JAC Paper RR

Journal
Journal
306 of R.
Agrarian
of Agrarian
Change,
Change,
Ramakumar Vol.
Vol.
4 No.
6 No.
1 and
3, July
2, January
2006, pp.
and306–345.
April 2004, pp. 00–00.
Public Action, Agrarian Change and the

Standard of Living of Agricultural Workers:
A Study of a Village in Kerala
R. RAMAKUMAR
This article describes and analyses the ways in which public action in the
State of Kerala in India helped to transform the standard of living of hired
workers in agriculture. Specifically, the article analyses the extent of land and
asset ownership, access to credit, access to social security schemes and food
distribution systems and the conditions of housing and sanitation of households
participating in agricultural wage work. The article is based as a case study of
Morazha desam in the Malabar region of Kerala, which had one of the most
oppressive agrarian systems in India before 1956–57. In 1955, another eco-
nomist had studied Morazha desam; this study was conducted before one of the
most important interventions through public action – land reform – took place
in Malabar. The 1955 study had characterized the conditions of life of agri-
cultural workers as ‘wretched in the extreme’. The present article documents
the significant transformation in the quality of life that took place in Morazha
after 1955, through a weakening of the factors that led to ‘wretched’ conditions
of life in the earlier period. The destruction of traditional agrarian power by
the state through land reform was the most critical step in this process.
Keywords: Kerala, agricultural workers, land reforms, public action,
standard of living
INTRODUCTION
The development experience of the State of Kerala in India is widely docu-
mented in the literature (Centre for Development Studies 1975; Ramachandran
1996). The key feature of the development experience of Kerala is the achieve-
ment of high levels of social indicators even while per capita incomes were low.1
R. Ramakumar is Assistant Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai – 400 088,
India. e-mail: ramakumarr@gmail.com
The present article is drawn from the author’s PhD thesis submitted to the Indian Statistical
Institute, Kolkata. The author is grateful to V. K. Ramachandran, Madhura Swaminathan, Terence
J. Byres and Pallavi Chavan for their comments on earlier drafts of the article.
1
Kerala’s life expectancy at birth is 70.4 years for women, the infant mortality rate is 14 per 1000
live births and the literacy rate among women above the age of seven is 88 per cent (GoK 2004).
Respectively, the corresponding figures for India as a whole are 61 years, 66 per 1000 live births and
52 per cent (GoI 2004). The median number of years of schooling of rural men and women in Kerala
was 7.8 and 7.4 respectively in 1999, while the corresponding figures for India were 4.6 and 0
(Chandrasekhar et al. 2001).
© 2006 The Author.

Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Henry Bernstein and Terence J. Byres.
Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 6 No. 3, July 2006, pp. 306–345.
Public Action, Agrarian Change and Agricultural Workers 307
The most important lesson that development economists have drawn from
Kerala’s development experience is that the attainment of high levels of social
indicators need not wait till an economy generates adequate resources through
economic growth to finance programmes for social development (Sen 1990).
Kerala’s development achievements were mainly the result of public action
over many years (Ramachandran 1996). This article describes and analyses, at the
level of one village in Kerala, the ways in which public action helped to raise the
standard of living of one of the most economically vulnerable sections in rural
areas – hired workers in agriculture.
Agriculture constitutes the largest informal sector in the Indian economy.
Rural workers in agriculture constitute the largest segment of India’s work force.
In the absence of any significant land reform measures, a large section of the
rural work force is landless and asset-poor; extreme concentration of land owner-
ship and use persists. Illiteracy, lack of schooling, poor conditions of health and
sanitation and malnourishment continue to be important problems in Indian
villages. Agricultural workers have insufficient and uncertain number of days of
employment. Nearly half of the members of agricultural labour households in
India were below the official income-poverty line in 1999–2000. Informal credit
is the dominant source of credit in rural India; agricultural workers pay unrea-
sonably high rates of interest for consumption loans from the informal sector. In
sum, the standard of living of agricultural workers has remained very backward,
and deprivation and economic vulnerability mark their lives.2 Even after 50 years
of independence, the Indian state has failed to institute a credible social security
system to help rural workers tide over crises of livelihood.
The significantly backward standards of living of agricultural workers in India
reflect the inadequate efforts to address the basic socio-economic problems of
class-, caste- and gender-based exploitation in rural areas. At the same time, in
Kerala, public action was largely successful in weakening the barriers of class,
caste and gender in the early stages of development itself.3 From the late
nineteenth and the early twentieth century, social reform movements started
questioning the relevance of traditional values and attitudes with respect to caste,
2
There is a host of literature in India on these topics. Mohan Rao concluded in a review article that
‘without radical changes in the distribution of control over land and other means of production . . . poor
peasants’ and labourers’ livelihoods remain precarious as they continue to carry land leases at very
low returns to their labour, often pay high interest rates especially for consumption loans, and face
insufficient and uncertain employment in the labour market’ (Rao 1999, 243). Writing about changes
in a Tamil Nadu village over quarter of a century, Ramachandran et al. (2002, 469) noted that
‘chronic employment insecurity, low wages, very high levels of poverty and indebtedness and
backward standards of living in general continue to be the lot of manual worker households’. See
among others, Byres (1981), Patnaik (1985), Ramachandran (1990), Bardhan (1983), Reddy (1985),
Sen (1998), Bhalla (1999), Chavan (2002), Rawal (2003), Ramachandran and Swaminathan (2005).
3
By definition, public action refers not only to the activities of the State, but also the ‘social actions
taken by members of the public’, which are both ‘collaborative’, through ‘civic co-operation’, and
‘adversarial’, through ‘political opposition and social criticism’ (Dreze and Sen 1989, vii). In the
framework of the Dreze and Sen definition, public action includes actions from above (actions of the
State) and below (actions of class and mass organizations, political parties, individuals and non-
governmental groups).
© 2006 The Author.

