Agrarian Structure and the State in Java and Bangladesh

Author(s): Gillian Hart

Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 2 (May, 1988), pp. 249-267
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
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 Agrarian Structure and the
State in Java and Bangladesh
GILLIAN HART

ON THE FACE OF IT, rural Java and Bangladesh appear remarkablysimilar. The
similarities are particularlypronounced in lowland Java and southeastern Bangladesh
where there are virtually identical population densities and nearly universal modern
rice technology. Extraordinarypopulation pressure on the land is accompanied by
minute farm size and, despite lower land concentration than in many other parts of
the world, both Java and Bangladesh display substantial disparities in control over
land and high levels of landlessness or near-landlessness.
The stereotypes of agrarianstructure in Java and Bangladesh are also quite similar
and have changed in the same direction over the past two decades. Through the 1960s
both were widely regarded as highly egalitarian and generally rather static. Java was
seen by many as the exemplification of "sharedpoverty" and Bangladesh (then East
Pakistan) as a nation of small peasant cultivators. In the 1970s there was an increasing
emphasis on rural inequality, together with growing debates over the nature and
causes of agrarian differentiation.
The question at stake in these debates is whether polarization is taking place.
Proponents of the polarization model maintain that the peasantry is being divided
into opposing classes of kulaks and proletariansprimarily as a consequence of tech-
nologically induced commercialization.' Critics argue that inequality is better viewed
in terms such as "cyclical kulakism" in Bangladesh (Bertocci 1972) and "peasant
stratification" in Java (Hayami and Kikuchi 1982). Although their characterizations
of inequality vary, critics of the polarization model agree that demographic and eco-
logical factors are the chief determinants of agrarianstructure and change.
Focusing as they do on technology, commercialization, and demography as the
main engines of agrarianchange, these debates exemplify the way in which contem-
porary theories typically abstract from larger structures of political and economic
power.2 Both a cause and a consequence of this neglect is that the analytical tools

Gillian Hart is a ResearchScholarat the HarvardInstitute for InternationalDevelopment.

There is a tendency to regard the polarization model as Marxist, although in practice
many advocates of this position invoke arguments of technological determinism.
An important exception is a study of ruralsociety in Bangladesh by Westergaard (1985),
which became available after this article was completed. Westergaard's study contains a com-
prehensive and incisive analysis of the political power and economic dominance of the upper
peasantry that, inter alia, develops more fully several of the arguments outlined in this article.
As noted by Thorp (1986), however, Westergaard does not explain what appear as major
anomalies in the forms of relations within rural society. Instead, she restates Bertocci's (1979)
"structural fragmentation" thesis, discussed more fully below.

TheJournal of Asian Studies47, no. 2 (May 1988):249-67.

(? 1988 by the Association for Asian Studies, Inc.

249

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250 GILLIAN HART

for linking local-level agrarian processes with the wider political-economic system
are poorly developed.
Comparative study of Java and Bangladesh is particularlyvaluable in addressing
these problems. Drawing on material from regions of Java and Bangladesh that share
important technological and demographic features, I shall focus on (a) the importance
of linking agrarianprocesses with historically specific structures of state power and
national accumulation and (b) the need for understanding these connections in terms
of the exercise of power at different levels of society.
The striking differences between Java and Bangladesh in the nature of the state
and its agrarian interests are manifest in the relationship of dominant rural groups
to the wider political-economic system. In the case of Java, large landowners are not
simply capitalists who have emerged in response to technologically induced com-
mercialization. They are also minor clients of the powerful and highly centralized
Indonesian state. Since the late 1960s the state has attempted to coopt and incorporate
these rural elites into the state apparatusby extending them concessions while also
tightening control over them.
On the surface, larger landowners in Bangladesh occupy a far stronger position
in relation to the structure of state power. At the same time, however, the fragility
and instability of the national political-economic system means that their position is
in many ways more precarious than that of their Javanese counterparts.
These contrasts in the linkages of dominant rural groups to the structure of state
power are associated with important differences in the forms of relations within rural
society. They help explain how and why patterns and processes of agrarian differ-
entiation in technologically and demographically similar regions diverge from both
the polarization model and from demographically based theories of agrarianchange.

Asset Distribution and LaborRelations:

Patterns and Trends

Patterns of Landholdings

Most empirical analyses of agrarian structure draw primarily-if not exclu-

sively-on evidence pertaining to the concentration of landholdings, together with
the extent of landlessness and tenancy. Trends in these indicators also form the basis
for many conclusions about agrarian differentiation. Accordingly, earlier assertions
about the highly egalitarian character of Javanese and Bengali rural society often
invoked small average farm size and the apparent absence of significant land con-
centration, whereas several of the more recent claims that polarization is taking place
rest on allegations of rapidly increasing landlessnessalong with growing concentration
of landownership.
In fact, the aggregate census and survey data on landholdings tell rather little
about agrariandifferentiation, other than that neither country conforms neatly to the
polarization model. Comparisons of land concentration are only possible in terms of
area operated. The two most closely comparable surveys suggest that, in very ag-
gregate terms, the degree of land concentration in Bangladesh in 1977 was quite
similar to that in Java in 1973, although the proportion of holdings of less than one
hectare is considerably higher in Java than in Bangladesh (Table 1). As far as trends
in landholdings in Java are concerned, Gini coefficients based on the agricultural
census data remained more or less unchanged between 1963 and 1973 (Booth and
Sundrum 1976) even though other evidence suggests important shifts in patterns of

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 251

Table 1. Distribution of Operational Holdings

Distributionby Landholding
Groups (ha.)
Average Hold- Gini
<1.0 1-3 3-5 5-10 >10 ing Size (ha.) Coefficient
Java(1973)
No. of holdings 82 16 1 a
0.404
Areaof land 49 38 7 4 2 0.64 0.49
Bangladesh(1977)
No. of holdings 50 41 7 3 a
1
Areaof land 19 49 17 12 3 1.42 0.45

