Peasant Communities and Agrarian Capitalism Kai Friese 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 Uttar 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 productive investments in agriculture- to the development of capitalism: English mechanisation, the introduction of new interference.. dissolved these small semi- Communal Capitalists implements and inputs. barbarian, semi-civilised communities by THE 'green revolution' of the 1960s may In terms of the property connection, I will blowing up their economic bases and has have transformed agricultural production in focus on the development of private alien­ produced the greatest and to speak the truth India, but the common contention that it the only, social revolution ever heard of in able property in land and free labour as indi­ 4 also ushered in a new mode of production, cators of capitalism. This will involve an Asia. Contemporary Marxist scholars do is problematic Despite the apprehensions of investigation of the changing character of not generally look to the colonial period for numerous scholars that a new class of land tenure and agricultural labour, from the the capitalist apocalypse, but assert the capitalist farmers is on the rise, the continui­ advent of British rule onward. ongoing dissolution of the agrarian ty in the economic and political character economic structures as a result of an Our understanding of the capitalist incipient capitalism in the post independence of agrarian India often seems more striking features of rural political economy will be than the change. This is particularly evident era. This is what Omvedt recently termed the tempered with an awareness of its enduringly 'traditional Marxist' viewpoint: in precisely those areas of the sub-continent peasant character. We will account for this that served as beach-heads for the 'green in terms that are also derived from Marx and —that the growth of capitalism in agriculture revolution'. easily integrated with our analysis of rural leads to the increased concentration of land This paper will examine the development in the hands of rural rich, now become a capitalism. Thus, the examination of pro­ 5 of forces and relations of production in the perty relations will be doubly important here class of capitalist farmers (kulaks). agriculture of such a region—the Upper Before we proceed to our reading of 1 by virtue of the emphasis I shall be placing Doab of Uttar Pradesh—from the colonial on the 'traditional' communal structures agrarian change in the Upper Doab, we period to the present day. Particular em­ that mark peasant capitalism to this day. In should briefly examine the central tenets of phasis will be placed here, on two districts— doing so, I will be tracing these structures the prevailing view of agricultural capitalism Muzaffarnagar, and Meerut—which are back to what Marx terms the 'communal in India. This perspective is well represented distinguished by high agricultural producti­ presuppositions of the original forms of pro­ in the work of Utsa Patnaik, a veteran of vity even by the standards of the region perty and production' (in which category he the debates on the mode of production in Indeed, the Jat peasants who constitute the includes communal landownership resting Indian agriculture. In a well known polemic largest 'agricultural caste' in these districts on the oriental commune, as well as small, with Paresh Chattopadhyay, Patnaik (and the region) have become virtually free landed property). Marx writes: employs the distinction between property synonymous with the 'kulaks' who enliven relations and production relations to argue the pages of many sober works on the rise (The) naturally arisen clan community, or if that capital never entered the sphere of of green revolutionary 'peasant capitalism' one will, pastoral society, is the first agricultural production in colonial times. What follows is intended as a critique of, presupposition—the communality of blood, She concedes the obvious fact that the as well as an alternative to, the analysis language, customs—for the appropriation of British introduced 'bourgeois' concepts of presented in such work. the objective conditions of their life's property but asserts that reproducing and objectifying activity (acti­ In keeping with much of the literature on the legal system and property relations agrarian capitalism, I will draw on a Marxist vity as herdsmen, hunters, tillers etc)... They relate naively to (the earth) as the property introduced by the British in India actually framework of analysis, with particular of the community, of the community pro­ hindered the development of capitalist rela­ regard to the theoretical formulation of ducing and reproducing itself in living labour. tions in agriculture given the context of capitalism as a mode of production. The 6 Each individual conducts himself only as a colonialism. latter has been defined as an articulated link, as a member of this community as the Patnaik emphasises the precariousness of the combination of three elements—labourer, proprietor or possessor. The real appropria­ 'external grafting' of 'bourgeois concepts of non-labourer, and means of production- tion through the labour process happens transferable private property and enforceable according to both a 'property connection' under these presuppositions, which are not contract' onto the indigenous pre-capitalist (the relations of production) and a 'real themselves the product of labour, but appear system. Instead, she and others of this school appropriation connection' (the forces of pro- 3 have concentrated on the post-colonial indi­ 2 as its natural or divine presuppositions. duction). These distinctions will be Following Marx's reasoning, I shall draw cators of a capitalist tendency, relying par­ employed throughout the paper in tracing attention to the persistent traces of these ticularly on evidence of increasing capital- the development of peasant capitalism in the communal presuppositions among the intensification; "the application of more Upper Doab. peasant castes of the Upper Doab, in terms constant capital (fertilisers, irrigation, high- With regard to real appropriation, par­ of continuities in their relation to 'their' yielding seeds, etc) and variable capital ticular emphasis will be placed upon the land. Landholding data will be important Oabour) to a given area".7 Patnaik does not development of a combination of genera­ in this regard. Despite the Marxian basis of find any evidence of this sort for the colonial lised commodity production and increasing the approach outlined above, the argument period, and states that "the five or six organic composition of capital as evidence here will contradict Marx's own analysis of decades before independence for which data of a capitalist trend. In concrete terms, this conditions in colonial India. He clearly are available show a remarkable picture of will mean examining data on the develop- perceived (or hoped for) a dissolution of stagnation".8 ment of cash crop production, as well as on India's agrarian communities as a prelude The argument that capitalist tendencies Economic and Political Weekly September 29, 1990 A-135 are a post-colonial phenomenon is useful to communal solidarities of peasant capitalists. from the cultivators. Thus the Asiatic pro­ Patnaik in overcoming one of the greatest At this point, I should confess that the perty form corresponds to "explicit exploita­ obstacles facing the Marxist model of peculiar character of Jat society—hovering tion on the basis of tribal communal capitalist development in the Indian context: between caste and tribe, as it were—does ownership".17 the lack of evidence of any concentration of render it particularly fruitful ground for the Conditions in pre-colonial India, and cer­ landownership. Patnaik explains this away investigation of communal solidarities. As tainly in the Upper Doab region do corres­ by arguing that it is early days yet, and she a result, w,hat follows may have rather more pond closely to the Asiatic model of pro invokes the examples of nineteenth century resonance for clan-based societies rather perty relations. In the Muslim era, the Upper England and Germany to argue that than the usual caste-based ones, but I hope Doab was increasingly settled by Jat peasani agrarian capitalism in its earlier stages does this will not be taken as a mark of ir communities who would come to be the not require ownership concentration.9 At relevance The Jats may be unusual, but they dominant agricultural caste of the area. the same time, she suggests that "there may are not unimportant. While these communities developed strong well be increasing concentration of non-land By virtue of our concern with the com­ ties to their farmland and maintained a assets (livestock, productive equipment), of munal structures of the peasantry we must stable tenurial system for its division and aggregate output and of employment".10 discuss the specific character of the pre redistribution, they generally remained Finally, we should note that despite the colonial property connection at some length. feudatories of the rulers of Delhi. The period perception of the capitalist tendency as a Many scholars, including Patnaik, have before the advent of Mughal rule, however, recent phenomenon, many writers who share regarded Mughal India as not only a pre was marked by instability and conflict reflec­ Patnaik's perspective have emphasised the capitalist, but more specifically a feudal ting the lack of any organic links between sudden emergence of 'kulaks' as a major social formation. Yet, however indigenised the Jat communities and their ephemeral political force.