In the 1990s, the weaknesses of the Kerala development model, which we celebrated with great pride in the 1970s, began to emerge.
In the context of the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Land Reforms Amendment Bill in the Assembly, this article discusses the socio-ecological changes brought about by the land reform policy in Kerala and the need for a second land reform.
In the 1990s, the weaknesses of the Kerala development model, which we celebrated with great pride in the 1970s, began to emerge. Our pride was that we are far ahead of other states in terms of social development indicators. It was correct in the calculations. But due to the collapse of the socialist worlds including the Soviet Union and changes in lifestyles with the advent of globalization, there were some significant differences in Kerala life. Beyond that, until then the hidden or marginalized groups and their problems started entering the mainstream.
Women, from Dalit tribals to transgender people started realizing their true status. They realized that they are outside the mainstream and Kerala development. The left’s attempt was to solve the class problems of the mainstream. They thought that if that happens, the problems of marginalized people, women, tribals, Dalits etc. will be solved by itself. They started coming to struggles to establish their own rights. And when there were also environmental problems that had arisen at the global level, challenges that had not arisen before then arose against the concept of the Kerala development model. For traditional left-wing Marxist thinkers, these were all issues of undermining class struggle. Capitalist developmentalists were already admirers of global capital. One of the strongest challenges was the questions raised by Dalits and Adivasis about their rights to land.
What was interpreted as the foundation of the Kerala development model was the land reform revolution carried out by Kerala. By the early 1970s, the mainstream parties had declared that goal accomplished. It is no small matter that about 25 lakh tenants got permanent rights to the land they were cultivating on lease. Those who got land in this way later reached the highest positions in all sectors like education, health and business in Kerala. Land reform was not the bounty of any government. It was also the result of the agricultural struggles that had been going on for four or five decades along with the freedom struggle. But two or three decades later, the truth is that the land reform implemented here was a result of forgetting what the slogans raised by those who participated in the struggles were. Recognized by Kerala.Just check out ‘We will reap and the field will be. Decades after land reform was declared complete, one of the complaints heard was ‘no’ or ‘no man to harvest’. If you combine this with the old slogan, there will be some confusion. The bottom line is that the reapers did not get the land. We used to see those who work in the fields as farmers.
” When the government introduced the Land Reforms Act (Prohibition of Eviction Act) in 1957, Kerala was found to have 18 lakh acres of surplus land.It was announced that the land would be confiscated and distributed to the landless peasants (that’s how it was in the Communist Party documents at that time. Agricultural workers came later). A family was considered to have up to five acres of agricultural land. But by the time the Act was implemented in 1970, this surplus land had reduced to one-sixth to just three lakh acres. How this is not tested. A decade later, in 1979, the CH government, which ruled Kerala for just 29 days, passed an important law, the Wills Act. That law was that if anyone had any surplus land, they could give it all as a gift to anyone who needed it. With that, the remaining land was also vaporized. In fact, those who worked hard on the soil did not get even a piece of agricultural land. We saw it as a revolution when they were given accommodation. The total surplus land found by the government is only 90,000 acres. Only half of it was distributed. Much of it is uncultivable land. In the rest, colonies started from ten cents to five, three, two and three-quarter cents. A million houses and a life without even an jota of land. Those who didn’t get that lived on the road, the ditch and so on. (We also call these encroachers). The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all. Much of it is uncultivable land. In the rest, colonies started from ten cents to five, three, two and three-quarter cents. A million houses and a life without even an iota of land. Those who didn’t get that lived on the road, the ditch and so on. (We also call these encroachers). The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all. Much of it is uncultivable land. In the rest, colonies started from ten cents to five, three, two and three-quarter cents. A million houses and a life without even an iota of land. Those who didn’t get that lived on the road, the ditch and so on. (We also call these encroachers). The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all. Much of it is uncultivable land. In the rest, colonies started from ten cents to five, three, two and three-quarter cents. A million houses and a life without even an iota of land. Those who didn’t get that lived on the road, the ditch and so on. (We also call these encroachers). The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all. The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all. The mainstream parties are not even ready to discuss the issue of whether they have any right in the agricultural land. As far as they were concerned, land reform was over. All that is required now is to provide housing to all”
As a result of this, they called these people, who were previously called landless peasants by the communists, as agricultural workers. Their wages and other party issues. According to Marxist terminology, a landless peasant means one who owns the means of production (land, machinery, etc., in other words, capital). By making them agricultural laborers, they have no right to the means of production or the agricultural land.In Marxist terminology, a worker means one who has no rights to the means of production. In short, this name change was not a small slip but a deliberate fraud. Now they have no rights on earth. Then it may be asked whether the old declaration that surplus land will be seized and distributed to these people. All that was forgotten.
