 which prevented landlords from

purchasing tenant's rights of occupancy,while Act XIV of 1886 permitted accrual of occupancy rights even when a tenant moved

from one plot to another. In the same yearof 1887, the Oudh Rent Act X X I I fixed rentfor every seven years. There followed insuccession the North Western ProvincesTenancy Act of 190) (similar in content tothe Oudh Rent Act) and the Agra Rent Actof 1926, culminating ultimately in the UPTenancy Act of 1939 which provided thebackground of zamindari abolition in thepost-independence period.

25

Apart from the legal protection that tenantsenjoyed, their communal solidarity oftenposed further impediments to a landlord'scontrol. Stone cites the cases of the Gujarcommunities in tehsil Budhana and the Rajput tenants of Khatauli (both in Muzaffarnagar), the former withstanding the attemptsof their new landlords to raise prevailing

Economic and Poli tica l Weekly September 29, 1990 A-137



rents while the latter "restricted competitionfor village lands by the effective expedientof not allowing tenants of other villages tocultivate there".26 Similarly, on the Skinnerestate in Eulandshahr the proprietors shrank from raising rents to anything near 'marketvalue' because, "for historcial reasons, thetenants are too powerful for them".

27Small

wonder that even on the great Kuchesarestate a settlement official finds: "The

occupancy tenant... commonly refers to hisoccupancy land as 'hamari1

[ours]."28

Thegrowing strength of the occupancy tenant'sposition was some indication that thesecultivators too would one day be proprietors.

Much like the colonial era, the post-colonial period opens with an apparentlydramtic change in tenurial relations thatnonetheless reinforces the existing structureof cultivating control. Although oftendescribed as a land reform, the ZamindariAbolition Act of 1951 redistributed statutoryrights in land but not the land itself. Thereport of the UP Zamindari Abo lit ion Committee had expressed long-term hopes of reaping the benefits of large-scale farmingthrough collectivisation, but while thisremained on the agenda of the left wing of the Congress for some years, it had littleprospect of realisation. Instead, we find anessential stability in the landholding structure before and after the enaction of thezamindari reforms.

While the Zamindari Abolition Act didnot immediately invest former tenants withproprietary rights in land (making themrather hereditary tenants of the state) it didprovide the opportunity to purchase theserights (known as bhumidari) from the state

for a nominal fee. In UP as a whole,peasants were slow to avail themselves of thisopportunity. In the Upper Doab, andMeerut division in particular, by contrast,peasant proprietorship soon became theorder of the day, with as much as 60.5 percent of the cultivable land in Meerut divisionand 71.08 per cent of that in Meerut districtitself coming under bhumidari tenure byI960.

29It is interesting to note the role of

traditional institutions of peasant com-munities in encouraging this tendency. Wefind a clear instance in the work of Pradhan,who provides an account of a meeting held

in November 1949 of the panchayat of khapP Baliyan (in Muzaffarnagar), comprising all the agricultural castes to discussthe implications of the Zaminda ri Abol iti onAct and its effects on the farmers:

A resolution was passed by the panchayatcalling upon the fanners of the khap area topay the money required by the governmentin order to get proprietary rights in theagricultural land which they hitherto tilledas tenants of the landlords.

31

Pradhan adds that the meeting was'singularly successful', that most farmerspaid the 10 per cent of the value of their land

to acquire property rights, and that thissuccess was largely due to the ability of thepanchayat leaders "to remove suspicion andfear from the minds of the farmers".

32

While the spread of bhumidari tenures, reaffirmed, in Marx's terms "the relation of the working subject to the land (as proprietor)" the above instance emphasises therole of the community 'whose property theindividual himself is up to a certain point'

33

in fostering this reaffirmation.

Nor would the peasant character of thelandholding structure be disturbed in subsequent years. We may see from the case of Muzaffarnagar that there was hardly anychange in this respect during the decade1951-61 (see Table 1), the years in which the

zamindari reforms were instituted. Similarly,a comparison of landholding figures from1948, 1971, and 1981 does not reveal anytendency towards concentration of landownership (see graph).

Having examined the character of landedproperty we should proceed to the secondaspect of the property connection thaiconcerns us: the position of labour. Here,as with landed property, colonial legislationeased the introduction of capitalist relationsof production. British law had no place forthe servitude of jajmani relations, and if thecolonial administrators did not go out of

their way to end this system, it had at leastbecome possible fo r the low castes to break these ties. This they did, with some force.One administrator reporting on a tour of Muzaffarnagar and Sharanpur districtsstated that by the 1870s the Chamars hadalmost entirely emerged from (their former)state of serfdom and were able "to selecttheir own masters either in their own villageor elsewhere".

