Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the social inequality in access to agricultural land in Punjab within the larger macro framework of Dalits’ struggle and relevance of caste in contemporary India debate based on data from the Agriculture Census of India 2001 and 2011. This paper employs descriptive statistics with simple percentage, ratio estimation and geographical tools like choropleth. Results of the paper suggest Scheduled Castes or Dalits are the most deprived than the Non-scheduled population in India and specifically in Punjab even in 21^st even today. The change in access to the agricultural land of Dalits over the decades is not much significant. In addition to that, results also confirm wide spatial variations in the disparity of access to agricultural lands across the districts of Punjab. This picture definitely expresses the inequality and concentration of agricultural land in the hand of the most dominant Non-scheduled social group.

Keywords

Dalits , Access to land, Inequality, Ratio, and Punjab

1. Introduction

India has been trying (more rigorously) since independence to bring equality, equity and social justice in the distribution of productive resources, access, and participation in the socio-economic and political sphere of life. Despite such massive affirmatives action and radical legislation and their implementation, ‘identity-based-inequality’ and poverty remained as prominent features even today in India (as cited in Iversen et al. 2010:2). In addition to this, it (India) drew the global attention for its rising trends of economic inequality in recent times. So, inequality in the distribution or access to resources becomes a cause of serious concern in contemporary Indian (Anand and Thampi 2016).

Access to agricultural land is the single most important factor in rural livelihood as a means of production. In this context, its importance to a household is very much crucial i.e. Anand and Thampi’s study (2016) shows that on an average, it’s share of total household assets is close to 60 per cent and It has been acting as the principal source of unequal pattern of assets accumulation in absolute or relative terms than any other assets between 1991 and 2012. However, the inequality in the distribution of agricultural land is stringent throughout the years. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are the most disadvantaged in respect to land and there has been no substantial improvement in their position in landholding position over the years (Mohanty, 2001). In addition to that, the recent study of Anand and Thampi (2016) shows a rising trend of inequality in land ownership in rural areas of India.

Dalits and Adivasis are subjected to deprive and backward historically. Dalits often face multiple forms of deprivations and discrimination such as education, health and access to employments (Deshpande 2001; Bakshi 2008). These households are overrepresented among country’s poor, illiterate. They also suffer from lack of sustainable job opportunities and assets less (Iversen et al. 2010). Besides, the incidence of landlessness is more prominent among SCs and STs. According to the statistical figures as provided by the Agriculture Census of India 1990-91, around 77 per cent of SCs were landless and 87 per cent of SCs landholders belong to small and marginal farmers (Mohanty 2001: 3857). Similarly, as per cent socio-economic statistics, SCs population constitutes 16 per cent and holds only 8.6 per cent landholdings and the average size of landholdings is much lower. Around 55 per cent households are landless while 38.4 per cent of all households in the country (Annual Report of National Commission for Scheduled Caste 2015-16). It is also evident from various studies across Indian states that proportion of land owned by SCs households was and is much lower than their share of the total population. According to Thorat (2002) “the limited access to agricultural land and capital assets is both due to the historical legacy associated with restrictions imposed by the caste system and the ongoing discrimination in land market and capital market and other related economic sphere “(cited in Bakshi 2008:96). However, land owned by SCs households had increased between 1982 -1992. In ownership landholding maximum of the land is owned by large landholder and especially in agriculturally advanced states the proportion of households that do not own land is highest (Rawal, 2008). In this context, Punjab, which is one of the agriculturally successful and progress states with the highest share of SCs population provides a conducive platform to examine the inter-caste inequality in access to agricultural land at state vis-a-vis district levels.

2.0 Statement of the Problem

The questions of control and use of land among SCs and STs has not been studied extensively rather occasional attention has been given (Mohanty 2001). Despandey (2001: 130) stated “the record of empirical studies is marginally better, yet the pool of work is not large enough to provide answers to a host of questions associated with the degree of change in the traditional caste structure since independence in 1947. Iversen et al. (2010) pointed out that identity-based disadvantage, its directions, patterns, magnitude and causes in post independent era have not been explored fully in India. Being the highest concentration of SCs population in India, Punjab has rarely examined for the conceptualization of the caste system (Jodhka, 2002). In this context, this paper contributes to the existing literature about the extent and nature of inter-caste inequality in access to agricultural land in Punjab.

3.0 Objectives

1. To examine the caste inequality of access to agricultural land at the district level in Punjab.

2. To examine the temporal changes in magnitude of access to land by SCs and Non-SC and STs in Punjab

4.0 Database and Methodology

This paper is completely based on secondary sources of data. The main sources are Agricultural Census of 2000-01, 2010-2011 and Census of India 200, 2011.