Is Second Land Reform Impossible?
Now what is the point of saying all this? It may be asked whether all the rest of the land is gone. The remaining land that was seen then is not there today. But it can be seen in another way. Back then there were exempted estates which limited the amount of land that an individual and firm could hold. Communists also accepted the capitalist theory that only large-scale estates were economically viable, so they were exempted from deregulation. (The fact that they had trade union interests then as now is another matter.) But what is the experience of today after five or six decades ? Most of the estates, including tea, are in dire straits today.
It is easy to understand if we take the case of rubber which is produced the most in Kerala. More than three-quarters of rubber is produced not on large plantations but on plots of two acres and less. Many large plantations were closed. The workers are not even able to pay their wages. The first starvation deaths in Kerala occurred in the 1980s among locked-out estate workers. No one thinks that any of these estates will remain as they were. Many are eyeing these lands in the new capital-friendly political era. It was Hosting That winhost GET STARTED at an amendment to the law was brought to allow (maximum of ten acres) for tourism projects. LDF opposed it then but later when they came to power they did not repeal that law and they are trying to transfer that land for many other purposes. An important ones rock mining. This is a get-rich-quick sector and can buy off all the political bureaucracy. At many places, officials are conniving to carry out mining on estate lands.
Actually all the estates in both native and foreign ownership are government land leases. The land can be acquired by the government if the lease period is over or the lease agreement is breached. If it is used for a purpose which is not itself nor an estate, then the exemption in land extent does not apply. In such an estate of thousands of acres in effect, land beyond 15 acres is surplus land. The real inheritors of the surplus land are the landless peasants or agricultural laborers of today.
The truth of Chengara struggle
By exposing this reality, the landless encroached on Harrison’s estate in Chengara and built huts. According to the slogan and position raised by the Communist Party itself, they have a right to that land. But because they were by no means ready to accept that, the starving workers were brought up and blockaded there by all parties on behalf of Harrison. One of the main demands raised by Laha Gopalan in the discussion with the Chengara protesters was that all the estates operating on leased land in Kerala should be measured. In most cases they hold much more land than what is on lease. A large part of the land in their hands is not cultivated. Workers are not even paid. The VS government accepted this demand in principle. But the next day, the joint unionists reacted strongly against this. They imposed a blockade by declaring that they would not allow any estate to be measured. The question of why the Unions objected to Harrison’s land survey is enough to understand their deception.
One of them is Cheruvalli Estate in Kottayam district. This estate belonged to Harrison. It is on leased land from the government. That contract has expired. But Harrison was unwilling to give it up and they tried to protect Harrison’s estates by forging several documents. An attempt was made to reclaim this land during the UDF government. To some extent, the court also accepted it. Adv.Susheela Bhatt, who was the special pleader in this case, was intervened to be transferred. But there was strong opposition from within the UDF. The decision was reversed. But when the Left came to power, they were swept away. The lawyer they appointed instead was the person who appeared in court for Harrison for a long time. Needless to say. The government lost miserably in all those cases. Harrison sold it to John’s priesthood. The government finds it a suitable location for an airport for Sabarimala. The government’s case in court is that Harrison did not sell the land properly. At that stage, the government is ready to acquire that land by paying the price. A government that buys its own land.