34Similarly, another official

reported from Meerut in 1882 that in manyvillages Chamars "utterly refused to dobegan" and "demand a full wage for a day'swork",

35This new found assertiveness did

not spring from new laws alone. In fact, theChamars were also the beneficiaries of agricultural development in the Upper Doabin the late nineteenth century (which we wil l

presently examine) and the demand forlabour that this had produced.

However, the advent of wage labour in theUpper Doab did not presage an end to theself-cultivation among the peasant castes.Despite their use of Chamar labour the Jatswere famed for their own skill and energyas cultivators. Jat women worked in thefields (uncharacteristically for a proprietarycaste) and the local saying "the Jat child hasa plough handle for a plaything" remainsin currency. The level of family labour in thisregion remained high in the post-indepen

dence period, as attested by Farm Management survey data.

36

Having examined developments withregard to the "property connection", we maynow proceed to the "real appropriation connection" and changes in the forces of production. Foremost among these must be thesubstantial system of canal irrigation constructed by the British. The British had infact begun work on a number of large canalsin this region as early as the 1820s, and theseprojects were themselves developments of anearlier Mughal irr igat ion system. But the fullimpact of the Ganges canal system would

not be felt until the late 1800s. Canal irrigation enhanced agricultural production in anumber of ways: new lands were brought

A-138 Economic and Pol iti cal Weekly September 29, 1990



under cultivation, the dofasli or double cropped area expanded, and last but not least,new crops, notably sugarcane, were introduced. Thus we find that following theopening of the Ganges canal in easternMuzaffarnagar the cultivated area increasedfrom 2,21,400 acres to 2,64,000 acres in the31 years between 1841 and 1872.

37By

another calculation, the proport ion of irr igable cultivated land in the district increasedfrom 18 per cent to 60 per cent, or by 233per cent and the proportion double croppedfrom 4 per cent to 23 per cent, or by 475 percent between the periods 1827-40 and1897-1921.

38

This prodigious increase in cultivated andirrigated area was accompanied by the adoption of new cropping patterns and newcrops, notably sugarcane. The latter hadbeen of limited importance in the regionprior to the canals, but irrigation had"almost halved the laborious field preparations designed to retain maximum moisture"and facilitated the adoption of higheryielding varieties of cane. As Stone notes,

"there were numerous villages which couldboast 20-35 per cent of their area under cane,reflecting that the canal had truly revolutionised sugar production there". The areaunder cane in Muzaffarnagar as a whole,was of course lower, but also on the rise.

Alongside the new crops and croppingpatterns now employed we find also thedevelopment and application of new implements and machinery in culti vati on. Tocite Stone once more:

The local economy...underwent a qualitativechange as specialised services emerged inresponse to new demands and opportunities.

Agencies for the hire and sale of sugar millswere scattered all over Muzaffarnagar; indeedsome of the 'more pushing traders' took toManufactu ring them on their own account'.A Khatauli carpenter had even applied fora patent for an improved sugar mill, apparently 'receiving his inspiration from someof the thriving sugar planters in theneighbourhood'. The demand of pettyoperators for simple agricultural machineryled to the establishment of fifteen flourishingfactories in Meerut producing carts of various sizes in the years before 1908; whiletheir commerical requirements accounted forthe remarkably 'large number of small towns'

Muzaffarnagar contained.39

The new agricultural dynamism of the

Upper Doab was reflected in higher yields.In every crop from the staple wheat to pulseswe find substantial increases in produc tivi tyduring the late nineteenth century.40 Theimproved yields combined with colonialtenancy regulations and, no doubt, favourable prices, considerably enhanced theMuzaffarnagar peasant's earnings (seeTable 2). Such evidence demonstrates thatin this region, capital was not absent from

the sphere of production. Conditions in theUpper Doab are entirely contrary to UtsaPatnaik's assessment of the colonialsituation:

...there was simply no incentive for the ruralclasses with investible funds to put these intoagriculture itself, into improving methods of cultivation and raising productivity.

41

The nineteenth century Muzaffarnagarpeasant had investible funds, invested in newequipment, machinery and techniques, andcertainly succeeded in raising productivity.

Admittedly, the available data on wheatyields in the Upper Doab reveals a longperiod of stagnation stretching from the1920s to the 1940s (see Table 3). However thislull is not a peculiarity of the pre-colonialperiod. After all, the green revolution yearsof the 1960s were also followed by l ul l in productivity during the 1970s

42(see Table 4).

