Agrarian Question: A Short Reader

by R.V. Ramana Murthy (Editor)

The Agrarian Question and its resolution in the global context of capitalist development has a protracted scholarship developed over last one century and more. Capitalism in its last two centuries history has evolved through different historical stages since mercantile phase to industrial, national to imperialist and to post-imperialist post-colonial regimes. The agrarian question, understood as a process of transformation of agrarian sector towards capitalist modes, dispensing much of its small and petty producers, producing surplus for the industrial sector and supplying the industrial proletariat, with a clear resolution towards formation of industrial society remained as varied as it could be in the uneven development of capitalist system. The structural transformation that happed successfully for a privileged countries in the capitalist centre, proved to be a formidable challenge for a vast number of post-colonial countries in the capitalist periphery. The global and local condition and the political and economic conditions of the contemporary times makes it a considerable challenge for political economists to explain. This reader aims to provide an understanding on range of conceptual and empirical issues of the role of agrarian transformation for capitalist system, with a special focus on Indian agrarian transition. The reader consists of short summaries of fourteen selected works on agrarian question in the Indian and global context.

196 pages, Hardcover

Published May 4, 2020

Reviews

[Laya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, comprehensive introduction. Gave me enough knowledge to get further reading into the topic with these basics set.

[Formed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of essays on Marxist debates on Agriculture and its transitions in Europe and India. Gives an overview of the Indian mode of production debate (semi-feudal/ capitalist) and tries to unpack the role of capital in contemporary agricultural relations marked by continuing caste oppression, high rates of informality, the rise of small/marginal holdings/middle-caste farmers, the self- and family labour- exploitation of petty commodity production, increasing production for the market of non-food crops and increasing dependence on non-farm wages.

While classical transition theories speak about capitalism from below (driven by rich peasantry and tenant farmers as prime movers, eg. English) and above (driven by rich landlords, eg. Germany), Terence J. Byres' essay calls for a need to de-emphasize these models. Bernstein's essay on the Agrarian Question splits into questions of agrarian mobilization, agrarian transitions (capital intensification within agriculture and surplus transfer to industry), and agrarian labour.

Kalyan Sanyal talks about the great appetite of the Indian state for 'welfare governmentality', keeping alive excluded labour through minimal transfer of resources by the state, transforming issues of rights into issues of schemes and welfare programs for beneficiaries.

Amit Basole and Deepankar Basu pull up data -- small and marginal farmer households have gone up from 75% (1961) to 90% (2003), ownership of land continues to be unequal (10% landless workers, while some land has moved from the upper to the lower spectrum of landownership, the growth of households at the lower end has far outstripped this transfer of land), large landholding states with higher capitalist relations of production include AP, GJ, HR, KN, MP, MH, PJ, RJ, small land holding states include AS, BR, HP, JK, KL, OD, TN, UP and WB with landlessness most severe in MH, KN and HP, and least in JK, KL, PJ, RJ and WB.

S.R. Vidyasagar's essay looks into caste oppression in agrarian Srikakulam and the undoing of land redistribution policies on account of local caste realities dominated by upper and middle peasant castes and the institution of 'attached labour'.

Good primer.