Abstract
This chapter introduces the village in India as a unit of study. It focusses on the way in which risk in village India is negotiated according to the dimensions of land-holding, caste and gender. The controversy surrounding Bt cotton is explored, as are the risks of agrarian crisis and farmer suicides. The chapter also introduces the prestige and conformist biases identified by Henrich (Am Anthropol 103(4): 992–1013, 2001) and first applied by Stone (Curr Anthropol 48(1): 67–103, 2007) in relation to Bt cotton adoption in Warangal. These biases are used to examine the way in which the legitimation and delegitimation of Bt cotton are social processes mediated through the village power structure.
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Notes
- 1.
According to Marx (Hindess and Hirst 1975: 200), the Asiatic mode of production was characterised by the absence of private land ownership, as well as the self-producing unity of handicrafts and agriculture in the villages.
- 2.
In fact, the idea of the self-sufficiency of the village has been refuted in later literature . Srinivas (1987: 38) argued that villagers would not have been entirely self-sufficient but would have depended upon weekly markets for commodities such as salt, spices, iron, silver and gold.
- 3.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), popularly known as Mahatma (Sanskrit: ‘high-souled’), was the high-profile leader of India’s freedom movement . Gandhi advocated non violent resistance (ahimsa ) and swadeshi or self-sufficiency as a means of challenging the illegitimate exercise of power associated with colonialism. The idea of khadi or homespun cotton was central to this, and the charkha or spinning wheel became the emblem of the independence movement.
- 4.
Along with Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) was a key figure in the struggle for India’s independence from the British and served as India’s first prime minister from 1947 until his death in 1964. He is most associated with his support for Fabian socialism, democracy and science and technology as the basis for India’s development.
- 5.
According to 2011 census data, out of a total population of 1.2 billion people in India, 833 million live in rural areas. Available at: http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/india/paper2_at_a_glance.pdf. Accessed on 25/3/2017.
- 6.
Prior to colonial rule, taxes were collected by zamindars on behalf of Mughal imperial rulers.
- 7.
Jagirdars were de facto rulers of territory with the right to extract revenue.
- 8.
Inamdars received inam lands granted as gifts in return for services to the ruler.
- 9.
Bonded labour was defined as a ‘system of forced or partly forced labour under which a debtor enters… or is presumed to have entered into an agreement with the creditor’ (Robinson 1988: 29). Robinson (1988) describes how the abolition of bonded labour in a village in the Medak district of pre-secession Andhra Pradesh made it more difficult for upper castes to influence the voting behaviour of the lower castes who had previously been in a relation of bonded servitude to them.
- 10.
The co-operative society movement had a long history in pre-independence India. The Co-operative Societies Act, introduced in 1904, sought to tackle rural indebtedness by encouraging cultivators to access cheaper credit through their amalgamation into groups (Madan 2007: 58). Between 1912 and 1929, co-operative societies were extended to areas other than credit provision, such as the sale of produce, purchase of inputs, housing and insurance, and various states passed their own Co-operative Societies Acts. By 1935, there were 84,000 societies (ibid.: 60). The co-operative movement later specialised in sectors, such as dairy and sugar-cane production, often in partnership with states. Co-operative societies also developed among vulnerable groups, such as women, nomads and Scheduled Castes (Baviskar 1987: 565).
- 11.
See Frankel (2005: 442–443 and 464–467) for Indira Gandhi’s struggle with the Supreme Court in this regard.
- 12.
This directly challenges the view of the French anthropologist, Louis Dumont. In his classic text, Homo Hierarchicus, Dumont (1972) suggests that the central concern of caste with purity and pollution encompassed power and held it in check.
- 13.
The Vedas are the earliest records of Indian culture. They are estimated to date to between 2000 and 2500 BC (Nehru, [1946], 2004: 72). The depiction of the power structure of caste as divinely ordained represents an attempt to remove it from temporal legitimation challenges.
- 14.
The upper castes are associated with the wearing of a sacred thread, the suta. Only male members of the Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya varnas are entitled to undergo the ceremony of upanayana where the sacred thread is bestowed upon the bearer (Frankel 2005: 5).
- 15.
A detailed account of these is provided in Dumont’s (1972) Homo Hierarchicus.
- 16.
According to Srinivas (1987: 38), the essential jatis in each village were the carpenter, blacksmith, leather worker, potter, barber and washerman.
- 17.
- 18.
The 73rd Amendment of the Constitution of India, ratified in 1992, stipulates that ‘a share of panchayat (council) seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion with their respective population shares, would be reserved’ (Gibson 2012: 416). As Kohli (2009: 86) claims, the extension of reservations to education places and government jobs has been strongly resisted by upper castes.