This phenomenon brings our attention tothe close association between revolutions inproductivity and agricultural investment bythe state. We have already noted the importance of state-funded canal irrigation intransforming the agriculture of the UpperDoab.

43Similarly, later increases in

product ivity do correspond to periods whengovernment policies favoured the agri

cultural sector. The second phase of yieldgrowth coincides with the green revolutionwhen the state introduced and subsidisedinputs such as high yielding varieties (HYVs)of wheat and fertilisers to the farmers of wellirrigated regions such as the Upper Doab.It is hardly surprising that the state had animportant role to play in facilitating thedevelopment of produ ction as onl y the statehas the resources to invest in large-scaleinfrastructural projects such as the Gangescanal, or for that matter rural electrifica tion,which has certainly played a role in the mostrecent spurt in productivity. Similarly,

through its policy decisions on prices andforeign investment, the Indian state has

regulated the supply of productivity enhancing inputs such as HYVs and fertiliser.

Meanwhile, the rapidity with which agricultural ists realised the pot ential of the newtechnologies stands as proof of their entrepreneurial drive. We have seen evidence of the peasantry's own role in developing theforces of production during the nineteenthcentury, and this has continued to be animportant factor in the development of

agricultural produc tion du ring the twentiethcentury. Evidence from Meerut indicates

that farmers of the Upper Doab continuedto develop their product ivity du ring the finaldecades of colonial rule in the twentiethcentury.

44The post-colonial era has also

been marked by continued growth in productive investment in agriculture both beforeand after the green revolution. Data forMuzaffarnagar shows that fertiliser consumption has increased considerably (seelables 5,6,7), as has irrigated area (see footnote 48) and that the level of tractorisationis high.

4^ In thi s respect, we may agree wit h

Patnaik that "all the information we havepoints to the fact that such capitalistaccumulation as is taking place in Indiainvolves precisely capital intensification".

46

Contrary to Patnaik however, we cannotsupport the argument that there is anincreasing concentration of non-land assetsor aggregate output.47 Certainly if we con-

Economic and Pol iti cal Weekly September 29, 1990 A-139



sider the trend in irrigation we find if anything a process of extension rather thanconcentration of this signal productiveasset.

48In the light of our examination of

peasant capitalism we are in a position tooffer an alternative to the analysis of 'pr imo rdi al' peasant politics of Byres et al,which we discussed at the start of this paper.

Firstly, we can offer a materialist explanation of the continued vibrance of communal

bonds among the peasantry: Despite theadvent of private property, we have seeninstances of the communal appropriation of land even in the late nineteenth century.Although this has not been a feature of property relations in the post-colonial era, wehave found that the structure of peasant proprietorship has remained undisturbed bycapitalist concentration. Thus, followingMarx's analysis of the communal presuppositions of the original forms of property, we see that landed property has retained a form (small free landed property)that continues to presuppose the "individualdefined as a member of a clan or community(whose property the indiv idua l himself is upto a certain point)*'.

49Secondly, as we

found in our examination of the real appropri ation connection, the state continuesto play a crucial role in facilitating thedevelopment of agricultural production. Itis therefore quite understandable that thepeasantry utilise their communal politicalstructures to pressurise the government, forthe resources and policies their agriculturerequires.

Political developments in the Upper Doabbear out this analysis. In the post-colonialperiod, the communal character of agrarian

society in the region continued to find expression, both in the indigenous politicalstructures of the peasantry, and the new institutions of Indian electoral democracy.Very shortly after independence, in 1950, thefirst formal meeting of the sarv khap

50of

the Upper Doab peasant castes in nearly ahundred years was held in the village of Shoron, Muzaffarnagar distric t, one of thetwo seats of the Jat khap Baliyan. Theleaders and representatives of 18 Jat khaps

and those of other castes and communitiesattended, and all told, over 60,000 personsassembled in Shoron over a period of three

days. The chaudhuri of the Kalaslain khapof Gujars was elected chairman of themeeting. This meeting re-established thepractice of holding sarv khaps at intervalsof approximately five years, and they havecome to play a significant role in the poli ticalmobilisation of the Upper Doab peasantry(the Jats in particular). The second sarv

khap in 1956, was marked by the attemptof a group representing a reactionaryreligious party (the Hindu Mahasabha), togain support for one of its candidates forthe state legislative assembly. White theattempt was unsuccessful, Pradhan notes

that the sarv khap councilis sufficiently influential to substantiallyaffect, by its attitudes towards the candidates,the outcome of elections for either the state

assembly or the national parliament.Candidates try to enlist the support of leadersof the maximal lineages and clans; andelected candidates take care not to antagonisethem or alienate their goodwill.