308 R. Ramakumar
the status of women, education and health. Kerala’s first government in 1956–7
was a Communist government, one of the first in the world to be elected through
the ballot box and a true inheritor of the progressive traditions of early social
reform movements. This government’s radical land reform set the pace for social
development in the period that followed. The state invested heavily in education
and health, established a subsidized food distribution system, initiated a number
of minimum social security measures and promoted cooperative institutions.4
This article deals with the impact of public action on different aspects of the
standard of living of rural manual labour households in Kerala. Specifically, it
analyses the extent of land and asset ownership, access to credit, access to social
security schemes and food distribution systems and the conditions of housing of
households participating in agricultural wage work. It is based on a case study of
a desam (a sub-division of a revenue village) in the Malabar region of Kerala –
Morazha. Prior to the implementation of land reform in Kerala, Thomas W.
Shea had conducted a detailed socio-economic study of Morazha desam, in which
agrarian relations occupied a central place (see Shea 1955a, 1955b). In the present
article, using Shea’s work, I also try to highlight certain historical features of
change with respect to the standard of living of agricultural workers in Morazha
desam.
A contemporary study of the standard of living of agricultural workers in the
Malabar region of Kerala is of special significance and interest. When the princely
States of Travancore and Cochin and the British Indian district of Malabar (which
was part of the Madras Presidency) were brought together to form the State of
Kerala in 1956, there were distinct differences in the state of agrarian relations in
the three regions. Capitalist forms of agriculture had advanced more in the princely
states (particularly Travancore) than in Malabar. Within Kerala, Malabar was
where a most backward form of janmi landlordism persisted, and where the
agrarian structure was characterized by, among other things, complex forms
of sub-infeudation of holdings and rack-renting. Parts of Malabar, remarked a
British observer, had ‘the unenviable reputation of being the most rack-rented
country on the face of the earth’ (Varghese 1970, 78).
Agricultural workers occupied a special place within this agrarian regime in
Malabar. Under the economic domination of landlords, agricultural workers
were subjected to different types of social (particularly caste-based) and eco-
nomic exploitation. The most backward forms of unfreedom marked their lives;
they were treated as chattels, and were subjected to onerous forms of bondage.
Untouchability was practised against them on a wide scale. As Ronald Herring
noted, ‘landlordism . . . was inextricably tied to a social system that imposed
4
Following Ahmad et al. (1991), my interest in the term ‘social security’ is related to ‘the direct role
that public action can play in reducing human deprivation and eliminating vulnerability’ (1991, viii).
A wide range of policy instruments can contribute to this role; they include land reforms, employment
generation, public provisioning of health care and education, food subsidies, and social insurance
schemes. My focus in this article is on policy instruments that contribute to increasing the entitlements
of the population, or increasing the command of the population over commodities in order to
overcome deprivation and vulnerability and raise the quality of life.
© 2006 The Author.

disabilities and indignities on the lowest orders which were extreme, severe and
rigid even by Indian standards’ (Herring 1983, 158).
The socio-economic status of agricultural workers in Morazha desam in the
1950s reflected the general backwardness of the standard of living in Malabar. In
fact, Thomas Shea wrote in his study of Morazha in 1955 that ‘economic condi-
tions in Morazha are unusually bad even for Malabar, which is economically one
of the worst-off districts in India’ (Shea 1955b, 1033). Food policy during World
War II had led to an acute shortage of food in Malabar district.5 A cholera
epidemic of 1943 also took a substantial toll on lives. Morazha itself was badly
affected by food shortages and the cholera epidemic (see Sivaswamy 1946). When
Shea conducted his study, the shortage of food was continuing. Shea wrote
that the worst affected sections of Morazha’s population were the agricultural
workers, whose lives were characterized by extreme poverty and deprivation.
Malnutrition had reduced drastically the length of the working day of an agricul-
tural labourer. Shea noted that before the War workers used to work from 7 am
to 5.30 pm; after the War, physical weakening due to malnutrition had reduced
it to 8 am to 12.30 pm (Shea 1955b, 1031). Shea described living conditions of
agricultural workers in 1955 as ‘wretched in the extreme’ (1955b, 1031).
While the celebrated social sector achievements of Kerala had roots in the
State’s history, they were also, ‘in an important sense, results of public action in
post-1957 Kerala’ (Ramachandran 1996, 325). The most important element of
public action after 1956–7 was the implementation of land reforms across all
regions of Kerala, initiated by the Communist Party of India-led government.
Land reforms in the State, which have been described as being ‘the most
comprehensive and far-reaching reforms of their kind in contemporary India’
(Herring 1980, A59), represented a historic agrarian transition and a radical shift
in the balance of rural power. The impact of land reforms on agrarian relations
and the personal freedom and self-dignity of agricultural workers may be said to
have been most dramatic in Malabar, where the erstwhile agrarian system was
most backward and oppressive. This impact went beyond changes in land tenure;
land reforms also became the ‘centrepiece of the programme for social and eco-
nomic progress’ (Centre for Development Studies 1975, 59) for which Kerala is
justly famous.6
Land reforms in Kerala had three basic components (see Centre for Develop-
ment Studies 1975; Oommen 1975; George and Raju 1980; Herring 1983; Raj
and Tharakan 1983; Radhakrishnan 1989; Franke 1993; Ramachandran 1996).
First, security of tenure was to be provided to tenants. All evictions undertaken
after the formation of the State were held to be illegal. The government took
5
Some scholars have called the food crisis in Malabar in the 1940s a ‘famine’ situation; at least 1 per
cent of the population of Malabar died due to food shortage (Ramachandran 1996, 245).
6
As has been noted in the literature, land reforms in Kerala were the result of many years of class
struggle by peasants and agricultural workers. As Richard Franke (1993, 123) noted, ‘Kerala’s land
reform law was the outcome of more than a century of spontaneous rebellion, organising, petition
signing, marching, meetings, strikes, battles with police and landlord goon squads, election
campaigns, and parliamentary debates.’
© 2006 The Author.

310 R. Ramakumar
ownership of all tenanted land and the payment of rent on that land was stopped.
Secondly, ceilings were set on ownership holdings of land. Ceiling-surplus land
was to be taken over by the state and redistributed. Thirdly, landless agricultural
workers were to be given ownership rights over homestead plots.
There is general consensus among scholars that land reform in Kerala was
successful with respect to tenancy abolition and the distribution of homestead
lands. Between 1957 and 1993, about 2.8 million tenants were conferred owner-
ship rights (or had their rights protected) and about 0.6 million hectares of
land accrued to them (Appu 1996). A significant number of landless agricultural
workers received ownership rights over the plots of homesteads. Between 1957
and 1996, about 528,000 households were issued homestead ownership certificates
(SPB 1997). However, there is also a consensus that Kerala’s land reform was not
successful with respect to acquiring and distributing ceiling-surplus land to the
landless. Only 1.47 per cent of the total operated area had been redistributed
between 1957 and 1993 (Appu 1996). As a result, the component of land reform
that directly benefited landless agricultural workers was the distribution of
homestead land.
The failure in successfully distributing ceiling-surplus land to the landless was
mainly due to the significant opposition that the Communist ministries faced
from the Union government, from the judiciary and from landlord-supported
political parties in the State. In 1959, the first Communist ministry was dismissed
by the Union government before the President of India signed the State’s historic
land reform bill. Non-Communist ministries that followed, with the support
of landlord classes, successfully diluted every radical ceiling provision in the
land reform legislation. With years passing without any serious implementation,
landowners resorted to massive land transfers through changes in ownership and
possession.
The provision to distribute homestead land to agricultural workers was added
on later to land reform laws once it had become clear that the extent of ceiling-
surplus land available would be smaller than expected. This addition was made by
the second Communist ministry that came to power in 1967. This ministry, led
by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), drafted the State’s most comprehen-
sive land reform law – The Kerala Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1970. This
Act gave landless agricultural workers the option of purchasing 10 cents of land
in panchayats or townships, for which they were required to pay only 25 per cent
of the market value in normal cases and 12.5 per cent of the market value if the
landowner possessed land above the ceiling. Fifty per cent of the amount finally
payable was subsidized by the State, with the remaining 50 per cent to be paid
in 12 annual instalments (which were never paid). Thus, even when some com-
ponents of land reform were not successfully implemented, most agricultural
worker households in the State received plots of homestead land free of cost.
Apart from land reforms, the State in Kerala also initiated a number of welfare
measures for the benefit of the rural poor after 1956–7. A series of laws and
public programmes sought to bring agricultural workers within the ambit
of systems of universal school education, health delivery and social security
© 2006 The Author.

assistance. Kerala was the first, and the only, State in India to attempt to bring
agricultural workers out of the informal sector by actually legislating with
respect to the conditions of employment of different sections of rural workers.
The Kerala Agricultural Workers’ Act (KAWA) of 1974 was India’s first compre-
hensive legislation for agricultural workers. It sought to give statutory sanction
to minimum wages, to regulate working hours and working conditions and
to establish tripartite mechanisms to settle labour disputes. In 1980, the Act was
amended to include a scheme to pay pensions to retired agricultural labourers over
the age of 60 years. Kerala has the most efficient food distribution system among
all Indian States that provides basic food grains at subsidized prices. Kerala has
also the most widespread network of cooperative credit societies in India.
The aim of this article is to examine the role of land reform and the host of
public policies discussed above in raising the standard of living of agricultural
workers in Morazha desam.
THE STUDY AREA AND SURVEY METHODS

Morazha desam is situated in the Taliparamba taluk of the Kannur district of
Kerala. This field study was undertaken as part of my larger study of the socio-
economic characteristics of agricultural workers in Morazha.
Two factors that guided my selection of Morazha desam for study are of
relevance here. The first was that Morazha belonged to a region in Malabar
about which there is much published information on the evolution of agrarian
relations. In particular, socio-economic conditions among agricultural workers
in Morazha were part of a larger study on agrarian relations in Malabar by
Thomas W. Shea in 1955 (Shea 1955a, 1955b). As noted earlier, Shea’s study of
agrarian relations in Morazha constitutes an important benchmark in my assess-
ment of the contemporary conditions of standards of living in Morazha.
The second factor was that the cropping pattern in Morazha was fairly repre-
sentative of the cropping pattern in Kerala as a whole. Mixed cultivation of a
variety of perennial and annual crops around a core of paddy cultivation was the
main feature of Morazha’s cropping pattern. The most important among these
perennial and annual crops were coconut, arecanut, cashew, pepper, banana and
vegetables (including tubers).
The data used in this article are from a detailed census-type survey that
covered all households in the desam that had two characteristics. The first
characteristic was the presence of at least one worker in the household who had
worked for wages in agriculture in 2000–1 and the second was that a major share
of the income of the household came from rural manual labour. In other words,
the database for this article covers all households in the desam that earned at least
a part of their incomes from agricultural wage work and a major part of their
incomes from some form of rural manual labour. There were 162 such house-
holds; I refer to them in this article as ‘manual labour households involved in
agricultural wage work’. Such a selection of households became necessary, as a
large share of the total income of the desam residents came from non-agricultural
© 2006 The Author.

312 R. Ramakumar
sources. The census survey was conducted in July–August 2001, and the reference
period for the survey was the agricultural year of 2000–1.
LEVELS OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME-POVERTY: KERALA AND

MORAZHA
Levels of Income-poverty among Agricultural Labour Households in Kerala

In the analysis of income-poverty in this sub-section, I have used data from the
38th (1983) and 50th (1993–4) rounds of the ‘Survey of Consumer Expenditure’
of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).7 I have not used data from
the most recent 55th (1999–2000) round of the Survey of Consumer Expendi-
ture, as it has been pointed out that the estimates for the 1999–2000 round are not
comparable with the earlier rounds (Sen 2002). Sen and Himanshu (2004) have
estimated corrected estimates of the head-count ratio (HCR) for all rural house-
holds at the 55th round, but not for agricultural labour households.
Two major conclusions emerge from a review of the literature on the estima-
tion of income-poverty among agricultural labour households in India (see
Mahendra Dev 1988; Mahendra Dev et al. 1991; Tendulkar et al. 1993; Sen 1998;
Sundaram 2001). First, the levels of poverty among agricultural labour house-
holds are higher than the levels of poverty among all the other occupational
categories of households. Secondly, in the total number of rural poor in India,
the largest share is constituted by the members of agricultural labour households
among the shares of members of all the other occupational groups.
The results of my analysis in Table 1 show that more than half – 56 per cent
– of agricultural labour households in India were below the poverty line in 1993–
4. The HCR for all rural households in India in 1993–4, computed under
different methodologies, varied from 37 to 40 per cent (Sen 2002). As Table 1
shows, the HCR among agricultural labour households was not just high in
levels, but also showed a very slow decline over the years.
The achievements of Kerala in reducing levels of rural poverty are exemplary
in this context. An analysis of levels and changes in rural poverty in Kerala
brings out three important results.
First, the decline of rural poverty as a whole in Kerala, especially after the
late 1970s, was faster than the decline of rural poverty at the national level.8
Between 1973–4 and 1999–2000, HCR for all households in rural India declined
from 56.4 per cent to 29.2 per cent; in the same period, the HCR for rural Kerala
7
As secondary data on household incomes are not available in India, the proxy used in the estima-
tion of poverty is consumption expenditure, which is collected by the NSSO in its quinquennial
rounds. The Government of India uses a calorie-based procedure to fix the poverty line as the
minimum level of income that would enable a person to purchase a food basket, which is equivalent
to a calorie content of 2400 in rural areas and 2100 in urban areas (see GoI 1993).
8
Dutt (1998, 14) examined State-wise changes in rural poverty between 1957–8 and 1993–4, and
concluded that ‘Kerala had the highest trend rate of decline in the head-count index at 2.4 per cent per
year.’ He added that ‘Kerala progressed from having the second-highest incidence of rural poverty to
the fourth-lowest over the same period’ (1998, 17). Tendulkar et al. (1993) computed HCR, PGI and
© 2006 The Author.

Table 1. Head-count ratios for income poverty for members of agricultural labour
households, State-wise, India, 1983 and 1993–4
State Head-count ratios
1983 1993–4
Jammu & Kashmir 45.3 (6) 13.0 (1)

Andhra Pradesh 38.3 (4) 24.9 (2)
Punjab 29.4 (2) 31.2 (3)
Gujarat 41.5 (5) 33.5 (4)
Kerala 55.1 (9) 37.3 (5)
Rajastan 46.0 (7) 42.3 (6)
Karnataka 51.8 (8) 45.0 (7)
Tamil Nadu 70.5 (14) 47.3 (8)
Himachal Pradesh 25.6 (1) 49.8 (9)
Haryana 35.0 (3) 55.9 (10)
Madhya Pradesh 68.3 (13) 56.0 (11)
Maharashtra 65.5 (11) 57.7 (12)
West Bengal 86.9 (17) 59.7 (13)
Uttar Pradesh 65.5 (11) 63.9 (14)
Assam 57.7 (10) 65.0 (15)
Orissa 83.2 (15) 68.0 (16)
Bihar 85.0 (16) 78.1 (17)
India 65.1 55.8
Note: Figures in parentheses denote rank for the State in that year among all States.
Source: Computed from the reports of Rural Labour Enquiry, various volumes.
declined from 59.2 per cent to 10.7 per cent (GoI 2002a; Sen and Himanshu
2004).
Secondly, along with decline in overall rural poverty, the HCR for agricultural
labour households also declined faster in Kerala than in India. According to
one estimate, the HCR for agricultural labour households in India and Kerala
were almost the same in 1977–8 (Kannan 1995).9 However, by 1993–4, the
differences in the HCRs for agricultural labour households between Kerala and
India had widened considerably. In 1993–4, the HCR among agricultural labour
households in India was 56 per cent, while the HCR for agricultural labour
households in Kerala was 37 per cent (Table 1). Kerala’s rank (in the ascending
SPGI for 17 States between 1970–1 and 1987–8. They concluded that ‘in at least one of the four time
periods, each of the 17 States enjoyed a reduction in all the indicators. One State, Kerala, enjoyed a
reduction in all the four indicators over all the four successive time-periods’ (1993, 177). Kannan
(1995) also noted the declining rural poverty ratios in Kerala in the 1980s and argued that there was
also a decline in chronic poverty (the share of population in the lowest 20 per cent with respect to
consumption expenditure), the incidence of which could have been less than 20 per cent in 1987–8.
9
Using a different methodology, Kannan (1995) found that the HCR for agricultural labour
households in India was 56 per cent and in Kerala was 55 per cent in 1977–8.
© 2006 The Author.

314 R. Ramakumar
order of poverty) improved from ninth to fifth among the 17 States examined
between 1983 and 1993–4.
Thirdly, within Kerala, the difference between the HCRs for all rural
households and agricultural labour households narrowed considerably between
1983 and 1993–4. In 1983, the HCRs for rural households and agricultural labour
households in Kerala were 39 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively. In 1993–4,
these HCRs were 25.8 per cent and 37.3 per cent.
While the decline in levels of rural poverty in Kerala is commendable, even
the existing levels of poverty among agricultural labour households are high at
an absolute level and when compared to other States such as Andhra Pradesh,
Gujarat and Punjab.10 The number of poor in agricultural labour households in
Kerala was 1.9 million in 1993–4. It has been found that among the total number
of rural poor in Kerala belonging to all occupational groups, members of agri-
cultural labour households constituted the largest share (see Kannan 1995). In
other words, the problem of absolute income-poverty continued to persist among
agricultural labour households in Kerala in the 1990s.
Levels of Income-poverty, Manual Labour Households Involved in Agricultural Wage

Work, Morazha, 2000–1
My analysis of the incomes of the 162 manual labour households involved in
agricultural wage work in Morazha desam showed that 42.5 per cent of the
households were income-poor in 2000–1. For this analysis, I used the updated
official poverty line for rural Kerala in 2000–1 as the cut-off.
In sum, official data showed that levels of income poverty among agricultural
labour households declined in Kerala at a rate faster than the country, especially
after the mid-1970s. However, the absolute levels of poverty remained high in
1993–4. Village-level data from Morazha for all manual labour households in-
volved in agricultural wage work also showed that absolute levels of income-
poverty were high within this occupational group.
Given that the levels of absolute income poverty are high, one would nor-
mally expect the quality of life of these households to be very poor. However,
the available evidence from Morazha does not support this hypothesis. It is an
analysis of this evidence that constitutes the rest of this article.
10
The higher levels of poverty among agricultural labour households in Kerala compared to States
like Andhra Pradesh may be surprising at first sight. However, studies on levels of living in Kerala
have noted a few methodological points specific to Kerala that may have resulted in an overstating of
the actual levels of poverty. One of the arguments is that NSSO surveys may be underestimating the
levels of consumption in Kerala, as they do not account for all the components of the diversified diet
pattern such as home-produced tapioca and coconut (CDS 1975; Ramachandran 1996). Studies on the
contradictory relationship between the lower levels of consumption of cereals and better nutritional
outcomes in Kerala have noted a second factor. These studies argue that unlike in other Indian States,
the intra-household distribution of food may be more equitable in Kerala, with respect to gender (see
Swaminathan and Ramachandran 1999). Other scholars have argued that the utilization of nutrients
may have been better in Kerala compared to other States due to the more efficient interactions
between nutrition, awareness on health care and education. As a result, overall nutritional outcomes
from a given level of consumption may be better in Kerala than in other States.
© 2006 The Author.

PUBLIC ACTION AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF MANUAL

LABOUR HOUSEHOLDS INVOLVED IN AGRICULTURAL WAGE
WORK, MORAZHA
Land Reforms and Changes in Household Ownership of Land

Studies on social security in developing countries have emphasized that land
reforms constitute the most important and effective social security strategy for
the rural poor (see Ahmad and Hussain 1991; Osmani 1991; Guhan 1994). Osmani
(1991) notes that in developing economies, control over land and its produce is
crucial in ensuring security of livelihood for the poor. Ahmad and Hussain
(1991, 298–9), who studied the social security system in China, argued that
greater access to land after land reforms was an important factor that gave the
Chinese population ‘a degree of economic security which is rare in developing
countries’.11 In a review of homestead land distribution policies across countries,
Hanstad et al. (2002) noted that homesteads provided multiple benefits to the
beneficiary households ‘in terms of food, income, status and economic security’.
According to them, ownership of homestead plots also raised the creditworthiness
of households.
Two major assessments regarding the distribution of landholdings in Morazha
desam before land reforms emerge from available secondary data and Shea’s
study of Morazha in 1955.
First, the distribution of ownership landholdings was very unequal in Morazha.
My analysis of the village settlement survey of 1936 showed that about 3 per cent
of the landowners (who paid more than Rs 50 as assessment) owned about 52 per
cent of the land in the desam (Table 2). The Kadamberi devaswam (temple
management), situated just outside the limits of Morazha revenue village, was
the biggest landowner in the village. The devaswam was thus a powerful janmi
(landlord) in Morazha, but the landlord families of the village de facto controlled
all the land under the devaswam’s ownership.
In his analysis of the settlement report for Morazha desam of 1936, Thomas
Shea found that ‘eight devaswoms, or temples, hold the janmam, or proprietary
right to half of the land in the village. They pay more than 25 per cent of the land
revenue, and hold 1/3 of the wet lands. Four of these devaswoms are managed by
two of the five largest landholders in the village . . . The five largest janmies hold
47.5 per cent of wet lands, 49 per cent of all lands, and pay more than 40 per cent
of the total land revenue’ (Shea 1955a, 998).
Secondly, there was a strong correlation between the caste status of individuals
and their land ownership. Either the temple (whose lands were controlled by
caste Hindus) or the upper caste cultivators owned most of the land in the
desam. Data for the constituent parts of Andhur panchayat (which included
Morazha desam) from the settlement survey of 1936 showed that temples,
11
It would be wrong, however, to project land reforms only as an instrument of social security.
Land reform is also a propellant of growth in an economy through freeing the demand and supply
constraints and opening up the home market in rural areas.
© 2006 The Author.

316 R. Ramakumar
Table 2. Land assessment details, Morazha desam, 1936
Holdings assessed to Number (total) Extent (acres) Assessment (Rs. anas)
Rs 1 and less 67 29.1 37.6

Rs 1–10 150 191.9 530.5
Rs 10–30 32 182.9 546.1
Rs 30–50 9 101.7 337.5
Rs 50–100 5 134.3 364.0
Rs 100–250 3 254.8 505.0
Rs 50–500 1 163.4 352.1
Total 267 1058.11 2673.10
Note: The ‘landowner’ in the table could be a temple or an individual.

Source: Settlement survey of Morazha desam, 1936.
Table 3. Distribution of land ownership, Andhur panchayat, by caste of landowners,

1936
Landowners, by caste Area owned (in acres) Share of area owned (%)
Temple managements 1214.7 28.8

Brahmans 971.3 23.0
Nairs 1392.7 33.0
Tiyyas (Ezhavas) 176.6 4.2
Muslims 356.6 8.4
Others 112.6 2.6
Total 4224.5 100.0
Source: Andhur Panchayat (1996), Table 1.
Brahmans and Nairs (the upper castes) together owned about 85 per cent of land
(see Table 3). Tiyyas (the intermediate caste) were mainly tenants and owned
very little land, while Pulayas (the most oppressed caste) owned almost no
land.
Land reform in Morazha after 1956–7 put an end to both big landlordism and
upper caste domination in land ownership. My house-listing survey of all house-
holds in Morazha desam in 2001 showed major changes in the distribution of
household ownership of land compared to 1955. First, the extreme concentration
of landholdings that Thomas Shea had noted for 1955 had disappeared. On the
contrary, there was a predominance of small-sized holdings in Morazha in 2001.
About 83 per cent of the households owned less than 1 acre of land, and their
holdings accounted for about 43 per cent of the total area (Table 4). There were
only two households that owned more than 10 acres of land; their holdings
accounted for just 3 per cent of the total area.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 4. Distribution of number and area of household ownership holdings, by size-

classes, Morazha, 2001
Land size Number of Share of Area under Share in total

class (acres) households number (%) holdings (acres) area (%)
< 0.10 138 10.3 8.5 1.0

0.10–0.24 426 31.7 65.9 7.9
0.25–0.49 289 21.5 100.1 12.0
0.50–0.99 269 20.0 187.0 22.3
1.00–1.49 98 7.3 118.2 14.1
1.50–1.99 42 3.1 72.9 8.7
2.0–3.99 64 4.8 108.8 13.0
4.0–9.99 17 1.3 150.6 18.0
> 9.99 2 0.1 25.1 3.0
All size classes 1345 100.0 837.1 100.0
Note: Data on number and area of holdings in this table include homesteads.
Source: Survey data, 2001.
Table 5. Distribution of landownership across residents of Morazha desam, by caste

groups, 2001
Caste group Share in Area owned Share in total

population (%) (in acres) area (%)
Brahmans 0.5 12.2 1.6

Nairs 25.2 286.5 37.6
Tiyyas 34.5 301.5 39.6
Muslims 6.0 24.1 3.2
Pulayas 6.5 24.1 3.2
Others 27.3 113.4 14.9
All castes 100.0 761.8 100.0
The second important result that emerges is a major shift in the pattern of
ownership of land across caste groups. By 2001, the monopoly of landholdings
by Brahmins and Nairs (and temples controlled by them) had been considerably
weakened (Table 5). Caste Hindus owned only about 39 per cent (as opposed to
85 per cent in 1936) of the total area of land owned by the desam residents in
2001. It shows that large areas of land were transferred from Brahmans and
Nairs to Tiyyas, Pulayas and other oppressed caste groups through land reform.
The important point here is that the end of feudal landlordism through land
reform in Morazha also meant a break-up of the traditional material basis of
upper caste domination in its everyday social life.
© 2006 The Author.

318 R. Ramakumar
Table 6. Distribution of homestead land among manual labour households involved in

agricultural wage work, Morazha, 2001
Size class Number of Share of Average size

(in cents) households households (%) (in cents)
1 to 10 33 20.4 5.8
10 to 20 57 35.2 13.6
20 to 30 26 16.0 22.7
30 to 40 16 9.9 32.9
40 to 50 8 4.9 44.5
50 to 100 17 10.5 64.4
> 100 5 3.1 130.8
All classes 162 100.0 25.8
Note: One acre = 100 cents.

