Agricultural Labour

Observations:

(a) Agricultural labourers constitute a large section of the rural population in India- 26 per cent in
2001. A sizeable proportion of female workers in rural areas are agricultural labourers- about 36
per cent in 2001. The proportion of agricultural labourers in the rural workfoce has, however,
declined from 50 per cent in 1991 to 30 per cent in the 2001 Population Census. The Labour
Force Surveys of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), however, do not show such
a drastic decline of agricultural labourers in rural areas, in fact they remain more or less steady at
30 per cent of the workforce during the 1990s.

(b) Agricultural labourers are drawn from the most socially and economically deprived sections
of rural hierarchy and hence are doubly disadvantaged and vulnerable. About 49 per cent of
scheduled caste households were agricultural-labour households in 1999-2000, though this
proportion had declined from 52 per cent in 1983. The proportion of agricultural-labour
households among the scheduled tribes, however, rose from 33 per cent to 38 per cent during the
same period.

‘Attached’ versus ‘free’ Labour:

An agricultural labourer may enter into a contract with an employer of his own free will,
in which case he or she is a ‘free’ casual labour. She may, however, enter into a contract due to
pre-existing obligation arising from customary social relations or on account of credit and/or
land relations. Then she becomes ‘attached’ or ‘bonded’ labour. This form of attached or bonded
labour has its role in the functioning of the overall market for agricultural labourers. Several
historical studies showed that as agriculture developed and became commercial there was a
general tendency to move from labour contracts signifying relatively little freedom for the
workers to freer, more impersonal forms of contract. Inter-generational bondage characterized by
extra-economic coercions also tended to decline.

In recent times, however, other types of attachment, not necessarily of an unfree nature,
arose due to the exigencies of the production process. Modernization of agricultural technology
had increased the demand for a form of attached labour as it was seen as useful in overseeing the
work of casual labourers. The interlinking of labour and land markets through various forms of
tenancy and sharecropping arrangements has been common in India. One of the most common
sharecropping contractual arrangements was that output was shared equally between the tenant
and the landlord, and so were input costs, but labour and seeds were provided by the tenant. This
is, therefore, in a sense a disguised attached labour contract. Leasing out of small pieces of land
to tenants on ‘fixed’ rent also exists, but is perhaps less common. A form of reverse tenancy has
also been observed in some parts of India, where the small landholders, unable to cultivate their
land, lease out to the large holders. “Operation Barga” successfully conducted in the state of
West Bengal was a large recognition of various forms of tenancy arrangements and this has
proved useful in increasing the productivity of farms.

Land distribution & diversification:

The Rural Labour Enquiry data showed that the proportion of labour households with
cultivated land had increased during 1972 – 1992. This corroborates the earlier observation that
these labour households are actually semi-landless and marginal landholders who are forced to
enter the wage labour market often due to failure of the monsoon or because their small plots of
poor quality land do not yield enough to sustain the household. Still a large proportion of the
semi-landless and marginal landholders are working as casual agricultural labourers.

There has been increasing casualization of the total workforce in rural areas, with
contradictory evidence on the decline in the proportion of agricultural labourers. The declining
fortunes of agriculture could have resulted in a lack of demand for agricultural labour. An
interesting feature of the labour households was the decreasing proportion of wage earners
despite casualization. This trend reflects an increasing diversification of economic activities
among labour households. This diversification into non-wage activities is partly due to the
increase in labour households with cultivated land. The avenues open for self-employment are
obviously greater in such households. The diversification of economic activities in labour
households over time was also reflected in the declining percentage of days in a year spent in
wage employment.

Overall this implied that the character of the recent entrants to the agricultural labour
force had changed. The proportion of scheduled caste households in agricultural labour declined
while that of scheduled tribe households increased. Agricultural labourers now also increasingly
belonged to broader caste groups and were households with small landholdings and a diversified
portfolio of economic activities.

Migration: A Symptom of Poor Agricultural Performance

That all is not well with the agricultural sector in large parts of India is reflected in the
shrinking share of rural GDP and particularly rural GDP including agriculture in total GDP
during the decade 1980-1990. This may of course also reflect increasing urbanization and the
growth of the industrial and the service sectors as is expected with economic development. The
economic reforms (the policy of privatization, liberalization and globalization) since 1991 tended
to concentrate on the secondary and tertiary sectors with less importance being accorded to
agriculture. Massive public investments in agriculture occurred in the 1970s that supported
agricultural system, such as large irrigation projects. Such investments have declined
considerably in the last two decades. Lack of water for irrigation and casual development of the
semi-arid regions have led to increase in migration from rural to rural and urban areas.
 Lack of irrigation facilities, low productivity of land and uncertain monsoons lead to
single-crop cultivation and strengthen the pressure to migrate. A circular mobility of labourers
occurs as a consequence of unbalanced resource endowments and regional development. This is
in the nature of distress migration. On the one hand, there is a net transfer of slack labour from
the backward areas to relatively developed areas in the form of seasonal migration. In some areas
the demand for labour in the peak season cannot be met by the local supply of labour and these
areas attract agricultural labourers from outside. Such circular migration can also be to the urban
areas where rural migrants do not settle permanently in cities and continue to maintain their links
with the area of their origin, where they return regularly. Another form of migration is of a more
permanent nature with the settlement of migrants in urban areas.

State Responses to Issues of Agricultural Labourers:

The Minimum Wage Act was adopted in India as early as 1948. The Act requires the
government to fix minimum rates of wages in respect of employment specified in a Schedule,
including agriculture. While the implementation of this Act is not monitored, it provides trade
unions and NGOs with a large weapon to fight for the cause of agricultural labourers.

The issue of lack of demand for agricultural labour and consequent seasonal migration is
addressed by the government through rural public works programmes. The government sponsors
these public works as a form of insurance against the shock of draught. In the state of
Maharashtra, the Employment Guarantee Scheme initiated the public works programmes on a
more permanent basis. It has been lauded as a successful programme where it works almost as a
model of the right to work. The workers are entitled to paid work and can demand public
employment on rural works.

The government sought to universalize this programme for the country by attempting to
bring in an Employment Guarantee Act, which is currently providing 100 days of work per
family in rural areas. In the early 1970s, the state started to address the problems of marginal and
small farmers through the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), providing
credit to farmers to undertake agriculture. This was meant to prevent marginal farmer households
from deteriorating into agricultural labour. Several versions of this programme continue with
varying degree of success.

To address the problems of agricultural labourers the state needs to have a holistic policy
towards investment in agriculture, particularly in semi-arid regions. In recent years the watershed
development programme is an attempt in this direction, though with debatable success.