The operational area has been used as and variable of access to agricultural land. Percentage of area accessed by Scheduled Castes and the Non-scheduled group has been calculated out of the total area. The percentage of area accessed by a particular social group can be a reflection of the percentage share of the total population in a particular state of the district. For this reason, the share of land has been divided with the share of the population. Normalization has been done by the following method.

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Where, I= index of access to agricultural land, Li = amount of operational area accessed by Scheduled Castes or Non-scheduled group, L= total amount of operational area accessed by all social groups, Pi = Population of Scheduled Castes or Non-scheduled group, P = total population.

If the value of the index is less than 1, the social group has less access to land and if the index value is greater than 1, the access is higher than the population share.

Bakshi (2008) used the similar index for showing the access to land for different social groups. In that study, the index had been defined as a ratio of percentage of land owned by a social group to the percentage of the household of that particular social group. In this study, the ratio is calculated as a share of operational area and share of total population of a particular social group. Operational area reflects the agricultural engagement of the particular social group as the land is being cultivated. The operational area includes the area of leased in and mortgage in other than the area owned and excludes the area leased out and mortgage out. The normalization has been done with the share of the population as it will add the per person details of the social group.

5.0 Results and Discussion

5.1 Access to land by Scheduled Castes in India and Punjab

In India Scheduled Castes have the lowest percentage of land in respect of the Non-scheduled group. There is massive struggle seems to be the only option for schedule group to improve their landholding position (Mohanty, 2001). For this study, the Scheduled Castes have been taken as one group and Non-scheduled SC and ST (excluding Scheduled Castes plus Scheduled Tribes population from total population) as another group. At all India level, Scheduled Castes have a lower share of land compare to its population share to population of the country. The share of the operational area of Scheduled Castes was only 8.2 percent with the share of the population of 17.9 percent in 2001. In the same period, Non-SC and ST had 80.3 percent land while their share of total population is just 71.7 percent of the total population. As the share of land is greater than the share of population, land per person is also high. It has been established through literature that scheduled group has a history of deprivation through the domination of the powerful group in terms of economic and social status as well. The access to land by Scheduled Castes has not remarkably been increased between 2001 and 2011, it has just changed from 8.2 percent to 8.6 percent only with 0.4 percent increment. There were different phases of land reform in India but it’s result was not adequately and or equally scattered in all the states of India. Some of the states have improved their conditions of access to land by Scheduled Castes (Bakshi, 2008). But in general, it was not very successful to improve the condition of Scheduled Castes for access to land in entire rural India.

Punjab being a successful gainer of green revolution and became the champion of agriculture sector but is also known for its unequal distributions of land among its people. Scheduled Castes as a major segment of its population but, has limited access to agricultural land. Inequality remained same over the decades, even the gap in the access to land between small and large farmers became very high. In 2001, only 1.6 percent of the total operational area was accessed by Scheduled Castes and it has been increased to 3.2 percent in 2011 (table1). The share in total population is 33 percent which increased to 37.5 percent during the same period. In other words irrespective of census years, the share of SCs population is significantly higher than the share of land they access.

In the two figures below the ratio of share of land with the share of the population describe the lowest access to land 0.05 for Scheduled Castes in 2001 in Punjab wherein all India level it is 0.46 (fig.1). In India, almost half of the Scheduled Castes population does not have the access to land. For the Non-scheduled group the ratio is 1.46 for Punjab and 1.12 for India in 2001. In 2011, the access is almost same for both the social group at India level, for Scheduled Castes in Punjab the access has increased (0.05 to 0.09) at very limited scale (fig. 2).

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Source: Author’s own estimation

5.2 Spatio-temporal variations in access to land by Scheduled Castes and Non-scheduled population in Punjab

In general, the access to agricultural land by Scheduled Castes continued to be the lowest in Punjab. Even across the districts, it is nowhere comparable with the Non-scheduled population. Even the district with lowest level of access to agricultural land by the Non-scheduled group does not match with the highest level of access to agricultural land by Scheduled Castes in any of the district. The gap between SCs and Non-SC and ST in terms of land-population ratios in rural areas remained very high. In the maps below the brown colors show the lower access of Scheduled Castes and blue colors show the higher access of Non-scheduled group. The legend is different for maps of the Scheduled and Non-scheduled group as there are no similar categories present in the region for both the year 2001 and 2011. For a particular social group, the categories are kept similar to see the change in the access throughout the spatial dimension.