'Lessthan 1 percent.
SOURCE. Booth and Sundrum1985: Table 6.5.

accessto and control over land.3For Bangladesh,the evidenceinvokedto support

claimsof growinglandconcentrationis ratherquestionable.4Thosecomparisonsthat
are possibleindicatea downwardshift in the size distributionof operatedholdings
(Vyas 1984).
In both countriesfarmsare predominantlyowner-operated.Accordingto the
1973 agriculturalcensusin Java,73 percentof holdingsand 70 percentof cultivated
areawerepurelyowner-operated, whereascomparablefiguresforBangladeshin 1968
were 66 percentand 58 percent. The data for Java indicatea dramaticincreasein
owner operationrelativeto tenancysince the first agriculturalcensus in 1963. In
Bangladesh,the proportionof owner-operated holdingshasremainedremarkably con-
stant (Table2), but thereseems to have been an increasein the percentageof pure
tenants,manyof them in the mediumfarmsize groups,alongwith a relativedecline
in owner-cum-tenants (Vyas 1984).
Probablythe best estimateof landlessness,which is derivedfrom the ratio of
farmsto total ruralhouseholds,was roughly40 percentin Java in the early 1970s
and in the vicinity of 30 percentin Bangladesh.5Changesin landlessnessare im-
possible to pin down precisely,althoughall indicationsare that it is increasingin
both countries.
Viewed comparatively,the most interestingfeatureof landholdingpatternsin
JavaandBangladeshis the contrastingwayin whichthey areassociatedwith regional
differenceswithin the two countries.InJavathe chiefregionaldistinctionis between
the more sparselysettled uplandhill areas,wheremaize, cassava,and dry rice are
the maincrops,andthe denselypopulatedlowlandwet-riceregionsthatpredominate.

3One indication is the rather sketchy evidence showing rapid increases in the proportion
of operated holdings and areadefined as "wholly owned" (Table 2). More concentrated patterns
of control over land that are not reflected in the data on "areaoperated" could also be taking
place through complex systems of mortgaging and leasing (Hart 1986a).
4The problem with these claims is that they are based on a comparison of the 1967-68
Master Survey of Agriculture, which collected data on operational holdings, and the 1977-
78 Land Occupancy Survey, which refers to land ownership.
5 For a discussion of estimates of landlessness in Java, see Booth and Sundrum 1981.

Estimates of Bangladeshi landlessness defined in terms of lack of access to agricultural land

as well as regular nonagricultural income are made by Vyas 1984. Cain 1983 and Adnan et
al. 1978 discuss Bangladeshi landlessness in terms of nonownership of agricultural land.

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252 GILLIAN HART

Table 2. Trends in Owner-Operation and Tenancy

(percentage)
1 2 3
Owner-Operators Owner-Tenants Pure Tenants 2 + 3
N A N A N A N A
Java
1963 59 55 na na na na 41 45
1973 73 70 na na na na 27 30
Bangladesh
1960-61 61 54 37 45 2 1 39 46
1967-68 66 58 30 39 4 3 34 42
1978 65 59 28 37 7 4 35 41
NOTE. N refers to the number of cultivating households in Bangladesh in 1960 and 1967-68 and to
the number of operational holdings in Bangladesh in 1978 as well as in Java in 1963 and 1973.
A refers to the area of cultivated holdings.
SOURCES. Java: Booth and Sundrum 1976. Bangladesh: Vyas 1984:Table 2.12.

Regional differences in Bangladesh are much more clearly drawn along geographical
lines (Wood 1981). The northwesternpart of Bangladesh, although densely populated
by world standards,is nonethelessnot as demographically overburdenedas the rest
of the country, and neithermechanizedirrigationnor modernrice technologyhas
spreadas rapidlyin the regionas elsewhere.
For both historicaland ecologicalreasons,the southeasternpart of Bangladesh
resemblesthe lowlandareasofJavaquite closelyin termsof populationdensity,farm
size, and cultivationintensity. Both areasare also relativelyadvancedin terms of
modernrice technologyand the extentof commercialization. Howeverlandholdings
are moreconcentratedand landlessnessmuch higherin the advancedregionsof Java
than in the technologicallybackwardones, whereasthe oppositeis the casein Ban-
gladesh.
Thesepatternsindicatethat thereis no necessaryassociationbetweenland con-
centrationand landlessnesson the one handand land/laborratios,ecology, technol-
ogy, and the extent of commercialization on the other. Clearlywe need to delve
further.The discussionthatfollowsdrawsmainlyon local-levelstudiesin the lowland
areasof Java and in the Comilla district of southeasternBangladesh.During the
1960s Comilla was the locus of major technologicaladvancesin rice production
throughthe famousComillacooperativeprogramas well as massiveinvestmentin
irrigationand watercontrol.Althoughwithin BangladeshComillais a ratherspecial
case, it resemblesthe lowlandareasof Javamost closelyin ecological,demographic,
and technologicalterms.

Diversification into Nonagricultural Activities

One obviousdrawbackof relyingprimarilyon landdistributiondataas indicators

of agrariandifferentiationis that a high proportionof ruralincomein bothJavaand
Bangladeshderivesfrom nonagricultural sources.Moreover,particularlyin the case
ofJavabothaggregatedataandvillagestudiesindicatethatrelianceon nonagricultural
income is increasing(White 1979; Hart 1986b).

