Jan Breman

The village on Java and the early-colonial state

This essay represents an attempt to question and revise the conceptualisation of village Java‐especilally prevalent in the colonial literature‐which represents it as an endless number of homogeneous communities of cultivators, living closely and harmoniously together, with a high degree of institutional self‐sufficiency. The emphasis in the essay is upon the pattern of vertical relations and horizontal diversity. The existence of considerable internal differentiation is stressed, and it is argued that the Javanese village has never been marked by the homogeneity and static rigidity which has been ascribed to it so often.

Down And Out

Poverty is the dominant feature of the working lives portrayed in this book. But the misery of these men, women, and children in India has little to do with the underdevelopment of the past. The poverty here is caused by development and is concentrated mainly in what is referred to as the informal sector of the economy, which is what four-fifths of Indias population depends on for its livelihood. It concerns the type of work that requires little or no capital investment or education and is small-scale by nature. The wages earned from these enterprises are not only low but are also characterized by strong work fluctuations per day, month, or season. Two other factors characterize this type of work: the absence of governmental monitoring and also, the absence of organizations, namely unions, which traditionally represented the concerns of the working class.The choice for India emerges from the research of Jan Breman, performed over a 30-year period in an area located on Indias west coast, the site of enormous economic growth. He has now returned to this location with photographer, Ravi Agarwal, to present a portrait of the working classes of this particular area. Together with Arvind Das, a well-known journalist and commentator on business matters in India, Jan Breman has written the text which accompanies the photographs.

’Even dogs are better off’: The ongoing battle between capital and labour in the cane‐fields of Gujarat

The effects on labour relations of transformation of the rural economy of South Gujarat are considered. Changes investigated in the late 1970s are further examined a decade later. The impact of increasing prosperity, and a major shift in the composition of the rural economy (with sugarcane particularly important), upon the regions landless proletariat is analysed. Attention is focused upon migrant cane cutters — largely from western Maharashtra, low caste and often of tribal origin ‐ and there is detailed treatment of their working and living conditions. Changes in the relationship between capital and labour are noted, but conditions of the workers are shown to be as abysmal now as they were previously. Capitalist development has not benefited the poor. Government intervention has been insufficient. These ‘labour nomads’ show considerable resilience and practice a ‘silent militancy’, but their capacity for collective action is undermined by their alien status.

The making and unmaking of an industrial working class : sliding down the labour hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India

Based on a survey of over 600 households over the 1999-2002 period, this monograph charts the progressive disenfranchisement of Ahmedabads textile workers and their families throughout the 1980s and 90s. Challenging the myth of the infinite absorption capacity of the informal sector, the author elaborates on the dimensions of poverty often neglected in studies based on statistics alone. Like the companion photobook title, the monograph also examines the significance of religious fault lines in the community, which exploded into riots in spring 2002. The Ahmedabad crisis, typical of the textile industry in India, can also be found in Asia at large, where entire communities sink below poverty line in the absence of social provisions. Co-published with Oxford University Press, India

Seasonal migration and co‐operative capitalism: The crushing of cane and of labour by the sugar factories of Bardoli, South Gujarat‐part 2∗

Seasonal migration is not a new phenomenon in India, but its present character and scale are indicative of a far‐reaching transformation in the countryside: a change to new production relationships. This article contains an analysis of the utilisation of migrant labourers by the sugar factories in the vicinity ofBardoli, in South Gujarat. This type of seasonal migration is most closely bound up with the capitalist development of rural production in this area∼a process in which the organisation of the dominant class of farmers into agricultural co‐operatives has played an important part. After a description of the development of sugarcane cultivation in Surat District, consideration is given to the process of recruitment of seasonal migrants, the organisation of cane cutting, the conditions of work, the reasons for the employment of migratory labour (given the availability of local labour), and, finally, the nature of both the level and the perception of exploitation of labour.

The study of industrial labour in post-colonial India—The formal sector: An introductory review

In post-colonial India labour came to be closely associated with industrial work. The agrarian-rural mode of production would come to an end soon to be replaced by large- scale enterprises making use of modern technology and situated in urban localities. The drift of labour from the countryside towards middle- and large-sized cities seemed to herald the approaching transformation towards the type of society that had emerged in the developed part of the world. Employment in the organised sector of the urban economy, although absorbing only a minor portion of the total workforce outside agriculture, became the main focus of studies on work and labour. According to strongly held views the quality of labour left much to be desired and this became a major argument in explaining the low productivity in industry. The Indian worker, rooted in traditional structure and culture was blamed for his—the notion of gender was practically absent—lack of commitment. The growth of Indias industrial proletariat was by and large an urban phenomenon. The profile of the emerging workforce is discussed in terms of caste and class, skill formation and employment modalities. Trade unions were instrumental in raising wages, improving conditions of work and dignifying industrial work through labour legislation. But again, this all remained the prerogative of a small segment of industrial workers who found a niche in the formal sector economy.

