Useful notes on Class Structure in Assam!
Since we are investigating the rural class structure, our main emphasis is on the agrarian class relations. Agriculture is the primary occupation of the villagers and it is associated with service, trade and wage labour. The mode of agricultural production is not yet mechanized as simple iron- blade plough, sickle and bullock are used by the villagers. Only one big landowner has recently purchased a tractor.
The villagers grow summer paddy extensively and approximately 840 kg of paddy is grown per acre. The winter paddy is cultivated by a very few peasants, although it provides better yield, i.e., approximately 1400 kg per acre. Cultivation of areca nut and betel leaf is done by every household. No other crop is cultivated.
The agrarian mode of production involves three classes of people, namely, landowner, sharecropper and agricultural labourer, and they are not exclusive ones. These classes are further divided into 14 sub-classes on the basis of economic diversification, and they bear considerable social significance. There are also five absentee landowners. Two families one Brahmin and one Kayastha depend upon priestly occupation. They do not have any land, and are, therefore, excluded from the agrarian structure (Table 1).The absentee landowners have an average of 206 acres of land. They belong to both the upper and the lower caste groups. The 129 (38.73%) resident landowners have land as their primary source of income and livelihood but some of them also have income from subsidiary sources. Service, trade, priesthood, etc. are such subsidiary occupations. The non- cultivating landowners are very few. It is mainly the supervisory landowners who have other sources of income. Their average landholding is much bigger than that of other landowners. However, families having a small amount of land also belong to this category.
The average landholding of the landowners is 6.07 acres per family. The largest landholding is found among the Ahoms. They have become supervisory landowners, particularly due to their high caste position, modern education and professional status.
Socially and culturally, they are diversified. This diversification explains some degree of incongruence between caste and class. Generally, they do not have interest in expanding agricultural production. The supervisory owners generally get their land cultivated by agricultural labourers. But today some of them do not hesitate to participate in agricultural operations.
The small landowners mainly depend upon family labour. Those who are well-off, employ agricultural labourers to cultivate their land. Thus, there is a tendency for labour employment. Hence, a clash of interests with the labour force remains a potent possibility.
Such a situation explains differentiation within a given class because the families belonging to this class do not have equal control over land and resources. A lack of a certain degree of class homogeneity does not permit emergence of a uniform pattern of class relations and class consciousness. The condition of the marginal landowners, living on bare subsistence, is not better than that of sharecroppers and agricultural labourers.
Generally, they are found to be competing with sharecroppers for getting sharecropping contract. Therefore, absence of sharp class differences as well as consequent overlapping of economic interests discourage emergence of class consciousness.
In general, the landowning class is not an exclusive one as both the upper and middle castes and tribes belonging to this class (see Table 2). Members of this class spend their surplus on personal consumption, and do not invest in productive purposes. The agricultural production is limited and localized. Very few of them are interested in profit-making investments in land, modern agricultural technology, etc. Thus, the agrarian economy in Assam largely remains ‘primitive’ and feudal.
As many as 21.14 per cent of the households primarily depend upon earnings from sharecropping and have 1.5 acres of land on an average (see Table 1). However, a few of them have secondary sources of income such as service and trade. These households are economically better off than others. They have a considerable amount of land and employ labourers when they do not get a contract or cannot accept a contract due to paucity of cattle or exorbitant land-rent.
This situation refers to differentiation within a given class. As land becomes scarce most of the households compete with one another to get a contract which ultimately keeps them divided. They are also distributed among various intermediate castes and tribes (see Table 2). Therefore, the sharecroppers do not constitute any concrete class.A sharecropper’s status was, in earlier times, similar to that of a wage labourer. However, as a result of the Adhiar Protection and Regulation Act of 1948 and the Assam Temporary Tenancy Acts of 1935 and 1971, their interests have been safeguarded to a certain extent. Today, though the landowners continue to harass their sharecroppers, yet the latter have been able to bring about some changes in the terms and conditions of the contracts to protect their interests.
A majority of the agricultural labourers (39.63%) are from among the lower castes and non-Assamese communities; a few are also from some intermediate castes and tribes (see Tables 1 and 2). Agricultural labourers are also a heterogeneous group due to diversities in their economic interests, as some of them accept sharecropping contracts and engage in petty trade.
A few of them are basically marginal cultivators. Their women a work as daily wage earners. The peasants from among this category are found competing among themselves as well as with the sharecroppers for sharecropping contracts.
The agricultural labourers remain oppressed as they depend upon the landowners for their livelihood. Almost all of them borrow paddy from the well-to-do cultivators during July to November when price of paddy becomes comparatively higher. Payment of a loan is made in paddy or in cash or by working on the lender’s land.
Interest is charged on such loans, although it may appear that no interest is accepted. About half of the earnings of the harvesting season is spent on clearing their previous loan. They remain bonded to the landowners as tenurial labourers since they earn less wages than the current market rates.
The system of paddy-lending and paying back loans by working on the lender’s land is contrary to the capitalist relations of production. The system helps in the continuation of the unfree labour in agriculture, a yardstick of feudal relations.