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 253
Documentation of these rural nonagricultural activities, the way in which they
are organized, and the returns they yield is very fragmentary. Even less is known
about the process of diversification over time. Although these questions await further
research, there are two particularly important patterns suggested by the available
evidence.
First, the degree of diversificationseems to assume an hourglassshape. .Therichest
and poorest tend to have more numerous and diversified sources of income than the
medium to small landholding peasantry, but the nature of these activities at the
extremes of the distributional spectrum differs widely. Summarizing village study
evidence for Java, Benjamin White notes:
Landless,near-landless,small-farmandlarge-farmhouseholdsobtainsignificantpro-
portionsof theirincomefromnon-agricultural activities,but it must be remembered
that they do so for differentreasons;the landlessand small-farmhouseholds,as
"agriculturaldeficit"households,must supplementagriculturalincomeswith rel-
atively open-accessoccupationsrequiringlittle or no capitaland offeringvery low
returns.... On the otherhand, the large-farmand landowninghouseholds,as "ag-
riculturalsurplus"households,are able to invest this surplusin relativelyhigh-
capital, high-returnactivitiesfrom which the capital-starved,low-incomegroups
areexcluded-rice hullers,pickup trucks,cassavaand otherprocessingindustries,
shopkeeping,"armchair" tradingwith largeamountsof capital,moneylending,etc.
(White 1979:15-16)

The available evidence for Bangladesh suggests a broadly similar pattern, al-
though there is reason to suppose that the nonagricultural activities undertaken by
the poor may differ somewhat from those common in Java.6 Although there are large
gaps in information, the scattered evidence together with a priori reasoning suggests
some important differences in (a) the intrahousehold organization of nonagricultural
activities and (b) the extent to which these activities are integrated into the wider
economy. As far as the former is concerned, the key issue is the nature and extent
of Bangladeshi women's involvement in economic activities within and beyond the
homestead and the ways in which these are changing (Feldman and McCarthy 1983).
With respect to the latter, the fragments of evidence on nonagriculturalactivities
available for Bangladesh suggest a much closer degree of integration into the wider
economy than in Java. Many of the nonagricultural sources of income to which the
poor in Java had recourse during most of the 1970s yielded extremely low returns,
often amounting to little more than scavenging (White 1979; Husken 1979). As I
have discussed more fully elsewhere, these patterns were closely linked with the highly
capital-intensive growth trajectory of the Indonesian economy during most of the
1970s, which generated very little incremental employment (Hart 1986a). It is pos-
sible that the comparative underdevelopment of the Bangladeshi economy generates
tighter linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural growth.
Although these issues await more careful research, there is little question that
diversification into nonagricultural activities by the large landowning classes in both
areas is part of a strategy of accumulation. In addition, diversification by the rural
elite appears to have been stimulated by access to the state not only for subsidized
agricultural credit and inputs but also for the licenses and concessions that are often
a key source of nonagricultural accumulation. In both Java and Bangladesh (at least
until fairly recently) an enormous proportion of the resources flowing into the rural

6
Studies that contain evidence of rural nonagricultural activities in Bangladesh include
Abdullah, Hussain, and Nations 1976, Wood 1978, Huq 1984, and van Schendel 1981.

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254 GILLIAN HART

sector has been dispensed through bureaucraticchannels (Hart 1986a; Jones 1979),
and access to the more lucrative sources of nonagricultural income has formed an
important element of state patronage.

Labor Arrangements and Patronage

Although the diversified patterns of accumulation are superficiallyrathersimilar,

there are some striking differences in the forms of agricultural labor arrangements
and associated patterns of nonagricultural activities by poorer groups in technolog-
ically and demographicallysimilar areasofJava and Bangladesh. Despite small average
farm size, a large proportion of the rice labor in Java and Bangladesh is hired (Hart
1983). A key difference is that Javanese women are far more heavily involved in rice-
field labor. In Bangladesh postharvest tasks tend to be more labor-intensive and are
performed mainly by women, but much of this labor takes place within the home-
stead. Accordingly, Javanese employers in general confront a larger agricultural labor
pool than their Bangladeshi counterpartseven if population density, land distribution,
and technology are very similar.
The central pattern in Java is the sudden disappearanceof the open harvest ar-
rangements that seem to have prevailed through the first half of the 1960s. The open
harvest, in which all who wish to participate are paid a share of the paddy they reap,
is commonly regardedas the archetypical "poverty-sharing"institution. More careful
analysis by Stoler (1977) has shown that superficially open harvests often mask a
highly differentiated structure of arrangements. It seems generally to be the case,
however, that restrictions on access to harvesting opportunities as well as to preharvest
jobs increased dramatically from the late 1960s onward.
A particularly significant feature of this process of exclusion is that it has often
entailed the resurgence and adaptation of "precapitalist"institutional arrangements.
The prime example is an attenuated form of sharecroppingknown as kedokanwhereby
a worker agrees to perform certain preharvesttasks on a given kedok,or plot, in return
for a share of the output of that plot. Kedokanis an old institution that has been
traced back to the nineteenth century; it tends to disappear and reappearwith as-
tonishing speed (Kolff 1936). In the late 1960s, kedokanappears to have reemerged
after a period of decline (White and Makali 1979:17). In a survey of 589 villages in
the Cimanuk Basin areaof West Java, Wiradi (1978) found that kedokanwas practiced
in two-thirds of the villages. Between 1970 and 1975, kedokanexpanded in some
villages and declined in others; there was, however, a net expansion that was par-
ticularly marked in rice villages, where the expansion was twice as rapid as the decline.
The defining characteristicof kedokancontracts is that they entail the provision
of job security to a select group of workers while deliberately excluding others (Hart
1986b). Although the kedokanworkermust wait until harvest time for payment (often
having to borrow to subsist in the interim) and must also bear part of the risk of
yield variations, a kedokancontract does carrywith it the assuranceof access to work
and income over the rice cycle and the possibility that the contract will be renewed
if the tenant performssatisfactorily. From the employer'spoint of view, the attraction
of kedokanis not only that the wages bill is scaled according to the harvest;in addition,
it incorporatesbuilt-in mechanisms of labor control. Such mechanisms are, however,
contingent on the existence of a pool of "underemployed"labor; this pool enhances
the value of job security to those workers who do gain access to kedokancontracts,
and therefore it ensures effort.

