A look at India's villages - II

By Gilbert Etienne

``THE INNUMERABLE rivers, the alluvial soil (of north Bihar) and the usual monsoon rains make the tract one of the most important production centres of Bihar and the area has been rightly described as the granary of India,'' says the British Gazetteer of the late 19th century. Today, the prosperity enjoyed by the eastern plains for 2,000 years has come to an end, they are now known for their acute poverty.

First comes population. Densities were already high in the past: 289 per sq. km for Muzaffarpur district in 1876, 522 for Kalpi village in 1961 and over 1,000 now. Landholdings are increasingly divided and the number of landless people rises. Unlike in the northwest of India where production began to grow since the latter part of the 19th century, the eastern plains were caught in a population-resources trap. After all available land had been reclaimed by the 1880s, the outlets would have been rising crops yields through technical innovations, a diversification of the economy. Little happened. Roads, railways, industries and cities experienced a very slow development. Hardly any innovation occurred in agriculture and indigo disappeared after the first World War.

I first came to Muzaffarpur district and Kalpi village in 1967, just after two terrible drought years. But for the American wheat and its successful distribution by a team of remarkable officers led by B.D. Pande, Bihar would have faced an appalling famine. From farmers to politicians, everyone had only one word: sichai (irrigation) because rainfed crops could no more sustain the growing population.

During my resurveys (1978, 1985, 1992) I noticed some progress in irrigation. Starting from nearly zero it covers 35 to 45 per cent of the cultivated land, a figure common in several districts. In Kalpi, private tubewells reach only part of the fields. As a result, good or bad monsoons have still a big impact on agriculture.

One major constraint faced in irrigation is electricity supply of electricity which is so deplorable - even compared to Uttar Pradesh - that farmers use oil pumps for theor tubewells; this is more expensive and cumbersome than electricity. Besides, and this is often forgotten, unlike Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar did not implement the consolidation of holdings which contributed to the expansion of tubewells in the northwest. Some attempts were made, but they were stopped because they led to all kinds of violent litigation among farmers, evidence, among others, of the poor record of development in Bihar.

Another factor has to do with nature. The eastern plains are much more exposed to floods than the northwest. In addition, even during a normal monsoon, wide tracts of lowland are covered with so much water that either no crop is possible, or a poor crop of `floating' paddy is grown. At the district level, 15 per cent of the cultivated area would need a massive drainage programme which has hardly been started.

Under such conditions, rainfed rice yields 700 to 1000 kg/ha or less in low lands. Irrigated rice with new varieties and some chemical fertilizers rarely goes beyond 2000 kg/ha, a low score compared to Punjab or the southern deltas (3500 to 4000). Irrigated wheat reaches 2000 kg/ha and half that when unirrigated (western Uttar Pradesh or Punjab 3200 to 4000). In addition, some plots are devoted to tobacco, potatoes, onions. There are not many cattle so that milk production is rising much more slowly than in the northwest. Job opportunities in trade, small industries, transport are limited by the overall level of development and the very slow pace of urbanisation: 9.3 per cent for the district in 1991 versus 26.4 for Bulandshahr. No doubt several men migrate to richer regions. Some of them go to Punjab for temporary agricultural work, but the outlets are not many.

The economic scene reflects the general conditions of Bihar: development being hindered by local politics and the situation further aggravated by social tensions. Unlike in most other parts of India, one comes across really big landowners, very often Bhumihars or Thakurs. In Kalpi, the largest one owns 40 ha there and 80 in another village. The second enjoys 40 ha, the third one 20 (net cultivated area 340 ha). In 1967, most of them were not very keen to develop their estates, a situation which gradually changed as seen in my following visits: some tubewells, new seeds, tractors did appear. The mansions of the big landlords have become bigger. Medium farmers ( 1 to 2 ha), very often belonging to forward castes, have become moderately enterprising. The taboo on ploughing themselves eroded only in the 1990s ``out of compulsion'', admitted a Brahmin. Yadavs (OBCs), landowners for years, are more enterprising, but they own much less land than the forward castes.

But in the hamlets of the Dalits, most of them landless, little has changed. During my visits, I registered bitter complaints. The word dabao (pressure from landlords) would come out repeatedly. ``Kanun (the law) is for the rich, while we must use ghus (bakhsish)'' with officials. A number of men own only the set of clothes - a shabby dhoti and a shirt - they are wearing, while their wives are wrapped in wornout greyish saris. Entering their huts with thatched roofs, one sometimes does not find even a charpoy. There are a few towels, one kettle, some earthern pots for water. The diet is precarious. Pulses and milk are out of reach for several of them. As for agricultural wages, in all my surveys they have been about half of the wages paid in Bulandshahr or in the southern deltas. As to job opportunities outside agriculture, they are not so wide. Needless to add that the progress of education is slow among the poor. One does not hear much about family planning.

One must at least admit that in the area there are less bloody clashes than on the southern bank of the Ganga where inter-castes battles are much more common, with large gangs heavily armed.

Two main conclusions result. The first on human behaviour. The main landowner castes are not agriculture-oriented by tradition. My friends in Mirpur had warned me: ``Purbi log dhile hein'' (the easterners are easygoing or relaxed). The author of the Gazetteer quoted above made a similar observation: ``People are allergic to hard work''. During the famine of 1874, H. Kisch, an ICS official, noted: ``Some Brahmins prefer to die sooner than work on a tank or a road with common coolies'' during relief works organised by the district authorities. Such judgments need qualifications because these features of character may change. Even in Kalpi, some Thakurs, Bhumihars and Banya landowners are now taking agriculture more seriously. Some innovations do occur such as maize grown in the dry season with encouraging results.

The eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh offered for many decades some similarity, socially and economically, with Bihar, suffering from severe poverty for lack of sufficient development although the political situation was not as bad. In Benares district, where I conducted similar surveys, after the consolidation of holdings in the 1970s, the pace of growth clearly accelerated with some progress also for part of the poor. Could not the same happen one day in Bihar?

(Concluded)

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