Real Markets and Environmental Change in Kerala, India by Rene Veron

Author:Rene Veron [Veron, Rene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General
ISBN: 9780429827358
Google: lHd0DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-26T04:48:24+00:00

5.4.2 Changed Labor Relations and Agricultural Wages

In Kerala, hired agricultural workers traditionally carry out the bulk of the work in the fields. Work participation of landowners is often limited to supervising wage laborers. Most landowners avoid manual labor, which they associate with social inferiority. In addition, the labor division is also pronounced among agricultural workers themselves, and goes beyond gender differentiation to caste-based differentiation. Unlike male and female Pulayas, for example, coconut-tree climbers (mostly male Ezhavas) or rubber tappers (mostly males) rarely engage in paddy or general agricultural work such as clearing fields, weeding, etc. Yet, most agricultural workers have various sources of income (e.g., agriculture on their own homestead, quarry work, petty trade).

Except for the security of dwelling sites, the land reform did not offer as much to agricultural workers as to former tenants. Pleading poverty themselves, the new owner-cultivators were also reluctant to increase agricultural wages and to share their gains from the land reform. Consequently, conflicts emerged between the agricultural workers and the new smallholders, who had been allies in the struggle against landlordism. These conflicts eventually led to the formulation of the Kerala Agricultural Workers Act in 1974, which has changed labor relations significantly. Provisions of this act include (see Franke & Chasin 1994: 85-86):

– guaranteed permanency of employment for attached laborers;

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