Among agricultural workers in Morazha, the shift in the pattern of land owner-
ship came along primarily due to the policy of distributing homestead land as
part of land reform. The average size of homesteads owned by manual labour
households involved in agricultural wage work was 25.8 cents, or about a quarter
of an acre (Table 6). Five households owned homestead plots of a size above one
acre. When I excluded these five households and recalculated the average size of
homestead plots, the average plot size came down to 22.5 cents.
Net Revenue from Production in Homestead Plots

Given the importance of homestead land ownership among agricultural workers,
it is necessary to quantify the benefits from homestead cultivation for these
households. I tried to estimate the imputed net income (after deducting the total
paid-out costs of cultivation and accounting for opportunity costs of family
labour) from homestead cultivation for the study households in Morazha. The
average imputed net income from homestead plots in 2000–1 was Rs 1341. This
average net income from homesteads supplemented the incomes of manual
labour households involved in agricultural wage work considerably. As Table 7
shows, on average, the net income from homesteads constituted about 6 per cent
of the poverty line for the study households.12
My above estimate of the net income from homesteads is an underestimate
as 2000–1 was a year when there was a sharp fall in prices of agricultural com-
modities. For instance, the average price of coconut (the most important crop in
homesteads) at the market nearest to Morazha in 2001 was about 41 per cent
12
The value of production was zero for 17 per cent of the surveyed households; these households
owned, but did not cultivate any crops in their homestead plots.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 7. Distribution of households by the shares of imputed net income from

homesteads in the income-poverty line, manual labour households involved in
agricultural wage work, Morazha, 2001
Share of net income at 2001 prices in Number of Share of

the poverty line (%) households households (%)
0 27 16.7
1 to 5 93 57.4
5 to 10 21 13.0
10 to 15 5 3.1
15 to 20 10 6.2
20 to 30 1 0.6
> 30 5 3.1
All size classes 162 100.0
(a) Average share of net income in poverty line at 2001 prices = 5.7 per cent
(b) Average share of net income in poverty line at average prices between 1999 and
2003 = 8.1 per cent
lower than the average price in 1999. The same was true for crops like pepper
and arecanut as well. As a result, the average value of production from home-
stead plots estimated in my study for 2001 was lower than what it would have
been for years other than 2000 and 2001. When I replaced the 2001 prices with
the average prices between 1999 and 2003, the average share of net income from
homesteads in the official poverty line registered a significant increase: from
5.7 per cent to 8.1 per cent (Table 7).
Tharakan (2002, 358) has noted that there are ‘many scholars who failed to
understand the significance of the allotment of homestead land to the poor’ in
Kerala as part of land reform. My estimates of net income from homesteads, the
first for Kerala in my knowledge, support Tharakan’s argument, and show that
homestead plots brought in more than marginal monetary benefits to agricul-
tural worker households.
Levels of Asset Ownership

Asset ownership among agricultural labour households, Kerala State
According to secondary data from the All India Debt and Investment Survey
(AIDIS) in 2002, the values of assets owned by rural households and agricultural
labour households in Kerala were higher than those for India by a considerable
margin (Table 8). The average value of assets held by members of agricultural
labour households in India (Rs 50,914) was only 43 per cent of the average value
of assets owned by members of agricultural labour households in Kerala (Rs
118,955). Out of 1000 agricultural labour households in rural Kerala, only 52
© 2006 The Author.

320 R. Ramakumar
Table 8. Per 1000 distribution of households by household asset holding for each
household type and average value of assets, Kerala and India, rural, AIDIS, 2002,
agricultural labour households and rural households
Household asset Number of Number of

value class (Rs) agricultural labour rural households
households per 1000 per 1000
Kerala India Kerala India
< 15,000 52 182 29 76

15,000–30,000 45 238 22 83
30,000–60,000 182 306 63 148
60,000–100,000 190 176 95 146
100,000–150,000 269 58 125 123
150,000–200,000 98 18 89 87
200,000–300,000 130 16 126 109
300,000–450,000 32 4 122 82
450,000–800,000 2 2 151 79
> 800,000 0 0 178 67
All 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
Average value of 118,955 50,914 509,679 265,606
assets/household (Rs)
Source: NSSO (2005).
owned assets valued at less than Rs 15,000; in rural India, the number was 182.
About 53 per cent of agricultural labour households in rural Kerala had asset
holdings valued above Rs 100,000; in rural India, only less than 10 per cent held
assets valued above Rs 100,000.
Levels of asset ownership, manual labour households involved in agricultural wage

work, Morazha
My data from Morazha show that the average value of assets owned by a manual
labour household involved in agricultural wage work in 2001 was Rs 264,153
(Table 9). This value was about five times the asset value of an average agricul-
tural household in rural India in 2002, equivalent to about 12 times the official
poverty line for a five-member household in 2000–1 and about 9 times the
average income of my surveyed households in 2000–1. Within the set of sur-
veyed households, there was no significant difference between the value of assets
owned by income-poor and non-income-poor households.
The value of owned land, houses and buildings formed about 92 per cent of
the total value of assets of the study households (Table 9). The relatively high
share of the value of land owned was, in the first place, due to the fact that these
households owned land, the rights to which they received through land reform.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 9. Percentage of households holding different types of assets and average value of
each type of asset, manual labour households involved in agricultural wage work,
Morazha, 2001
Asset type All households Households below Households above

the poverty line the poverty line
Share in Average Share in Average Share in Average

asset asset asset asset asset asset
value value value value value value
(%) (Rs) (%) (Rs) (%) (Rs)
Land 69.5 183,633 70.9 165,151 68.7 197,346