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 25 5
Although kedokanis probably the most common, there are a number of other
institutional arrangements that operate according to a similar set of principles (Hart
1986c). The chief significance of these exclusionary labor arrangements is that they
give rise to a division within the work force between those incorporated into com-
paratively secure forms of employment and those whose position in the agricultural
labor market is far more tenuous. The defining feature of this process of marginal-
ization is that the poorest groups become increasingly dependent on extremely low-
productivity nonagricultural activities.
In contrast, village studies in Comilla have found that agricultural labor ar-
rangements consist primarily of single-stranded, highly commercialized transactions
for the purchase and sale of labor (Wood 1978; van Schendel 1981; Huq 1984).
Twice a week, prospective workers and employers confront each other in the mar-
ketplace, and a wage is negotiated that remains in force until the following market
day. Wide variations in wages reflect shifting seasonal patterns of labor supply and
demand.
The main suppliers of labor are male migrants who move in and out of the area
on a seasonal basis. Both Geoffrey Wood and Saiful Huq found employers to have a
marked preference for migrants over local workers because, apart from having fewer
distractions, migrant workers are easier to supervise. The chief consequence of this
preference, Wood claims, is that "local landless are denied opportunities to work as
agricultural labourers"and are "forced into [nonagriculturall activities with narrow
and fluctuating margins" (Wood 1978:153, 110).
A critical difference between Java and Comilla in the process by which poorer
ruralgroups seem to be moving into nonagriculturalactivities is suggested by evidence
that Wood himself provides. He notes that although 70 percent of adult males from
households with effective holdings of less than one acre derive most of their income
from nonagricultural activities, "the economic independence of these groups from
others in the village was not greatly enhanced, for in addition to other loan transactions
which might exist, petty tradersrequire loans from patrons. . . and other occupations
require patronage, access etc. from those who were more influential in the village
and could arrange jobs outside the village" (Wood 1978:152). This phenomenon is
not peculiar to the Comilla villages. What little direct evidence there is on agrarian
relations suggests that, although patronage varies tremendously according to partic-
ular local circumstances, it is a pervasivefeatureof ruralsocial structure in Bangladesh
(Adnan 1975; Wood 1978; Cain and Mozumder 1980; van Schendel 1981).
In contrast, a defining characteristicof the marginalized groups in Java is that
they have little or no access to jobs and loans. Instead of the perpetuation of de-
pendency, marginalization in Java entails a process of exclusion from relations of
dependence. Although perhaps less subject to direct domination than their Ban-
gladeshi counterparts, marginalized groups in Java appear to confront considerably
greater insecurity.
The obvious question is how to explain these differences. Part of the answer seems
to lie in aggregate labor-market conditions. There are several reasons why, despite
demographic and technological similarities, aggregate labor-market conditions in
Comilla and elsewhere in southeastern Bangladesh are tighter than those in Java.
These include a smaller potential labor force due to lower female participation in rice-
field labor, lower rates of landlessness, and sharper patterns of seasonality in labor
demand. Proximity to Comilla town is anotherfactor contributing to somewhat tight-
er labor-market conditions.
To the extent that labor-marketslackness is a precondition for arrangementslike
kedokan,differencesin aggregate labor-marketconditions form part of the explanation

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256 GILLIAN HART

of the different patterns of agrarianrelations. There are, however, several important

elements that cannot be explained simply in these terms. First, as discussed more
fully in the following section, is the speed with which exclusionary arrangements
reappeared in Java in the late 1960s. Second is the perpetuation of patronage in
Bangladesh. The most obvious explanation-that employers were reinforcing pa-
tronage relations in order to ensure an adequate supply of agricultural labor-simply
does not hold in the Comilla case, where most of the agricultural labor force is
migrant. Clearly, therefore, we need to look beyond the labor market in order to
explain the different patterns of agrarianrelations. The following discussion examines
the extent to which prevailing theories of agrarian change in Java and Bangladesh
are capable of providing such explanation.

Theories of AgrarianChange in Java and

Bangladesh

Java

The predominant view of agrarian change in Java is that the green revolution
has been primarily responsible for the disintegration of shared poverty and the rapid
spread of agrariancapitalism. According to this view, the commercialization of pro-
duction brought about by higher levels of purchased inputs has led to the emergence
of capitalist labor relations and the concurrentdisappearanceof precapitalist poverty-
sharing institutions. Analyses of the exact nature of causal mechanisms differ some-
what, but none is able to explain key parts of the evidence.
The theoretically most consistent approach, which derives from Lenin (1899), is
that the development of commercialized wage-labor relations constitutes the key
mechanism of rural transformationand that this will lead inexorably to the polari-
zation of landholdings and the emergence of opposing classesof kulaks and proletarians
(Mortimer 1975; Gordon 1978). The problem with this interpretation is that kedokan
and related arrangements are archetypical precapitalist institutions and their recru-
descence is very difficult to explain in terms of the standardLeninist model predicated
on the expansion of simple wage-labor relations (Hiisken 1979).
The second, most widely accepted interpretation is that the spreadof technology,
together with population growth, has resulted in declining welfare as larger farmers
have reneged on their obligations to provide poorer villagers with income-earning
opportunities in order to cut production costs. In common with followers of the neo-
Leninist approach, those who adhere to this view (which can broadly be termed neo-
populist) maintain that a process of polarization is under way. However, although
neo-Leninists attribute this to forces inherent in the spread of rural capitalism, the
neopopulists place more direct emphasis on the effects of technology (Palmer 1977;
Collier and Soentoro 1978).
There does not seem to be any consistent relationship between technological
change and the expansion of institutions tending to exclude workersfrom agriculture.
This lack of correlation is apparentboth from large-scale evidence reported by Wiradi
(1978) and from village studies that show that exclusionaryarrangementslike kedokan
exist in both technologically advancedand technologically backwardvillages. Further,
there is some evidence that the closing of harvestsoften predated the advent of modern
rice technology (Hayami and Hafid 1979).
A third approach to explaining agrarian change in Java is aimed specifically at
refuting the neopopulist interpretation. According to this view, peasant stratification