Between accumulation and immiseration: The partiality of fieldwork in rural India

This article examines the dilemmas faced when pursuing fieldwork in rural India‐and, by extension, in the rural areas of any poor country ‐ in circumstances of sharp opposition between dominant and subaltern classes. Such research is all too likely to be geared to the concerns of dominant classes. The author has conducted extensive research, as a participant observer, in the Indian state of Gujarat, and has concentrated upon the poor, and especially upon agricultural labourers and rural migrant labour. He here considers the extreme difficulties associated with research which takes subordinate classes as its focus. When introductions take place via the locally powerful, such research faces formidable obstacles: both because of the mistrust of the poor and the opposition of dominant classes. The problems he himself has faced and his own research procedures are discussed in detail. From these certain general methodological lessons are drawn.

Neo-bondage: a fieldwork-based account

On the basis of anthropological fieldwork carried out in South Gujarat in the early 1960s, I described and analyzed a system of bonded labor that dominated the relationship between low-caste farm servants and high-caste landowners (Patronage and Exploitation: Changing Agrarian Relations in South Gujarat, India, 1974). More recently, I have gone back to the study of agrarian bondage of the past in order to explore in greater detail the emergence of unfree labor in the precolonial era and comment on its demise as a result of efforts made by the colonial state, the nationalist movement, and peasant activists (Labour Bondage in West India from Past to Present, 2007). A recurrent research theme during my fieldwork in the last few decades has been drawing attention to practices of neo-bondage (neo because the relationship between bosses and workers is less personalized, of shorter duration, more contractual, and monetized) at the bottom of Indias informal-sector economy. Additionally, the elements of patronage that offered a modicum of protection and security to bonded clients in the past have disappeared while the transition to a capitalist mode of production accelerated.

On Pauperism in Present and Past

Pauperism and pauperization are two of the most persistent and widespread phenomena in India. While a fierce debate rages on the line separating the poor from the non-poor, there is scant discussion on the huge mass of paupersnot less than one-fifth of the countrys populationliving in destitution. Rural and urban case studies conducted in the state of Gujarat highlight the ordeal of these paupersthe non-labouring poor unable to take care of themselves, the migrant labour driven away from the village and back for lack of work, and an urban underclass redundant to demand, often experienced by the better-off as a nuisance. A comparative study of the politics and policies in present-day India in relation to the condition of the ultra-poor in Victorian England reveals a disturbing common factora deeply ingrained mindset of social inequality resembling the spirit of nineteenth-century social Darwinism. That ideology of discrimination and exclusion is back with a vengeance the world all over and not least in India. This book examines poverty and inequality through a sociologicalanthropological lens that goes beyond the quantitative and unravels the fuzzy landscape of the informal economy. It fills a conspicuous gap in the literature on casual labourthat on the floating and footloose transient labour. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/sociology/9780199464814/toc.html

The long road to social security: assessing the implementation of national social security initiatives for the working poor in India

This book is about social security, or the lack of it, for the labouring poor in India. It is a critical study of the working of two flagship national social security schemes initiated by the Government of India, namely, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), and the national health insurance scheme called the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY). Fresh contributions made by senior scholars and researchers, these essays provide rich data and analysis on the status of social security schemes at work in five Indian states-Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab-by carrying out local level studies that capture the conditions and responses of the labouring poor. In addition, some essays also assess the implementation of the old-age and other pension schemes introduced both by the Central and state governments. The studies are multidisciplinary in nature as they combine macro- and micro-level data, as well as qualitative and quantitative data. The volume reveals the limitations of these schemes both in terms of design and implementation in the current neoliberal setup in India. Available in OSO: Contributors to this volume - K.P. Aravindan is Professor of Pathology, Government Medical College, Calicut, Kerala; Jaswinder Singh Brar is Professor of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala; Jan Breman is Professor Emeritus and Fellow, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amarendra Das is Lecturer in Economics, Utkal University, Odisha; Sucha Singh Gill is Director General, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh; N. Jagajeevan is Programme Officer, State Poverty Alleviation Mission, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; Varinder Jain is Assistant Professor of Economics, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur; Satyakam Joshi is Professor of Social Anthropology, Centre for Social Studies, Gujarat; K.P. Kannan is Former Director and Professor of Development Economics, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; Rathikanta Kumbhar is Lecturer in Economics, University of Sambalpur, Odisha; T.P. Kunhikannan is Professor of Economics, Government College of Calicut, Kerala; Darshini Mahadevia is Professor of Planning and Public Policy, Centre for Urban Equity CEPT University, Ahmedabad; D. Narasimha Reddy is Visiting Professor, Institute of Human Development, New Delhi; Sukhwinder Singh is Professor of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala; G. Vijay is Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad