UNIT 11 CLASS, POWER AND INEQUALITY

Understanding Class and Inequality in India: 

Objectives

• Explain the Relevance and Meaning of Class
• Discuss the Relationship Between Class, Power, and Inequality
• Overview of Class Structure and Economic Inequality in India
  • Agrarian Context
  • Urban Context
• Spelling Out Shifts and Continuities in the Analysis of Class in India

Introduction

• India as a Caste Society: Commonly viewed through the lens of caste.
• Class as a Significant Axis: Important to understand divisions and inequalities in Indian society.

Understanding Class

• Definition:

  • Economic Stratification: Class is based on economic factors, unlike caste which is about ritual ordering.
  • Criteria for Class: Occupation, landownership, marketable yield, disposable income, and social capital.
  • Centrality of Money: Money or wealth is crucial in class stratification.

• Flexibility of Class:

  • Less Rigid than Caste: Unlike caste, which is hereditary, class status is based on wealth and can be achieved.

• Historical Context:

  • Traditional Occupational Status: Distinct from class, influenced by the jajmani system, which involved hereditary occupational roles and patron-client ties.
  • Erosion of Jajmani System: Due to constitutional provisions, land reforms, industrialization, education, monetization of economy, and modern transport.

Shifts in Class and Caste Dynamics

• New Forces: Modernization and socio-economic changes disrupting traditional social stratification.
  • Andre Beteille’s Work (1966): Example from Sripuram village showing the weakening of caste-based stratification.
  • Independence of Occupations: Individuals can choose occupations based on skills and education rather than caste.
• Continued Associations:
• Persistent Associations: Certain occupations still associated with specific castes.
• Lower Caste Occupations: Agricultural labor and sanitation work often occupied by lower castes.
• Higher Paying Occupations: More commonly associated with upper castes.

Agrarian Class Structure and Inequality: Historical Overview

1. Colonial Land Policy and Agrarian Inequality

• Impact of Colonial Policies:

  • P.C. Joshi (1967): Colonial agrarian policies reflected political interests rather than scientific understanding.
  • Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928): Failed to address key issues like landownership, tenancy, and revenue assessments.

• Colonial Land Settlement Systems:

  • Zamindari System:
    • Structure: Permanent settlements with zamindars, who acted as intermediaries between the state and cultivators.
    • Issues: High land revenue rates fixed; zamindars appropriated surplus income.
  • Ryotwari System:
    • Structure: Temporary settlements with individual peasants (ryots) with periodic revenue revisions.
    • Issues: Increased revenue rates pushed to the maximum limits.

• Landlordism and Exploitation:

  • Absentee Landlordism: Peasants paid high rents to numerous intermediaries and faced illegal exactions.
  • Bonded Labour: Extreme indebtedness to moneylenders and landlords led to bonded labour.
  • Agricultural Backwardness: Large landowners favored rent-seeking over modernization.

• Women's Economic Subordination:

  • Colonial Legacy: Strengthened patriarchy, transformed matrilineal succession to patrilineal.
  • Post-Independence: Women’s land/property rights remained limited despite the Hindu Succession Amendment Act of 2005.

2. Nationalist Response to Colonial Policies

• Early Nationalists:

  • Criticism: Rejected colonial land control and revenue systems.
  • Key Figures: Justice Ranade and R.C. Dutta criticized colonial neglect of traditional land relations.

• Later Nationalists:

  • Ambedkar’s Anti-Khoti Movement: Opposed colonial landlordism and the oppressive Khoti system.
  • Mahatma Gandhi’s Campaign:
    • Civil Disobedience (1930-40): Included no-tax and no-rent campaigns.
    • Remark: "Land and all property is his who will work it" (1930s) – Concept of "land to the tiller."
  • Economic Program (1931): Focused on peasantry rights and agrarian reforms.
  • Peasant Struggles: Militant anti-landlord movements emerged in the 1930s and 1940s.

Nationalist Approach to Agrarian Reform

• Relational Diagram: Nationalist Actions → Gandhi’s Campaign → Ambedkar’s Opposition → Agrarian Reforms.

