Class 12 Sociology Chapter 4 Change and Development in Rural Society

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NCERT Notes for Class 12 Sociology Chapter 4 Change and Development in Rural Society

Class 12 Sociology Chapter 4 Change and Development in Rural Society

 

• The majority of India’s people live in rural areas (68.8 %, 2011 Census).
• They make their living from agriculture or related occupations.
• Agricultural land is the most important productive resource for a great many Indians.
• Many of our cultural practices and patterns can be traced to our agrarian backgrounds.
• There is a close connection between agriculture and culture.
• The nature and practice of agriculture varies greatly across the different regions of the country.
• Both the culture and social structure in rural India are closely bound up with agricultural and the agrarian way of life.
• Many activities that support agriculture and village life are also sources of livelihood for people in rural India.
• The diversity of occupations in rural India was reflected in the caste system

AGRARIAN STRUCTURE: CASTE AND CLASS IN RURAL INDIA

• Agricultural land is the single most important resource and form of property in rural society.
• But it is not equally distributed among people living in a particular village or region.
• In most regions of India, women are usually excluded from ownership of land

o They only have limited rights and some access to land only as part of a household headed by a man.

Agrarian structure

• The structure or distribution of landholding.
• Agricultural land is the most important productive resource in rural areas,access to land shapes the rural class structure.

Tenants(cultivators who lease their land from landowners)

• lower incomes than owner-cultivators.
  • Because they have to pay a substantial rent to the landowner
• often as much as 50 to 75 per cent of the income from the crop.

In rural areas, there is a complex relationship between caste and class.

• Most areas the highest caste, the Brahmins, are not major landowners.
• Most regions of India, the major landowning groups belong to the upper castes.
• In each region, there are usually just one or two major landowning castes, who are also numerically very important.
• Such groups were termed by the sociologist M.N. Srinivas as dominant castes.
  • the dominant caste is the most powerful group,
  • economically and politically, and dominates local society.
  • Examples :
  • Jats and Rajputs of U.P.,
  • the Vokkaligas and Lingayats in Karnataka,
  • Kammas and Reddis in A
  • ndhra Pradesh
  • Jat Sikhs in Punjab.

• Dalits and untouchable castesnot allowed to own land

• In most regions of the country, a ‘proprietary caste’ group owns most of the resources and can command labour to work for them.
• ‘begar’or free labour were prevalent in many parts of northern India.
  • Members of low ranked caste groups had to provide labour for a fixed number of days per year to the village zamindaror landlord.
  • Many of the working poor were tied to landowners in ‘hereditary’ labour relationships (bonded labour), such as the halpatisystem in Gujarat (Breman, 1974) and the jeetasystem in Karnataka.
• In a village of northern Bihar, the majority of the landowners areBhumihars, who are also the dominant caste.

THE IMPACT OF LAND REFORMSTHE COLONIAL PERIOD

Zamindari System

• Zamindari System was introduced by Cornwallis in 1793 through Permanent Settlement Act.

• It was introduced in provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Varanasi.

• Also known as Permanent Settlement System.

• Zamindars were recognized as owner of the lands. Zamindars were given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants.

Ryotwari System

• Ryotwari System was introduced by Thomas Munro in 1820.
• Major areas of introduction include Madras, Bombay, parts of Assam and Coorgh provinces of British India.
• In Ryotwari System the ownership rights were handed over to the peasants. British Government collected taxes directly from the peasants.

Mahalwari System

Mahalwari system was introduced in 1833 during the period of William Bentick.

• It was introduced in Central Province, North-West Frontier, Agra, Punjab, Gangetic Valley, etc of British India.
• The Mahalwari system had many provisions of both the Zamindari System and Ryotwari System.
• In this system, the land was divided into Mahals. Each Mahal comprises one or more villages.
• Ownership rights were vested with the peasants.
• The villages committee was held responsible for collection of the taxes.

INDEPENDENT INDIA

• Abolition of the zamindari system
• Tenancy abolition and regulation acts.
  • To regulate rents to give some security to the tenants.

• Land Ceiling Acts.
  • These laws imposed an upper limit on the amount of land that can be owned by a particular family.
  • According to these acts, the state is supposed to; surplus land redistribute to landless families such as SCs and STs.
  • But ‘benamitransfers’ – which allowed them to keep control over the land.

o some rich farmers actually divorced their wives (but continued to live with them) in order to avoid the provisions of the Land Ceiling Act

The Green revolution and its social consequences

• A large increase in food production in Developed and Developing countries achieved by using modern agricultural techniques.
• It was a government programme of agricultural modernization.
• It was largely funded by international agencies that was based on providing high-yielding variety(HYV) or hybrid seeds along with pesticides, fertilisers, and other inputs, to farmers.

Causes of Green Revolution

• High Yielding Varieties of seed
• Chemical Fertilizers
• Irrigation
• Multiple Cropping
• Modern Agricultural Machinery
• Credit Facilities
• Agricultural Research
• Plant Protection
• Rural Electrification
• Soil testing and Conservation
• Green Revolution programmes were introduced only in areas that had assured irrigation, because sufficient water was necessary for the new seeds and methods of cultivation.
• It was also targeted mainly at the wheat and rice-growing areas

o Punjab, western U.P., coastal Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu

Advantages

• Yields are 2-4 times greater
• The shortage growing season
• Farming incomes have increased
• Diet of rural communities is now varied
• Local infrastructure has been upgraded
• Employment has been created for industries.
• Agricultural productivity increased sharply because of the new technology.
• India was able to become self-sufficient in food grain production for the first time in decades.
• It has been considered a major achievement of the government and of the scientists who contributed to the effort.