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 257
is a consequence not of technologically induced commercialization but rather of pop-
ulation growth in areas unsuited to modern rice technology (Hayami and Kikuchi
1982). This alternative explanation does not hold up to closer empirical scrutiny
either, however. According to Hayami and Kikuchi, the incidence of kedokanin the
hamlet they studied jumped from 27 percent in 1964-65 to 52 percent in 1966-
68 and had reached 96 percent by 1978 (Hayami and Kikuchi 1982:Tables 8- 10).
If, as they assert, the main reason why kedokantook over was that it was the most
morally acceptable way of reducing wages in response to population growth, there
is no apparent reason why such wage reductions were executed with such rapidity.
Kedokanis not, as Hayami and Kikuchi assert, an "institutional innovation" but a
form of labor control with a long history of disappearanceand reappearance. The
question remains, therefore, why kedokanand other exclusionary arrangementsreap-
peared so suddenly in the late 1960s in many parts of Java.

Bangladesh

In contrast with the Javanese stereotype of shared poverty, precapitalist relations

in Bangladesh are typically portrayedas factional groupings structuredaround kinship
and quasi-kinship ties. These factional groupings, it is argued, dissipate class conflict
but also impede capital accumulation because, in order to maintain and expand their
power bases, dominant ruralgroups must maintain client followings by redistributing
their surplus. The need for such a following also constrains labor management: "Nor
is there room within this network of personal relations for introduction from the top
(i.e., by the faction leader) of labour discipline or labour-displacing technology"
(Abdullah, Hossain, and Nations 1976:218).
Farfrom explaining contemporarypatronagerelations, analysesof the penetration
of capitalism in the Bangladeshi countryside generally maintain that vertical factional
cleavages are giving way to horizontal class-baseddivisions. Two ratherdifferent views
exist of the processes by which these changes are taking place.
The more strictly neo-Leninist analysis is by Jahangir (1979), who maintains that
agricultural policies in the post-liberation era were geared toward promoting the
interests of the richer peasants by providing them with access to the resourcesof the
state. This in turn has been associated with the emergence of new class alliances,
which are necessaryto provide a secure environment for productive investments. The
coalescing of class interests among the richer peasants and their strengthening ties
with urban capital and the state has led to the disintegration of patronage within
rural society: "The formation of capital in the post-colonial situation has eroded loy-
alties previously structured by kinship and has, for example, undermined certain
vertical relationship of interdependence. This is reflected in the growing importance
of wage labour" (Jahangir 1977:2064).
The alternative view is that richer peasants are "disengaging themselves from
obligations which accompany the more traditional forms of patron-client relation-
ships, under conditions of increasing landlessness where the market price alone will
ensure the availability of labour" (Wood 1978:147). Contradicting Jahangir's more
orthodox interpretation of capital accumulation by the emerging kulak class, Wood
contends that most investment is of an "antediluvian"or unproductive nature.
The challenge to the polarization thesis-most notably by Bertocci (1972)
maintains that the chief pattern is one of "cyclical kulakism. " According to this view,
considerable mobility exists as a consequence of the difficulty of land accumulation
in a context of the subdivision of holdings, ecological disasters, and intermarriage.

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258 GILLIAN HART

The most obvious problem with this view is that it ignores the ways in which ac-
cumulation in nonagriculture helps rich peasants entrench their position (Wood
1978). More recently, Bertocci has modified his position to emphasize "structural
fragmentation," which he characterizesas "a multiplicity of individual links into the
institutional framework of the rural economy. . . [and] an equally varied plethora of
social ties and dependencies, all of which may be reasonablypresumed to foment an
atomization of individual economic interests and thus to militate against the devel-
opment of solidarity among the landless as an economic class per se" (Bertocci
1979:47).
Part of the problem with the structural fragmentation thesis, as Bertocci himself
notes, is that it does not specify the mechanisms by which such links operate. The
thesis also fails to provide reasonswhy such links may have persisted, albeit in adapted
forms.

State Formation and AgrarianDifferentiation in

Java and Bangladesh

The profound differences between Java and Bangladesh in macro political-

economic structures and the position of dominant rural groups in relation to these
structures shed considerable light on patterns of agrarianrelations, particularly those
that are at odds with conventional theories. In developing this argument, the dis-
cussion that follows outlines the historical forces responsible for these differences and
then suggests how they may be connected with the processes at work within rural
society.
A useful point of departure is Hamza Alavi's (1973) analysis of the relative au-
tonomy of the state in postcolonial societies. Referring specifically to Pakistan but
claiming wider relevance, Alavi argues that those at the top of the bureaucratic-
military apparatus of state set in place by the colonial power are not simply the
instrument of a single class; instead, this bureaucratic-militaryoligarchy "mediates
the interests of the three propettied classes-the metropolitan bourgeoisies, the in-
digenous bourgeoisies, and the landed classes-while at the same time acting on
behalf of all of them in order to preserve the social order in which their interests are
embedded, namely, the institution of private property and the capitalist mode as the
dominant mode of production" (Alavi 1973:148).
The relationship of the bureaucratic-militaryoligarchy to politicians and political
parties constitutes a central element in Alavi's analysis. Pointing out that this re-
lationship is marked by tension as well as accommodation, Alavi contends that as
long as the political leadership participates in the mediatory role it is valuable for
the bureaucratic-militaryoligarchy; major conflicts arise when politicians challenge
that role and the relative autonomy associated with it. In the case of Pakistan, the
bureaucratic-militaryoligarchy has prevailed in these conflicts.
Some of the most distinctive characteristicsof the state in Java and Bangladesh
are best viewed in terms of divergences from this model. These characteristicsare in
turn central to understanding how the position of rural elites vis-a-vis the state is
connected with the processes of differentiation within rural society.