Land, caste and power
In India and Kerala in particular, authority over land was related to social status. In the Brahminical system, social status is determined by caste. Brahmins, temples and then the government called Pandaravaka had rights over the land in Kerala. Janmitha system was formed here as a part of this. The left wing advance in Kerala was also the result of the groups that emerged as part of the social revival gaining political capacity. But when the land reform came, the Dalits, who used to be called agricultural laborers before and still called the landless peasants who got only tenure, were basically Dalits who worked directly on the land. The political upper hand of those who were able to form a community through revival gained them rights over land through land reform. But the Dalits could not afford it. Their participation in the policy making of the political parties was not then and is not even nominal. The reality of this can be seen if we evaluate the changes brought about by land reform in the last five decades.
If we look at the ownership of agricultural land in today’s Kerala on the basis of caste, we can see that Dalits, who make up 10 percent of the population, own almost zero percent. It’s not just about farming. In a capitalist system capital is the most important thing. The main asset there is land. Why can’t the above ten percent Dalits prove their presence in any sector like education, health, trade, entertainment and media which has developed rapidly in Kerala during the last five decades? It is clear to us that the upper classes, who are not even one hundredth more than them. have the upper hand in these areas. How many educational and health institutions, Entertainment media houses have been taken over by them. The only reason for this is that they have considerable power on earth. Dalit communities do not have that. Let me give one example. If the government grants a private school or college to a community organization, it first needs land to establish it. And money to spend. If you have land, you can make money even if you take a loan. But if there is no land it will not happen. The picture given by the study of the number of Dalits in the Gulf migration, which played a decisive role in Kerala’s economic growth, is pitiful. What’s more, Dalits are suffering a lot even in the matter of bringing the person down after being caught in the case and getting bail.
As Rohit Vemula has said, if the stipend is delayed, the situation of a Dalit student and an upper class student is not the same because of this. They do not have the backing of capital in their own homes. But the main thing that hurt Vemula is that this is often interpreted as the weakness of the Dalit community. This is also what Doctor Kunjaman is trying to indicate in his autobiography, Vagadh. The people who were convinced of this truth carried out land struggles in Chengara, Aripa, Thovarimala etc. Note the way in which these struggles have been faced, including by the left. They spread the word that all those who are struggling there have 5 or 4 cent land and houses in the country. They do not accept the truth that they are struggling for agricultural land. They were declaring that these people have no right to farm land. On the other hand, they are eager to take over thousands of acres of land from the people by force and give it to big corporations to develop it. The condition of tribals is more serious. Even though they have legal protection for their rights over land, the land is being confiscated. No one can say that there is any connection between the Kerala development model and the Adivasis of Kerala.
Environmental
The above mentioned weakness in land reform is also a major reason for the ecological crises that Kerala is facing today. We have seen that the argument that the estates can be financially stable only if they are united has failed. But looking back today, ecological sustainability is possible only if paddy fields and wetlands exist together. What was the main reason for the filling of paddy fields in Kerala? You cannot get away with simply saying population growth. Although given through land reform, a large proportion of those who received agricultural land were not from agriculture as their main source of income. Due to the progress made in the education sector in Kerala, a good number of them had taken hold in the employment sectors. The vast majority of them were not ready to work on their own land. Due to the general social growth in Kerala and the Gulf migration, the wage rate has gone up. Farming rice at the cost of labor is financially a losing business. Parallel to this, Gulf money and money coming in through cash crops like rubber created severe pressure on land. In this situation, it was more profitable for the landowners to give the agricultural land for other purposes. We do not understand the ecological value of that land. Paddy fields and wetlands were extensively reclaimed. The flood disaster that we experienced was the result of that.
Today the earth is a wasteland for a common man. The cost of land in Kerala is beyond all logic. It is a commodity in the speculative market. It is not the use value of the land but its resale value that determines the price. As a result, all the values of the ecological system called earth are neglected. Even if you see the necklace, the hill, the forest, the river, the river valleys, the lake, the field and the shore, they are just a commodity called land. This may lead to the reification of Kerala. And how we can overcome the crisis of climate change is also a topic. At least a second land reform is needed to overcome the climate crisis. It would require restrictions on land ownership as well as utilization.