- 19.
Available at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC/STs-take-rapid-strides-close-literacy-gap/articleshow/25536193.cms. Accessed on 25/3/2017.
- 20.
The Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, a highly influential text in Indian society, states that ‘when women are corrupted, confusion of castes arises’ (Bayly 1999: 13). This historical and religious legacy has contributed to the legitimation by women of a careful circumscription of the norms associated with their behaviour by males and, notably, by women in relation to each other.
- 21.
Available at http://www.census2011.co.in/literacy.php. Accessed on 25/3/2017.
- 22.
Available at: http://www.census2011.co.in/literacy.php. Accessed on 24/8/2017.
- 23.
The costs associated with dowry have risen significantly in recent years. Shurmer-Smith (2000: 91) notes the emergence of the term ‘Maruti marriages’ where new Maruti cars are offered in partial settlement of a dowry, particularly in urban areas.
- 24.
Available at: http://www.census2011.co.in/sexratio.php. Accessed on 25/3/2017.
- 25.
The report, commonly referred to as the Srikrishna Report , provides a comprehensive overview of the history of Telangana, the situation with regard to the differential access to resources in the pre-secession state and the demands for justification by those asserting the need for a separate state. It is particularly referred to in Chap. 4 of this book.
- 26.
Chapter 3 of the Planning Commission report provides a useful analysis of the considerable issues with poverty estimation in India. The Planning Commission was dissolved in 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has been replaced by NITI Aayog or the National Institution for Transforming India.
- 27.
The measure was developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It includes indicators such as schooling, child mortality, access to drinking water and assets, as well as income.
- 28.
Unlike seed varieties which pollinate naturally, hybrid or HYV seeds are derived from controlled cross-pollination which selects parent plants for favourable, high-yielding, traits.
- 29.
Bt cotton cultivators are required to plant a ‘refuge crop’ of non-Bt cotton surrounding the Bt cotton plot to ensure that bollworm feeding on Bt cotton will breed with those feeding on non-Bt cotton and so prevent resistance from developing (Qayum and Sakkhari 2005: 37). The extent to which this occurred in the two villages which adopted Bt cotton in the current study was variable. This highlights the absence of extension services associated with Bt cotton and the lack of assistance with regard to its, in this case, quite specific cultivation.
- 30.
A selection of papers which support Bt cotton’s contribution to poverty alleviation for all classes of land-holder, even in dryland agriculture, include: Srivastava and Kolady (2016), Krishna et al. (2016), Sankaranarayanan and Nalayini (2015), Kathage and Qaim (2012), Gruere and Sengupta (2011), Choudhary and Gaur (2010), Subramanian and Qaim (2010), Karihaloo and Kumar (2009).
- 31.
A selection of studies which highlight Bt cotton’s uneven performance and questionable contribution to alleviating the risks of poverty include: Fischer (2016), Dowd-Uribe (2014), Glover (2010), Dev and Rao (2007), Mishra (2007), Morse et al. (2007), Pray and Naseem (2007), Ramanjaneyulu and Kuruganti (2006), Smale et al. (2006).
- 32.
The ICRISAT study was a longitudinal study, initiated in 1975 and concluded in 1985. Two of the villages studied were located in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana, while the other four were located in the state of Maharashtra.
- 33.
The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) was initiated during the rabi crop season of 1999–2000 (Vyas and Singh 2006: 4588). The scheme mainly covers food crops, though some coverage of cotton has been registered (ibid.). Nair (2010: 22) notes that more than 80 per cent of covered farmers are loanees for whom the insurance is compulsory. Vyas and Singh (2006: 4587) claim that, by 2005, 83 per cent of cultivators covered were from Maharashtra, [pre-secession] Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka. They also estimate that, by 2005, just 3 per cent of cultivators in India were covered under the scheme (ibid.).
- 34.
Farmer suicides began to occur in waves from the 1980s and are particularly associated with India’s cotton-producing belt (Deshmukh 2010: 175). The bulk of farmer suicides occurred in pre-secession Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This became known as India’s ‘suicide belt’ (Le Mons Walker 2008: 572).
- 35.
The report combines the categories of semi-medium (5.1–10 acres) and medium land-holders (10.1–20 acres) used in the current study under the category of medium land-holder (which covers 2–10 hectares or 5–25 acres). It does not, unfortunately, explore the dimension of caste.
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Desmond, E.L. (2018). The Legitimation of Risk in the Villages. In: Legitimation in a World at Risk. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6065-6_2
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