• Colonial Impact: High taxation, absentee landlordism, and capitalist exploitation led to severe agrarian inequality.
• Nationalist Reforms: Early criticisms evolved into active campaigns for land reforms and peasant rights.

Post Independence: Agrarian Reforms and Class Structure

A. Agrarian Reforms: Provisions and Implications

After independence, the Congress government aimed to address rural economic inequalities through various land reforms, based on the recommendations of the J.C. Kumarappa-led Agrarian Reforms Committee. Key reforms included:

1. Zamindari Abolition Act (1950)

   • Abolished intermediary tenures between the state and the cultivator.
   • The 1951 First Amendment Act dropped the right to property from the list of fundamental rights, empowering the state to acquire land.
   • Declared bonded labor (begari) as a punishable offense.

2. Land Reforms Provisions

   • Legislation ensured land was given to actual tillers of the soil.
   • Prohibited subletting/leasing of land except by widows, minors, and disabled persons.
   • Protection from forcible eviction for sharecroppers and tenants.

3. Land Ceiling Act (1960s)

   • Set a maximum limit on land holdings to ensure equitable distribution.
   • Large landowners manipulated the system through fictitious land divisions and fraudulent transactions.

4. Collective Farming

   • Promoted for developing reclaimed wastelands and employing landless laborers.
   • Faced limited success as privileged classes used it to bypass reforms and gain government benefits.

Challenges and Failures of Reforms:

• Reforms often led to increased land concentration among large landowners.
• Fundamental principles, such as “land to the tiller,” were subverted through evictions, fraud, and manipulation.
• Capital-intensive farming and corporatization marginalized small and medium farmers, leading to unemployment.

Green Revolution (1960s)

• Introduced high-yielding variety seeds, modern machinery, and intensive farming techniques.
• Benefits were skewed toward wealthy farmers, increasing rural inequalities.
• Small landowners often rented out their land to large farmers, exacerbating economic disparities.

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B. Agrarian Class Structure and Class Relations

Agrarian social structures vary regionally, with different classes controlling land and its affairs. Prominent scholars like A.R. Desai and Daniel Thorner have outlined the following frameworks:

1. A.R. Desai’s Classification (1959)

• Identified four major classes:
  • Landowners: Own land and often lease it out.
  • Tenants: Work on rented land with varying rights.
  • Laborers: Work on others' fields for wages.
  • Non-agriculturists: Involved in non-farming rural activities.

2. Daniel Thorner’s Classification (1956)

• Rejected Desai’s classification; argued that individuals often belong to multiple categories.

• Proposed a simpler framework based on income source, rights, and extent of fieldwork:

• Criteria for Classification:

  • Income Source: Rent, cultivation, or wages.
  • Rights: Ownership, tenancy, or sharecropping.
  • Fieldwork Extent: Absentee, partial, or full cultivators.

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Key Insights

• Post-independence reforms aimed to reduce agrarian inequalities but often failed due to manipulation by wealthy landowners.
• The Green Revolution intensified rural disparities, favoring larger, wealthier farmers.
• Understanding class structures helps reveal the persistent economic and social hierarchies in rural India.

Class Differences in Urban India

Class inequality is not limited to rural India; urban areas also exhibit significant class differentiation based on occupation, income, and wealth. Unlike agrarian classes, urban classes earn through non-agricultural employment.

Types of Social Classes in Urban India

1. Industrial Capitalist Class:

   • Origins: Evolved from the mercantile class during colonial rule.
   • Post-Independence Growth: Private ownership in agriculture, industry, and trade expanded.
   • Characteristics: Dominated by business houses like Tata and Birla; primary goal is profit-seeking and capital accumulation.
   • Influence: Significant impact on the state due to economic power.

2. White Collar Working Class:

   • Composition: Includes professionals like managers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and bureaucrats.
   • Nature of Work: Non-manual, skilled work; receive salaries for their services.
   • Economic Position: Members are often in the upper and middle income brackets.
   • Development: Emerged during British rule with industrial and bureaucratic expansion; grew rapidly post-independence with industrialization, urbanization, and globalization.
   • Internal Hierarchy: High-paid cadres at the top vs. low-paid workers; significant lifestyle differences exist within this class.