31

When the thi rd sarv khap was held in 1963(in Baraut, Meerut di strict) leaders of all themajor political parties except the communists were in attendance. Yet, even as thepolitical clout of the peasant castes was thus

being made known to parties and politicians,the council leaders were not about to throwin their lot with any particular party programme. Rather, as Pradhan points out, theywere seeking to present the sarv khap as asupra-party organisation.

With regard to agrarian politics in theregion, much has been made of the apparenttrend towards modern, class-based partypolit ics in the wake of the green revolution .Thus, Francine Frankel, for example, pointsto the cognitive impact of the new technology on the 'backward' or 'agricultural'castes:

The even-handedness of the scientificmethod, the observable fact that the high-yielding varieties, fertiliser, and water worksas well on the small plot of the low-castepeasant farmer as on the large holding of theBrahmin landlord—encourages the notionthat all cultivators can legitimately claim anequal share in the new prosperity.

52

With the additional impact of the materialbenefits of the new technology, she surmises

one political consequence is erosion of leader-centred multi-caste (class) politicalfactions built by upper caste landlords withthe support of dependent peasant groups.Over time, vertical patterns of peasant

mobilisation progressively gives way tohorizontal alignments of categorical (lowcaste-class) groups organised around common economic interests.

53

There are a number of problems involved inapplying Frankel's reasoning to developments in the Upper Doab (the argumentscited above were made in reference to UPas a whole). Such arguments seem excessivein their emphasis on 'traditional' landlord/ peasant, upper caste/lower caste, patron/ client ties, obscuring the equally traditionalcommunal political structures of the peasantry, the strength and resilience of which I

have been attempting to illustrate in thispaper. The numerous instances cited of theacquisition and appropriation of land bypeasant communities, during the colonialera are illustrative of the latter's capacity topursue their economic interests independentof and even in conflict with landlord/uppercaste groups. Certainly, even in the UpperDoab, zamindari elements had some earlyadvantages in terms of their linkages withthe state. But the autonomous politicalcapabilities of the peasantry clearly pre-datethe green revolution. We have already seen,in the example of the sarv khaps, thatpolitical parties had grasped the significance

of these peasant bodies early on. An evenmore telling instance is that of the positionof the Jats in Meerut's district board, wherethey had been strongly represented since the

1920s. In his study of this local governmentbody, Jha notes that leadership of the Congress Party in the district, although initiallyin the hands of a Tyagi zamindar family,had, soon passed to the Jats, among whoma factional 'family feud' for local dominancebetween one Vijay Pal Singh and CharanSingh of the Daiya khap had been resolvedin the letter's favour, as early as 1952.

54

Charan Singh is by any account a pivotal

figure in the agrarian politic s of western UPand serves as an example of the significanceof leader-centred multi-caste coalit ions thatare organic to the peasantry.

It is evident that Charan Singh alwaysretained and in the final analysis relied uponthe 'primordial' support of his khap55

andthis was complemented by his strongadvocacy of the economic interests of the

A-140 Economi c and Poli tica l Weekly September 29, 1990



'viable' cultivators (i e, self-sufficient peasant

households, or by extension those holding

more than five acres of land) of UP.56

Charan Singh was a consistent champion of

an agenda of agrarian demands, which com

prised of higher procurement prices for

foodgrains, lower agricultural taxes, and

cheaper inputs. Similarly, he actively voiced

what he regarded as a pro-peasant perspec

tive on agricultural development, arguing

against any suggestion of collective or cooperative farming and asserting that the

most viable and productive agricultural

system for India would be "an economy of

small farms operated by animal or manual

power" and that "an increase in the size of

farm does not lead to greater production per

acre".57

The emergence of the Charan Singh-led

BKD (Bharatiya Kranti Dal) party as a force

to be reckoned with in the UP legislative

assembly elections of 1969 and it s successorBLD (Bhartiya Lok Dal) party's perfor

mance in the elections of 1974 do indicate

an electoral expression of economic interests

by the peasantry58 Yet these developmentscannot be seen to stand as markers of a shift

away from traditio nal p oliti cal structures on

the part of the peasantry of the Upper Doab.

In October 1977 while Charan Singh was

one of the leading figures in the new Janata

coalition government a much publicised sarv

khap was held in the village of Khanjawala

in the union territory of Delhi. The assembly

was occasioned by the opposition of the

village's Jat peasants to the distribution by

the state of the village's "common" grazing

land to landless dalit (low caste) families.