Disadvantages

• High amount of fertilizers and pesticides are needed to optimize production.
• New varieties required more weed control and more susceptible to pest and disease
• Rural unemployment
• increasing inequalities in rural society.
• Landowners began to take back land from their tenants and cultivate it directly.
  • because cultivation was becoming more profitable.
• The introduction of machinery such as tillers, tractors, threshers, and harvesters led to the displacement of the service caste groups who used to carry out these agriculture-related activities.
• The ultimate outcome of the Green Revolution was a process of ‘differentiation’, in which the rich grew richer and many of the poor stagnated or grew poorer.
• Second phase of green revolution is currently being introduced in the dry and semi-arid regions of India.
• In market-oriented cultivation, especially where a single crop is grown, a fall in prices or a bad crop can spell financial problems for farmers.
• In most of the Green Revolution areas, farmers have switched from a multi-crop system, which allowed them to spread risks, to a mono-crop regime, which means that there is nothing to fall back on in case of crop failure.

Green Revolution strategy leading to regional inequalities.

• It promoted more in the western and southern parts of the country, and in Punjab, Haryana, and western U.P., than in the eastern parts of the country (Das, 1999).

Agriculture in states such as Bihar and in eastern U.P., and in dry regions such as Telengana, to be relatively undeveloped.

• the regions that continue to have an entrenched ‘feudal’ agrarian structure
• Landed castes and landlords maintain power over the lower castes, landless workers and small cultivators.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN RURAL SOCIETY AFTER INDEPENDENCE

• Loosening of traditional bonds or hereditary relationships between farmers
• A shift from payment in kind (grain) to payment in cash;
• Rise of a class of ‘free’ wage labourers’.
• Increase in the use of agricultural labour
• The change in the nature of the relationship between landlords (dominant castes) and agricultural workers (low caste)
• Jan Breman Says that – it is a shift from ‘patronage to exploitation

• As cultivation became more commercialized these rural areas were also becoming integrated into the wider economy.
• Flow of money into villages and expanding opportunities for business and employment.
• Promoted modern methods of cultivation
• Development of rural infrastructure, such as irrigation facilities, roads, and electricity
• Rural social structure was altered by agricultural development.
• in the 1960s and 1970s was through the enrichment of the medium and large farmers who adopted the new technologies
• In several agriculturally rich regions, such as
  • coastal Andhra Pradesh,
  • western Uttar Pradesh, and
  • central Gujarat, well-to-do farmers belonging to
• The dominant castes began to invest their profits from agriculture in other types of business ventures.
• This process of diversification gave rise to new entrepreneurial groups.
  • that moved out of rural areas and into the growing towns of these developing regions,

• Rise to new regional elites that became economically as well as politically dominant

Change in the class structure

• Spread of higher education,
  • especially private professional colleges, in rural and semi-urban areas,
• Allowed the new rural elites to educate their children
  • white collar occupations ,businesses etc.

CIRCULATION OF LABOUR

• ‘traditional’ bonds between labourers and landlords broke down.
• Seasonal demand for agricultural labour increased.
• Punjab, a pattern of seasonal migration emerged in which thousands of workers circulate between their home villages and more prosperous areas where there is more demand for labour and higher wages.
• These migrant workers have been termed‘footloose labour’by Jan Breman • Wealthy farmers often prefer to employ migrant workers.
  • migrants are more easily exploited and can be paid lower wages.

GLOBALISATION, LIBERALISATION, AND RURAL SOCIETY

• Late 1980s Liberalisation have had a very significant impact on agriculture and rural society.
• Liberalisation
  • o privatisation of public sector enterprises,
  • o removing governmental control on capital, labour and trade,
  • o reduction of tariffs and import duties and allowing easier access for foreign companies.
• More free international trading system and requires the opening up of Indian markets to imports.
• That has had direct effects on farmers and rural society.
• For instance, in some regions such as Punjab and Karnataka, farmers enter into contracts with multinational companies (such as PepsiCo) to grow certain crops (such as tomatoes and potatoes)
• Contract farming is very common now in the production of specialised items such as cut flowers, fruits such as grapes, figs and pomegranates, cotton, and oilseeds.
• Contract farming lead to greater insecurity as farmers become dependent on these companies for their livelihoods.
• the entry of multinationals into this sector as sellers of agricultural inputs such as seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers.
• This has led to the increased dependence of farmers on expensive fertilisers and pesticides, which has reduced their profits, put many farmers into debt, and also created an ecological crisis in rural areas. Farmers’ suicides
• Caused by structural changes in agriculture and changes in economic and agricultural policies. These include:
• The changed pattern of landholdings
• Changing cropping patterns
• Liberalisation policies
• Heavy dependence on high-cost inputs
• The withdrawal of the state from agricultural extension activities
• Decline in state support for agriculture
• Individualisation of agricultural operations.
• According to official statistics, there have been 8,900 suicides by farmers between 2001 and 2006 in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra

• Sociologists says that, suicides have become ‘matrix events’, that is, a range of factors coalesce