3. Small Entrepreneurs:

   • Composition: Petty businessmen, traders, shopkeepers.
   • Role: Link between producers and consumers, catering to the needs of urban populations.
   • Growth: Increased with the rise of urbanization and the influx of rural migrants setting up small-scale businesses.
   • Characteristics: Small-scale, home-based enterprises requiring minimal capital investment.

4. Working Class:

   • Composition: Manual and blue-collar workers in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs.
   • Income: Earn wages by selling their labor.
   • Origins: Emerged during British rule with the rise of industries, railways, and plantations.
   • Diversity: Includes organized and unorganized sector workers; unorganized workers often live on society’s margins with low wages and lack government support.
   • Post-Independence: Growth in volume but marked by continued marginalization of unorganized sector workers.

Challenges for Female Workforce in Urban India

• Upper and Middle-Class Women: Limited participation in the service sector and professions due to patriarchal norms.
• Poor Women: Engage in the modern industrial sector but face challenges like unequal wages and inadequate housing.
• Informal Sector Work: Many are employed as domestic workers or in home-based industries, reflecting continued economic vulnerability.

The Dominant Class Model: Inequality and Change

The post-independence period in India is marked by the dominance of three key classes, whose power stems from their occupation, land ownership, and wealth. These classes often form alliances with the state, influencing policies and benefiting from development initiatives, often at the expense of the masses.

Key Dominant Classes in India

1. Industrial Capitalists

   • Role: Own and control major industries; profit-driven.
   • Influence: Strong impact on state policies and economic decisions.

2. Agrarian Capitalists/Rich Farmers

   • Role: Own significant agricultural land; benefit from agrarian policies.
   • Influence: Influence rural economy and agricultural state policies.

3. Professional Class (Civil and Military Bureaucracy, White-Collar Workers)

   • Role: Includes bureaucrats, managers, and skilled professionals.
   • Influence: Control administrative functions and have a major say in policy implementation.

The Role of the State

• Economic Power: The state controls public sector undertakings and private sectors through licensing and credit allocation.
• Manipulation by Dominant Classes: These classes leverage state policies for their own gain, draining state resources and slowing economic growth.
• Impact: Persistent poverty, inequality, and uneven distribution of resources are tied to the influence of these dominant classes.

Passive Revolution

• Concept Origin: Introduced by Antonio Gramsci; refers to elite-driven socio-political reforms that benefit dominant classes and reinforce capitalism.
• Application in India: Used to describe how dominant classes manipulate state power for their benefit, sidelining the poor.

Shift in the Dominant Class Model: Globalization and Change

The 1990s marked a shift due to globalization and changes in state economic practices:

1. Deregulation and Economic Liberalization:

   • Licence Regime Weakening: Easier access to foreign capital and goods.
   • Opening of Sectors: Telecommunications, transport, and banking opened to private players.

2. Rise of Corporate Capitalists:

   • New Players: Traditional business houses now share space with MNCs (Multinational Corporations) and TNCs (Transnational Corporations).
   • State Competition: State governments compete for domestic and foreign investment, questioning the autonomy of the state.

3. Marginalization of Non-Corporate Capital:

   • Who Are They?: Includes peasantry and informal sector workers.
   • Challenges: Increased marginalization due to the state’s focus on capitalist growth.

4. Democratic Constraints:

   • Dangerous Classes: The marginalization of the lower classes creates a risk of these groups becoming "dangerous classes."
   • Government Response: To prevent unrest, the state devises policies to support marginalized groups with food, clothing, and employment.

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Key Insights:

• Continuity and Shift: The influence of dominant classes continues but is reshaped by globalization and economic liberalization.
• State Challenges: Balancing capitalist growth with the needs of marginalized populations remains a significant challenge for the state.
• Future of Passive Revolution: The future hinges on innovative policies to support marginalized groups under the conditions of democracy.