Scheduled Caste’s deprivation over agricultural land is every homogenous in the district of Punjab. The differences between the districts are very minor. Within such limitations, categories have been calculated with mean plus standard deviation method for 2001 for both the social group. And similar categories are used for 2011 to show the change. The northern districts have relatively better access to land for Scheduled Castes than the southern region in general for both the years of 2001 and 2011. Some of the additional districts like Firozpur came in the highest category in 2011 with better access to land for Scheduled Castes. There are some of the districts like Muktsar, Moga, Barnala, Taran Taran have the lowest access to land by SCs in 2011 which were even in the lower category in 2001 (Map 1,3). The changes in the access to land over the decades are not remarkable for Scheduled Castes across the districts of Punjab. The stagnation in the access to agricultural land describes the limited authority of Scheduled Castes population in the productive agricultural sector.

The changes in the ratio of land and population for the Non-scheduled group show the improved condition in 2011 than 2001 (Map 2, 4). This picture depicts the better condition of non –Scheduled population not only in term of higher level of access but also in terms of better growth. In 2011, almost all the districts of the middle and western region of Punjab have the highest level of access to land. Only a few districts like Gurdaspur and Rupnagar remained in the lowest category from 2001 to 2011. In Gurdaspur, there is a higher of access of land for Scheduled Castes compare to the Scheduled Castes of most of the other districts. But even after being in better among the Scheduled Castes of other districts, it has lower access to land than the Non-scheduled group of Gurudaspur itself. For Firozpur also the district poses highest (0.23) access to land among Scheduled castes of all districts, but the access is very low in compare to the access (1.70) of the Non-scheduled group of the same district in 2011(table 3). In 2001, highest access of schooled castes (0.13) is visible in Hoshiarpur which is even lower than the non-scheduled group (1.49) (table 2).

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6.0 Conclusion

Rawal (2008) analyzed the inequality in ownership holding across the states of India. It has been observed that the distribution is highly unequal. The states with extremes levels of inequality are Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, with highest percentages of the landless population. Punjab remained as a state of the higher level of inequality from decades. The debates can be over growth and distribution. A Higher level of growth in agriculture does not necessarily be distributed among the population. This study has established the facts that the access to the operational area of Scheduled Castes in India and specifically in Punjab is very poor. The improvement in access to agricultural land over the years is remained stagnant across the regions for Scheduled Castes within the state. The Non-scheduled group has better improvement from 2001 to 2011 in access to agricultural land. Inequality and identity-based deprivation is prominent through the least level of access to the operational agricultural land. The access in the productive sphere limits the up-gradation of Scheduled Castes population in Punjab.

References

1. Agricultural Census of India. (2000-2001, 2010-2011). Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. Govt. of India. Data retrieved from http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in/.
2. Anand,I. and Thampi, A. (2016). Recent Trends in Wealth Inequality in India. Economic & Political Weekly, LI(50), 59-67.
3. Bakshi, A. Social Inequality in Land Ownership in India: A Study with Particular Reference to West Bengal. Social Scientist, 36(9/10), 95-116.
4. Deshpande, A. (2001). Caste at Birth? Redefining Disparity in India. Review of Development Economics, 5(1), 130–144.
5. Iversen, V. Kalwij, A., Verschoor, A. and Dubey, A. (2010). Caste Dominance and Economic Performance in Rural India. Discussion Paper 10-01, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Retrieved from http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/dispapers/dp10-01.pdf.
6. Jodhka S.J. (2002). Caste and Untouchability in Rural Punjab. Economic and Political Weekly, 37 (19), 1813-1823.
7. Mohanty, B.B (2001). Land Distribution among Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Economic and Political Weekly. 3857-3868.
8. NCSC. Annual Report 2015-16.
9. Rawal, V. (2008). Ownership Holding of Land in Rural India: Putting the Record Straight, Economic and Political Weekly, 43 (10), 43-47.
10. Register General of India, Census of India: Primary Census Abstract, 2001, 2011. http://www.censusindia.gov.in/.

Appendices

Table 1 Share of agricultural land and population by broad social groups in India

Note:* Indicates non-SC &ST population (excluding proportion of SC and ST from total population of the Punjab and country’s figure to make comparable as proportion of STs is negligible in the state)

Source: Agricultural Census 2000-01, 2010-11; Census of India 2001, 2011

Table 2 Access to land across the district of Punjab in 2001

Source: Agricultural Census2000-01, Census of India 2001

Table 3 Access to land across the district of Punjab in 2011

Source: Agricultural Census2010-11, Census of India 2011

Padmaja Mondal is M. Phil in Geography, Research Scholar, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi – 110067