Java

The Indonesian state is best understood as an institution that operates in part

according to its own inner imperatives of preservationand aggrandizement (Anderson

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 259
1983). Its "relative autonomy" derives not so much from its mediatory role as from
the specific historical forcesthat have shaped its dominance vis-'a-vissociety as a whole.
This dominance dates from precolonial times, was reinforced during the colonial
period, and is clearly evident in the contemporaryNew Order regime that came to
power in 1966.
According to the precolonial system of appanage, the king granted his officials
(the priyayi, or nobility) the right to extract produce and labor from groups of peasants
but no direct property or territorial rights. Not only was the appanage defined in
terms of numbers of people rather than territory, but the following of an appanage
holder was often scattered to preclude the consolidation of competing power centers
(Moertono 1974; Breman 1980). Thus a class with territorial rights such as the zam-
indars of the Indian subcontinent never emerged.
The Dutch made extensive use of this system of extraction, and over the course
of the colonial period the priyayi were absorbed as functionaries into the huge state
apparatus. The upper echelons of the colonial civil service in turn formed the core
of the national elite in the postcolonial period, and the bureaucraticand urban ori-
entation of the dominant class is, as we shall see, central to the analysis of relations
between peasants and the state and the way they have changed over time.
The vast state machinery constructed by the Dutch was virtually destroyed during
the Japanese wartime occupation of 1942-45, and Sukarno'spost-independence gov-
ernment never succeeded in restorihg its dominance and effectiveness (Anderson
1983). Instead, the bureaucracyincreasingly became the arena of conflict among the
political parties and between them and the army, as Sukarnoused it to play different
forces off against one another.
The sole exception was the Indonesian Communist party (PKI), which eschewed
such tactics and focused instead on mobilizing the poorerpeasantryfor "a more peace-
ful variant of Mao Tse-Tung's strategy of surrounding the cities from the country-
side-the object of which was to force the Indonesian elite to disgorge at least a
measurableamount of its national power to the PKI" (Mortimer 1975:4). The threat
posed by the PKI in turn played a major role in shaping the characterof the New
Order regime that came to power in the late 1960s in the wake of massive massacres
of actual and alleged PKI supporters in the countryside.
Administrative reform under the New Order has taken the form of political
purging, together with militarizing and streamlining the bureaucracyand ensuring
the discipline and allegiance of civil servants (Emmerson 1978). Measures ostensibly
designed to ensure bureaucraticloyalty serve in practice to ensure the dominance of
Golkar, the electoral machine of the government.7 The class base of Golkar and the
New Order thus consists primarily of the priyayi bureaucraticelite and is, as Benedict
Anderson observes, very similar to that of the defunct PartaiNasional Indonesia(PNI),
the nationalist party from which Sukarnodrew his main support: "[The] key difference
is that Golkar articulates the interests of the state-qua-state, and the PNI merely the
interests of the class from which many functionaries of the state have been drawn.
In effect that class has been told that its interests will be served only through the
mediation of the apparat"(Anderson 1983:492).
The peculiar class chatacter of the state has given rise to a distinctive set of
relations with both foreign and domestic capital. In its initial phases the New Order
actively sought foreign capital. Since 1974, when oil revenues eased Indonesian de-
pendence on external resources, foreign capital has been regulated by a new set of

7Golkar is an acronym for Golongankarya (functional groups). For a discussion of how

Golkar is organized and used by the New Order, see Emmerson (1978) and Anderson (1983).

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260 GILLIAN HART

restrictions that in effect provide strategically placed groups within the apparatus
with opportunities for accumulation (Robison 1978). Another important locus of
accumulation was created in the 1950s when Sukarno handed nationalized Dutch
enterprises over to the army, which has continued to control a number of strategic
sectors such as rice and oil.
To the extent that an urban bourgeoisie emerged during the colonial period, it
consisted of orthodox Muslim tradersand petty industrialists, who have always played
a very peripheral role and whose enterprises were all but decimated by the inflow of
foreign capital in the early phases of the New Order. Despite considerable rhetoric
surrounding the development of pribumi(indigenous) enterprise, policy has in effect
been directed toward ensuring that accumulation is conducted under the auspices of
state patronage. This strategy has given rise to a small group of client capitalists
whose position hinges almost entirely on personal connections to patrons within the
state apparatus (Robison 1978).
The New Order'sagrarianstrategy consists of two chief elements: (a) maintaining
control over the rural sector and preventing the resurgence of political mobilization
and (b) increasing rice production and procurement. To appreciate the profound im-
pact of this strategy on different ruralgroups, we need to examine the shifts in agrarian
structure over the course of the colonial and early post-independence periods.
The most widely held view of Javanese agrarian structure, alluded to in the
introduction, is that of "sharedpoverty"(Geertz 1963). According to this view, Dutch
colonial rule facilitated resource extraction from the peasantry "without changing
fundamentally the structure of indigenous society" (Geertz 1963:47) but rather rein-
forcing its inherently egalitarian features. A growing body of historical evidence sum-
marized by White (1983) is pointing instead to the emergence of new and qualitatively
different structures over the course of the colonial period. In particular, this evidence
reveals ways in which strategically placed rural groups were able to benefit from
colonial policy, to strengthen their position vis-a-vis less privileged groups, and to
engage in accumulation.8
The PKI's strategy of agrarianmobilization during the early 1960s, cast in the
context of extreme political and administrative chaos, placed the rural elite in an
increasingly beleaguered position. It was confronted by growing insurrection from
below, together with the disintegration of the bloated and demoralized civil service.
Nevertheless, control over the most strategic resource-rice-must have been a
source of considerable power in this period of mega-inflation.
The decimation of the PKI and the imposition of tight adminstrative and military
control over the rural sector by the New Order were clearly in the general interests
of the rural elite, as was the termination of the land reform program that the PKI
had used in support of its strategy. There are, however, a number of other ways in
which actions by the state clearly reflect the subordinate position of rural society as
a whole in the larger system. The most obvious example is the powerful antagonism
between rural producers and the state that suffused rice policy in the early phases of
the New Order. In principle, an extractive policy toward the rural sector need not
necessarily entail alienating dominant rural groups, but there are no indications that
the state made any concessions toward the largest producers before about 197 1.
Many features of agrarian policy in Indonesia become far clearer when seen as
part of a process by which those in control of the state have attempted to co-opt and

