I was shocked by a news in Hindustan Times today that the maoist movement in south Bihar is actually helping landlords to mantain status quo in the region against a 10% levy on their produce. The tax system is called dukathia in local lingo meaning produce from 2 katthas for every bigha (1 bigha = 20 katthas) goes to the leaders of the “sarvhaara”. The news proves my mother right who always says that she does not like communists because they exploit rickshaw waalahs, the poorest.
I have always been pessimistic about prospects of land reforms in Bihar. I never believed that either the supplicant state or an aggressive Maoist movement could coerce landowners to give up their dominant position. Landowners are too strong and too entrenched to be terrorised into submission. Earlier they were reactive, raised their own senas and matched maoists in brutality and ruthlessness. Now they have become adaptive, they lure their class enemies into collusion by offering a fraction of their produce.
This is not the only form of adaptation though. Another one that shocked me as much was the sight of combined harvestors in Bhabhua district of Bihar during my fieldwork two years ago. Isn’t it pervert to use combined harvestors in a state where every acre of land has 4000 mandays available to work on it; where average plot size is less than quarter of a hectare; where low capitalization is one of the key problems of agriculture. Landlords were investing millions into these harvestors to avoid dealing with a politicised and activist labor class demanding higher share of output. I saw harvesting going on with these giant machines uner the shadow of guns and i thought that between the guns and the combines, the second was probably a more potent tool in the hands of the landlords.
Landlords in south Bihar also employ migrant laborers of north Bihar, on their way back from Punjab, in their fields to reduce their dependence on the local labor. On the other hand the poor laborers have hardly any options. The state was never there for them and even their much admired movement has been corrupted now. All they can do is to starve, surrender or migrate.