The issue clearly touched a nerve among the

"cultivating castes" of the region, thousandsof whom came to the sarv khap, many

among them from western UP.59

The

peasant assembly produced a list of

demands including: (1) The provision/

preservation of pasture land in every village.

(2) An end to caste-based job reservation forstate employees. (3) A reduction in irriga

tion rates to pre-1975 levels. (4) A preserva

tion of the price relation between agri

cultural produce and agricultural inputs such

as fertiliser, seeds and pesticides at 1970levels. (5) The redistribution of land held in

excess of the official ceiling to marginal

cultivators. (6) An upward revision of stateprocurement prices for agricultural produce.

(7) A ban on the acquisition of cultivable

land by the state.60

The fact that such economistic demands

were being presented in such a 'traditional'

setting provoked some scepticism in scholar

ly circles. As one writer commented in the

pages of a respected Indian journal:

Originally, sarv khap means a meeting of

the all-clan council which controls a par

ticular area. But here caste and communal

solidarity was being expressed for secular

ends.61

In fact, communal solidarity was being expressed for communal ends, and the sarv

khap was very much in keeping with tradi

tion. The communal structures of the

peasantry are rooted in their material con-ditions, and particularly (as Marx realisedand we have demonstrated) in their relationto landed property. In this respect we couldscarcely hope for a more appropriate rallying call for a sarv khap than the defence of common land. Nonetheless, many academicobservers of the Khanjawala agitation insisted on seeing it as a product of greenrevolutionary capitalism and the manipulati on of primor dial loyalties by a kulak elite.As one writer put it:

for the kulaks who would like to pressurisethe government for cheaper inputs foragriculture, while getting higher prices fortheir produce; it is more easy and convenientto mobilise under a caste rubric because theneconomic differences and class antagonismcan be conveniently overridden for theirpolitical gains.

62

Following this tired logic, we would dowell to wonder just how long the wi ly kulak could continue to hold sway over his innocent caste brethren. After all, as ourKhanjawala correspondent ominously con

cludes: "presently the dalits happen to be thevictims, but are we sure the victims wil l notchange?"

63In fact, the 1980s have been

marked by a series of large and protractedprotests in Muzaffarnagar and Meerutdistricts at which the peasants have submitted to government officials a list of demandsalmost identical to those presented atKhanjawala in 1977. Moreover, this protestmovement too, was galvanised by a sarvkhap, held in 1987 in the village of Sisauli,and has been led by Mahendra Singh Tikait,chaudhuri of the Muzaffarnagar Jat khapof Baliyan ever since. A newsmagazine

report gives us some idea of the communalcharacter of this agitation.Significantly, the farmers' agitation hasgathered momentum only after MahendraSingh stepped into the picture on January 14this year—the day when chowdhries (heads)of 18 Jat clans representing some 40 lakh Jatsin the eight western districts of Uttar Pradeshand some areas of Haryana met... Jatfarmers... turned Sisauli into a fortress. A24-hour patrol was mounted by the farmersarmed with lathis and spears, who ran aparallel administration for almost a week.The sight of policemen was greeted bv theblowing of 'ransighas' (war bugles).

6*

Such an event evokes impressions of rebellions of another era—for exampleWilliam Crooke's assesment of therecalcitrant peasants of the Upper Doab inpre-Mughal times:

If the peasant community or the local chief-tain under whose protection they lived couldkeep their ragged militia in tolerable efficiency, they might hope for a time to bafflethe (revenue) collector altogether, but sooneror later, the deficiency was realised in a fierceraid, when the torch was applied to the thatched roofs, and the community extirpated fora time.

65

Yet the huts of Sisauli are unlikely to beraised by the provincial constabulary. Theadministration of Uttar Pradesh cannot afford to antagonise the Jats or disrupt their

agriculture.66

The fanners for their part arenot escaping rapacious revenue collectors,they are trying to improve their position in

India's market economy. For more than acentury now, their greatest asset has beentheir community.

References

Books and ArticlesAlavi, H: 'Peasant Classes and Primordial

Loyalties' in Journal of Peasant Studies,Vol 1, No 1, 1973.

Alavi, H et al: Capitalism and Colonial Production, Croom Helm 1982.

Althusscr, L and E Balibar: Reading Capital,Verso 1977.

Powell, Baden: The Indian Village Community,New Haven 1957.

Bardhan, P: Land Labour and Rural Poverty,Columbia 1984.