8 This is not to suggest that differentiation was a linear process. For example, both the
Great Depression and the Japanese occupation are likely to have had a leveling effect on
Javanese rural society; see Hart 1986a.

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 261
incorporatethe rural elite into the apparatus(Hart 1986a). This process has involved
extending concessions to dominant rural groups, while also tightening control over
them. Accordingly, even though members of the rural elite have been the recipients
of considerable benefits since the early 1970s, they do not constitute a base of support
for the New Order in the sense of being in a position to influence the policy process.
By the same token, although there are numerous instances of the state's acting in
ways that reveal and reinforce the subordinate position of the rural elite in the wider
political-economic system, the relationship of this group to the state is not unam-
biguously antagonistic.
The massive political-administrative and economic transformationbrought about
by the New Order regime in the late 1960s sheds considerable light on changing
agrarian relations, which, as we have seen, are characterized by the resurgence of
exclusionary labor arrangements. The rationale derives from the way in which the
exclusionary mechanism, which is an essential feature of kedokan-typearrangements,
helps enhance labor discipline. I suggest that in the early to mid-1960s, the PKI
strategy of mobilizing the poorer peasantry tended to undermine exclusionary ar-
rangements. In some areas it appearsthat Gerwani (the women's organization of the
PKI) managed to outlaw kedokan.Even where this did not happen, the internal char-
acteristics of exclusionary arrangements, discussed earlier, are such that they are less
likely to appear in conditions where political mobilization enhances the relative bar-
gaining power of workers (Hart 1986c). When employers are subject to organized
pressure from below, exclusionary strategies are simply less feasible. In a situation
of surplus labor, the open harvest can be seen less as a "traditional"poverty-sharing
institution than as a ratherdefensive effort on the part of large landownersto maintain
social stability.
Viewing labor arrangements in this way offers a clear explanation of why the
type of clamping down on agrarianorganization that occurred in the late 1960s was
accompanied by a sudden rise in kedokan.The militarization of the bureaucracy,
together with depoliticization at the village level, contained any threat of organized
reaction from below and facilitated the emergence of arrangementsthat enhance labor
discipline by extending preferential terms to some workers while deliberately ex-
cluding others.
Although the particular forms of labor arrangementshave continued to exhibit
remarkable flexibility in response to changing circumstances, the balance of power
has shifted decisively in favor of the large landowning class. At the same time, how-
ever, the relationship of dominant rural groups to the state remains complex and
contradictory, especially as declining oil revenues have circumscribed the state's ca-
pacity to extend patronage.

Bangladesh

The strategic positions occupied by military officers in the Bangladeshi govern-

ment after the assassination of Sheik Mujibur Rahman in 1975 led some observers
to draw analogies between the regime of President Ziaur Rahman and that of General
Suharto in Indonesia (e.g., Franda 1982:278). Such comparisons seemed even more
apposite when the military officers who succeeded Zia after his assassination sought
advice from their Indonesian counterparts.
These apparent similarities in the form of government mask what may be crucial
differences between the two state structures. The peculiar history of Bangladesh-
which includes its position as a relatively neglected backwaterduring colonial times,

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262 GILLIAN HART

the departure of dominant Hindus at the time of partition in 1947, and the ways
Pakistan exploited East Bengal yet simultaneously attempted to co-opt and partly
also to create strategic groups-has meant that, in contrast to Indonesia, a stable
power structure has failed to emerge: "The relations of dominance and dependency,
which over the years define the relationship between the owners of property and the
exploited classes, has never consolidated itself" (Sobhan 1980a: 19; see also Hossain
1979). Consequently, the defining characteristic of the Bangladeshi state is its in-
herent instability, the sources of which constitute major divergences from Alavi's
model as well as from the highly centralized structure of state power in Indonesia.
In the first place, for a variety of historically specific reasons, the military and
the bureaucracydo not act in concert. Unlike Pakistan, where the bureaucracyhas
military backing, and Indonesia, where the bureaucracyhas been penetrated and
subsumed by the military, relations between the military and the bureaucracy in
Bangladesh tend to be distinctly antagonistic. Major conflicts also exist among dif-
ferent factions within the military and the bureaucracy(Lifschultz 1979; Franda 1982;
Maniruzzaman 1982).
Second, the process of mediation among different interests is far more complex
than that outlined by Alavi in the case of Pakistan and is also very tightly constrained
by the extremely limited resource base. In the 1960s Ayub Khan sought to build a
base of support in East Bengal by extending state patronage to selected groups. In
the post-liberation era, the Awami Leagueunder Sheik Mujib incorporatedboth elitist
and populist elements, and these contradictory forces were the source of tremendous
tension within the Awami League and between it and the bureaucracy. In contrast,
the regime of Ziaur Rahman, who came to power in 1975, sought "to accommodate
only a small segment of [the petty bourgeoisie] and to give them an adequate and
durable stake in the bourgeois system" (Sobhan 1980a: 19).
This system is inherently unstable, since extremely scarce resources mean that
only a very small segment of the petty bourgeoisie can be accommodated within it.
Accordingly, "the remainderof the class constitutes a standing political constituency
for mobilising the discontented petty bourgeoisie and deprived masses against the
regime of the moment" (Sobhan 1980a: 19).
On the face of it, the Bangladeshi ruralelite occupies a far more powerful position
in relation to the larger system than does its Javanese counterpart. In contrast to the
dichotomy-dating from precolonial times-between the Javanese bureaucraticelite
and the peasantry, those who control the state in Bangladesh have emerged far more
directly from the peasantry. Moreover, the power of dominant rural groups appears
to have been increasing:

