The new technology, class formation and class action in the Indian countryside

Abstract

The central aim of this article is to try and assess, on the basis of the existing evidence, what influence, if any, the technological innovations that have been introduced into Indian agriculture since the mid‐1960s have hadupon class formation and class action in the Indian countryside. An attempt is made, further, to suggest, if only briefly, the significance of this for urban class formation and class action. The nature of the new technology and some of its implications for the labour process in agriculture are identified and it is held that the distinction between biochemical innovations and mechanical innovations, to the extent that those who make it argue that technological innovation can be limited to the former, is a false one. It is stressed that partly because of the intensified time constraint brought about by the application of biochemical innovations the pressure to mechanise is likely to be strong, as mechanisation becomes increasingly profitable. The evidence reveals that the new technology has meant certain class‐in‐ itself changes. It has hastened the social differentiation that was already in motion, although in complex ways that have yet to work themselves out fully. Some of the characteristics of a process of partial proletarianisation are noted and the’ nature of the emerging rural proletariat and of new relations between rural labourers and dominant classes analysed. What these changing structural features have meant with respect to the class consciousness and class‐for‐itself action of the rural proletariat is given attention, and the indeterminate nature of the outcome indicated by the contrast between north‐west India (where class action has been relatively weak) and the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu (where the organised power and militancy of agricultural labourers have achieved substantial success). The growing emergence of a rich peasantry as a class‐in‐itself and a powerful class‐for‐itself is treated and some of the political implications of this drawn, especially in relation to Indian state power and its class basis.