Berreman, G D: The Evolutionary Status of Caste in India' in J Mencher (ed), Social

Anthropology of the Peasant, Delhi 1983.Brass, P: Caste Faction and Party in Indian

Politics, Vols 1 and 2, Chanakya 1983.Byres, T J: 'The New Technology, Class For

mation and Class Action in the IndianCountryside' in Journal of Peasant StudiesVol 8, No 4, 1981.

—: 'Charan Singh (1902-87); An Assessment'in JPS, Vol 15, 1988.

Chatterjee, P: Agrarian Relations and Com-rnunalism in Bengal 1926-1935' in R Guha(ed), Subaltern Studies I, Delhi 1982.

—: 'More on Modes of Power and the Peasantry' in Guha (ed), Subaltern Studies II,Delhi 1983.

Chaturvedi and Shah: 'Fusion and Fission of Castes in Elections' in Economic and Political Weekly, October 30, 1970.

Crooke. W: The North Western Provinces of India , Oxford 1972.

Desai, A R: India's Path of Development, Delhi1984.

Franket, K: 'Problems of Correlating Economicand Electoral Variables' in Weiner and Field(eds), Studies in Electoral Politics in the

Indian States, Vol 3, The Impact of Modernisation 1977.

Ghosh, A: 'Caste Idiom for Class Conflict:Case of Khanjawala' in Economic and Political Weekly, February 3, 1979.

Govind, S: Regional Perspectives in Agricultural Development, Concept 1986.

Gupta, D: 'Country-Town Nexus and AgrarianMobilisation, BKU as an Instance' inEconomic and Political Weekly, December17, 1988.

Jha, S N: Leadership and Local Politics: AStudy of Meerut District, 1923-1973,1979.

Joshi, P C: 'Perspectives on Poverty and SocialChange' in Economic and Political Weekly,Annual Number, February 1979.

Marx, K: Capital, Vol 1, Penguin 1976. —iGrundhsse, 1973.Marx, K and F Engels: Selected Cor

respondence, Progress Publishers, 1975.Mukherji, A B: Cultural Geography of the Jats

of the Upper Doab, unpublished doctoral

thesis, Louisiana State University andAgricultural and Mechanical College, 1960.

Nadkarni , M V: 'Crisis of Increasing Costs inAgriculture' in EPW, Vol 23, No 39,

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September 24, 1988.Neale, W C: Economic Change in India, Yale,

1962.Omvedt, G: The 'New Peasant Movement' in

India' in Bulletin of Concerned AsianScholars Vol 20, No 2, 1988.

Omvedt, O and C Gala: 'Peasant Question isa Class Question', EPW, July 2, 1988.

Papola, T S et al: Studies in the Development of Uttar Pradesh, Giri Institute of Development Studies, 1979.

Pradhan, M C: The Political System of the Jatsof Northern India, Oxford, 1966.

Prakasa Rao, V L Set al: Development Strategy for an Agricultural Region: A Case Studyof Muzaffarnagar District UP, Institute of Development Studies, University of Mysore,1976.

Rudolph and Rudolph: In Pursuit of Lakshmi:The Political Economy of the Indian State,Orient Longman, 1987.

Saint, G R: Farm Size, Rescourcevse Effeciency

and Income Distribution, Allied, 1979.Sen, C: 'Commercialisation, Class Relations

and Agricultural Performance in UP' inK N Raj (ed), Essays on the Commercialisa

tion of Indian Agriculture, New Delhi,1984.

Shankar, K: Uttar Pradesh in Statistics, Ashish,1987.

Singh, A K: Pattern of Regional Development: A Comparative Study, Sterling, 1981.

Smelser (ed): Karl Marx on Social Change,1973.

Stokes, E: The Structure of Landholding inUttar Pradesh' in Indian Economic and Social History Review, April-June 1975.

—: The Peasant and the Raj, Cambridge, 1978.Stone, I: Canal Irrigation in British India,

Cambridge, 1984.Tokei, F: Essays on the Asiatic Mode of Pro-

duction, Budapest, 1979.Government Publications.Government of India: Census of India 1981: A

Portrait of Population, Government of theUnited Provinces of Agra and Oudk

—.Muzaffarnagar District Gazetteer, 1903,1926.

—: Meerut District Gazetteer, 1908.—: Department of Land Records: Season and

Crop Reports, various years.—: Report of the United Provinces Zamindari

Abolition Committee, Vol 1 and 2, 1948.Government of Uttar Pradesh.— Board of Revenue: Agricultural Census in

Uttar Pradesh, 1971.

—: Season and Crop Report, various years.—: Meerut District Gazetteer, 1965,—: Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board:

Annual Financial Statement, various years.Farm Management Survey Muzaffarnagar:

Combined Report.

Notes

1 Ganges-Jamuna interfluve between Sharan-pur and Mathura districts.

2 Bal ibar 1970, pp 212-16.3 Marx, 1973, p 472.4 New York Daily Tribune, June 1853.5 Omvedt, 1988, p 1391.

6 Patnaik, 1972, pp 204-05.7 Patnaik, 1979, p 415.8 Patnaik, 1972, p 209.

9 Patnaik, 1979, pp 411-12.10 Patnaik, 1979, p 415.11 Byres. 1961, P 443.12 Byres. 1981.13 After suggesting that a number of castes in

cluding the Jats, Ahirs, Kunbis andBhumihars, have acquired new strengthafter independence Desai notes that only *asmall section of each of these castes isbecoming prosperous while the rest aitbeing steadily pauperised'. Of the dominant

section of these castes, he writes: They aretaking over a number of functions like provision of credit, moneylcnding, tradingfrom rival castes, sharing their interestswhen necessary to fight elections to panchayats, in legislatures; to further their tradecommercial and agricultural interests; topress for increased recruitments of castemembers to the services and for cultural andeducational opportunities'. A R Desai 1984,pp 187-88.

14 Bardhan describes the other side of thesame coin: "Even when an individualpeasant does not find the terms of exchangewithin the existing stratification tolerable

and feels exploited, his sense of outrageusually takes on as social dimension onlywhen he perceives it to be shared by the kinship or ethnic group with which he easilyidentifies. His sense of exploitation can thusbe diffused by prospering, upwardly mobilemembers of his own caste, who sometimesoffer him patronage on kinship lines."Bardhan, 1984 p 186.

15 Cited in Joshi, 1979, p 365.16 Nothing at any rate that goes beyond

presumptions of some sort of 'false consciousness' mechanism—'as when high-castecapitalist landlords reinforce their economicexploita tion of Hari jan labourers by using

the latter's Harijan status to browbeat theminto a cowed and submissive labour force,thus making organisation that much moredifficult', Patnaik, 1987, p 5.

17 Tokei, 1979, p 27.18 Pradhan, 1966, pp 21-22.19 I have put a rather quick gloss over a com

plex issue which could occupy an entirepaper. It may be noted that in the last yearsof Mughal rule the feudal powers of

jagirdars were on the rise (as one mayobserve in the fascinating history of BegumSamru who inherited the estate of Budhanawest of Meerut. But the question whetherthis indicates a tendency towards a full

blown feudal mode of production in theregion is in any case rendered academic bythe onset of colonial rule.

20 Marx, Grundrisse, p 493, cited in Chatter- jee 1983, p 333,

21 Baden Powell, 1957, p 216.22 Alavi, 1982, p 64.

23 Stone, 1984, p 31024 Mukerji, I960, p 135. The reference is to

Gadana, a village purchased from bania'sand then expanded through acquisition of other villages' land. Kanungo records indicate that the bulk of the plots (82 per cent)were purchased between 1857 and 1908.

25 Bhaduri, 1981, p 313.

26 Stone, op cit, pp 308-09.27 Ibid, p 307. Countless examples could be

found. Crooke summed up the situation

best when he described the situation of abania landlord facing a community of jattenants: 'he might go to shear and perchance come away shorn'.

28 Ibid, p 119.

29 Singh and Misra. 1964 op 121, 122.30 Khap and denotes the area traditionally

controlled by a particular clan (khap) in thiscase the Jat clan of Baliyan.

31 Pradhan. 1966, p 186.32 Ibid, p 187.

33 Marx, 1973, p 495.34 W Irvine; cited in Stone, op cit, p 279.

35 Ibid, p 279.36 See I Rudolph and Rudolph 1987, p 486,

n 23.37 Stone, 1984, pp 110-11.38 W C Neale, 1962, p 143.39 Stone, 1984, p 302. He also mentions ad

vancements in animal husbandry and thedevelopment and spread of improvedploughs in Meerut and Muzaffarnagarpp 298-99.

40 W C Neale, (1962, p 144) cites the following figures for increase in yield between theperiods 1827-1840 and 1897-1921 inMuzaffarnagar—Rice: 70 per cent; Jowar;52 per cent; Bajra: 29 per cent; Gram: 76per cent; Wheat: 83 per cent.

41 Patnaik, 1972, p 205.42 'Not only the rate of increase in output of

several crops has declined after 1970-71, theactual output of foodgrains failed to registeran increase. This slackening in growth trendis more marked in west UP, where all majorcrops with the exception of rice show adecline after 1970-7F. A K Singh, 1981,p 121.

43 'Between 1820 and 1888, the North WesternProvinces received some 5,601 miles of channels and distributaries irrigating1,459,938 acres at a total cost of construction (excluding interest) of 4,338,384pounds', C Whitcombe cited in Sen, 1981,p 330.

44 Between 1901-40 the area under sugarcanein Meerut increased from 9 to 13 per centof the net cultivated area (nca) and double-cropping from 21 per cent to 28 per centof the nca. Stone 1984, p 289,

45 Dasgupta, (1977) notes that the level of tractorisation was high in this district, evenbefore the green revolution, pp 97-98.

46 Patnaik, 1979, p 415.47 I am aware of two studies that investigate

trends in the relationship between farm sizeand income in the Upper Doab. Saint'sregression analysis of data from two farmmanagement surveys in 1956 and 1969, findsa shift from an inverse relationship betweensize and income to a positive one, but notesthat the tendency is statistically insignificant(Saini 1979, p 138). Govind's 1975 fieldstudy, by contrast, reveals a strong inverserelationship. She also found a higher incidence of HYV and fertiliser use amongsmall farmers (Govind 1982, pp 164-66).

48 By 1982-83, 87.20 per cent of the net areasown in Muzaffarnagar and 93.36 per centof that in Meerut was irrigated. Shankar,1987, p 72.

49 Marx, 1973, p 49550 Assembly of representatives of all peasant

castes. Pradhan, 1986 notes that due to

A-142 Economic and Politica l Weekly September 29, 1990



British apprehensions such assemblies hadnot been held in the Upper Doab since therebellion of 1857.

51 Pradhan, 1966, p 233.52 Frankel, 1977, p 153.53 Frankel, 1977, p 153.54 S N Jha, 1979, pp 27, 52.55 The history of Bhagpat parliamentary con

stituency, in the territory of Singh's Daiyakhap is revealing. In 1962, the seat was contested by an independent Jat candidate,

who, allegedly with Singh's surreptitioussupport, won 27.22 per cent of the vote. In1967, the same candidate, now on the BKDticket, took 50.15 per cent of the vote, In1977, Charan Singh himself stood, and polled 63.47 per cent of the vote, repeating thisvictory in the face of the 'in di ra wave' of 1980 with 64.45 per cent of the vote. Finally,in the 1984 elections held in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination, CharanSingh held his constituency for the last timewith 53.72 per cent of the vote.

56 Brass (1983), describing a confrontationbetween Singh and his colleague in the UPcabinet over a proposed increase in irriga

tion rates, argues that the Jat politicianidentified himself here as a spokesman of three interests—rural as against urban interests, western region peasant as againsteastern region peasant interests andpeasants who took up bhumidari rightsagainst those who did not.

57 Charan Singh, cited in Brass op cit, vol I,p 313.

58 In both elections, the BKD/BLD had itsgreatest successes in the western districtswhere the impact of the green revolutionhad been heaviest. The party carried 31.35per cent of the electorate in the Upper Doabin 1969 (surpassing even the Congress in the

region) and 28.29 per cent in 1974. In 1974(Brass 1984, vol 2, p 146), the party's voteshares were strongly correlated with land-holding sizes between 5 and 125 acres in the'wheat districts—which in contrast to therice districts had been significantly affectedby the new technologies. (We may note thatfor Brass, the Upper Doab is the Quintessential region' of the 'wheat districts'. I bid,p84)

59 Times of India, August 28, 30,31, 1977.60 Cited in Swamy 1978. It is worth noting the

similarity between these demands and thepeasant agenda that Charan Singh hadalways championed. The demands would be

echoed in subsequent peasant demonstrations including the famous Kisan Rally inDelhi in December 1978, and more recently the agitations led by Mahendra SinghTikait, a leader of the Baliyan khap of Muzaffarnagar, between 1986-88.

61 A Ghosh, 1979.62 A Ghost 1979, p 185, Omvedt and

Patankar, 1978, express a similar perceptionof the events in Khanjawala.

63 Ibid, p 186.

64 India Today, April 30, 1987.65 Crooke, 1972, pp 298-99.66 Th e farmers of west UP know how impor

tant their agriculture is to the governmentof UP. Of the 20 lakh tons that the government of UP intends to purchase in 1988,about 6 lakh tons will come from Meerutdistrict alone: Gupta, 1988, p 2695.

Economic and Poli tica l Weekly September 29, 1990 A-143



A-144 Economic and Political Weekly September 29, 1990

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REVIEW of AGRICULTURE_Peasant Communities and Agrarian Capitalism