The state, in colonialtimes almostobscuredby layerupon layerof zamindariland-

lords, came much closer to the peasantryin Pakistantimes, and again after the
breakingawayof Bangladesh.Thus, while the state becamea smallerand weaker
unit, a processof compression
could be observed:the distancebetweenpeasantryand
state decreasedand the powerof dominantgroupsvis-a-visthe state increased.This
processcontributedto the strengtheningof thesegroupswithin the peasantry.(van
Schendel1981:277-78)

The process of empowering dominant ruralgroups has been a highly uneven one,
however. The Stolypin-type reforms instituted by Ayub Khan during the 1960s in
the form of basic democracies patronized a narrow group from within the class of
surplus farmers, thereby arousing sharpantagonisms: "Within the ranksof the surplus
farmers, those who were not directly benefitted by state patronage sought to identify

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 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND THE STATE 263
with nationalist forces in order to acquire control over the instruments of patronage
and surplus extraction within the villages" (Ahmed and Sobhan 1980:69).
Further, it is questionable whether those who gained accessto power and influence
through the offices of the nationalist movement and the Awami League were able to
maintain their positions. Commenting on the downfall of the Awami League in 197 5,
Rehman Sobhan observes, "Those amongst the affluent classes who had prospered
were being arrested, cut off from their access to patronage, denied political protection
for criminal acts and overnight being driven from a position of affluence back to their
more modest origins" (Sobhan 1980b: 117).
The subsequent regime built its support on a far narrowerbase within the urban
bourgeoisie but nonetheless depended on powerful rural groups. It seems, however,
that before his assassination in 1981 Ziaur Rahman was engaged in a major restruc-
turing of agrarianpower. By shifting power from the union (subdistrict) to the village
level, Zia was trying to disassemble the Awami League machine in the countryside
and create new vested interests (see, for example, Franda 1982).
This macro-level instability and the shifting balance of power at the local level
associated with it exemplify the problems that members of the Bangladeshi rural elite
confront in consolidating their position. In Java, by contrast, access to the resources
and patronage of the state is shaped in a much more direct way by forces external to
the village. Although power struggles within the rural elite certainly exist, they are
generally far more muted and less likely to involve the overt mobilization of political
support within ruralsociety. By the same token, those who do gain accessto privileged
positions are in a far more secure position as long as they demonstrate their allegiance
to the state.
The second related reason why the Javanese rural elite is subject to much less
pressure from below stems from the far more direct and active way in which the
military and the bureaucracyare engaged in maintaining agrarian law and order.
Those in positions of influence at the local level in Java can rely on the coercive
capacity of the state to contain any challenge from below. The Bangladeshi rural elite
confronts, by and large, a far more precarious situation for, as Wood (1981) has
observed, the post-liberation state in Bangladesh has not been effective in maintaining
law and order in either its repressive or its ideological forms.
This analysis of the inherent instability of the political-economic system in Ban-
gladesh suggests two important reasonswhy patronage relations have tended to per-
sist. First, particularly to the extent that there are struggles within the dominant
group, mobilizing political support from within rural society is likely to be a key
element in any strategy to acquire or sustain an eminent position. Van Schendel, for
instance, describes the intense competition in the Comilla village of Dhoneshor be-
tween two new power holders who rose to prominence after the 1971 liberation war:
"By the mid-1970's each of them had established a shaky following in one of the
two village paras [hamlets]. They frantically tried to lure new clients by offering them
employment in their new business enterprises, and they invested part of their urban
profits in 'good works' and displays of conspicuous consumption in Dhoneshor which
were calculated to strengthen their own position in the village" (van Schendel
1981:216). The nature and extent of factional struggles obviously reflect historically
specific local circumstances. Although the particularmanifestations of such struggles
are undoubtedly subject to wide variations, the larger context is inherently conducive
to more powerful groups' attempting to forge a base of support within village society.
In contrast, the position of the Javanese rural elite is almost entirely dependent on
its relations with supravillage authorities.

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264 GILLIAN HART

The other important difference between Java and Bangladesh-the state's in-
volvement in maintaining agrarianlaw and order-also helps explain the persistence
of vertical patronage relations in Bangladesh. Viewed in the context of limitations
on the coercive capacity of the Bangladeshi state, the perpetuation of patronage re-
lations can be seen in part as an effort by dominant rural groups to develop and
maintain mechanisms of social control within rural society.

Conclusions

That agrarian processes must be understood in the context of larger political-

economic forces may appearas a truism, yet it is one that typically drops out of sight
in debates over agrarianstructure. Part of my purpose has been to illustrate the dangers
of such oversight. By drawing on comparative material from regions of Java and
Bangladesh that sharemany technological and demographic similarities, I have shown
how explicit attention to structuresof state power and national accumulation is central
to understanding the forces at work within rural society. In addition, the dramatic
contrasts between Java and Bangladesh in the structure and exercise of state power
provide new lenses for bringing agrarianprocesses in each area into sharper focus.
The comparative study of Java and Bangladesh also serves a broader analytical
purpose. By directing our attention to the historical analysis of the exercise of power
at different levels of society, it lays the basis for understanding the mechanisms by
which macro forces not only influence local-level processes but are also affected by
them. Although the present study defines only the broad contours of this analytical
terrain, it suggests the insights to be gained from more careful exploration.

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