House and buildings 22.5 59,407 23.0 53,464 22.2 63,817
Livestock 0.4 1,075 0.3 760 0.5 1,309
Non-agricultural assets 7.5 19,867 5.8 13,432 8.6 24,641
Agricultural implements 0.1 170 0.1 124 0.1 205
All assets 100.0 264,153 100.0 232,930 100.0 287,319
Land reform in Kerala aimed at the distribution of a minimum of 10 cents of

homestead land to landless agricultural workers. In 2001, a household that owned
a homestead plot of 10 cents in Morazha had a fixed asset valued at Rs 80,000–
100,000 (that is, about four to five times the official income poverty line for a
five-member household in 2000–1).13
State-supported Social Security Schemes

In a survey of social security schemes in India, Mahendra Dev (2002, 228) noted
that Kerala ‘has the most wide-ranging set of schemes for the benefit of the
unorganised sector’ workers. According to the estimates of Duvvury and George
(1997), about 51 per cent of Kerala’s income-poor population aged 60 and above
were recipients of some social security assistance. RBI data for 2001–2 show that
the share of revenue expenditure on ‘social security and welfare’ in total revenue
expenditure was 1.7 per cent in Kerala, which was higher than the corresponding
share of 0.5 per cent for the central government (RBI 2003).14
13
A secondary reason was the high unit value of land in Kerala compared to other States (see Pathak
1981; Varghese 1987; Pradhan and Subramanian 2002). In an inter-State analysis, Pradhan and
Subramanian (2002) found that the per-acre price of irrigated land in Kerala was the highest, at Rs
572,210, among the 18 States they studied. In Morazha, on an average, an acre of garden land was
priced at Rs 800,000–1,000,000 in 2001. According to Varghese (1987), two major reasons for the
higher prices of garden lands and homesteads in Kerala were the demand for such land for house
construction purposes and the higher profitability of commercial and tree crops relative to paddy.
14
This was true of data for earlier years also. In 1992–3, the Kerala government spent Rs 80 crore
on ‘social security and welfare’, which formed 2.8 per cent of the revenue expenditure of the State
(Rajan et al. 1999). In the same year, the corresponding share in the Central government budget was
only 1 per cent.
© 2006 The Author.

322 R. Ramakumar
Duvvury and George (1997) note that the policies of social security for
unorganized workers in Kerala after 1956–7 were significantly influenced by the
different experiments undertaken by the State’s working-class movement before
1957. Citing Isaac (1984) and Isaac et al. (1997), they point out that historically,
‘the working class movement in Kerala had experimented to integrate the strug-
gle against capitalists and the colonial state with their initiatives for welfare and
mutual benefit activities’ (Duvvury and George 1997, 14). These experiments
included institutional arrangements like labour associations and cooperatives.
The lessons learnt from these arrangements influenced the demands of the labour
movement for social security as well as the formulation of labour welfare policies
of the state after 1956–7. The establishment of Welfare Funds was one important
policy intervention in this period.
Welfare Funds are the institutions constituted by the state for the distribution
of social security assistance for rural unorganized workers. The benefits from
Welfare Funds to workers can be divided into three types (Duvvury and George
1997). First, some Funds provide provident fund benefits to members upon
superannuation, a monthly pension and a gratuity payment. Monthly pensions
were provided by 8 of the 19 Funds in 2001. Secondly, some Funds give social
insurance benefits to members, such as a payment for medical treatment or
physical disability. Thirdly, some Funds provide different types of welfare assist-
ance to members, such as assistance for children’s education, marriage of daughters
and construction of houses.15 About 19 Welfare Funds for different sections of
unorganized workers were established in Kerala after 1956–7 (Duvvury and
George 1997). In 1995, Welfare Funds covered at least 50 per cent of all the
unorganized workers in the State, accounting for about 2.6 million workers. In
general, the funds for these institutions were generated through contributions
from workers, employers and the government over a period of time.
In Morazha, 23 per cent of all the manual labour households involved in
agricultural wage work (38 out of 162) received some form of direct social security
payment in 2000–1. The direct social security schemes of which my surveyed
households were beneficiaries were the agricultural worker pension, construction
worker pension, disabled persons pension, widow pension, old age pension,
handloom worker pension, fishermen pension and traditional artist pension.
The allowances provided through the major schemes of which members of
my surveyed households in Morazha were beneficiaries in 2001 are as follows.
• The agricultural worker pension was Rs 110 per month (or Rs 1320 per year).
• The allowance for physically handicapped persons was Rs 110 per month
(or Rs 1320 per year).
• The pension for widows was Rs 100 per month (or Rs 1200 per year).
• The pension for old aged persons was Rs 100 per month (or Rs 1200 per year).
• The pension for traditional artists was Rs 400 per month (Rs 4800 per year).
• The pension for construction workers was Rs 150 per month (or Rs 1800
per year).
15
In this context, see also Kannan (2002).
© 2006 The Author.

If we consider only the 38 households that received direct assistance in 2000–

1, the average annual income from direct social security schemes was Rs 1585.16
The share of households that received social security payments was higher among
income-poor households (2.2 per cent) than among non-income-poor house-
holds (0.8 per cent). In the estimation of direct social security payments, I have
assumed that households have actually received all the dues from the govern-
ment. However, in 2000–1, the government was yet to pay the full amount of
their pensions for many beneficiaries in Morazha.
The average direct social security assistance of Rs 1585 formed 5.5 per cent
of the annual income of the households and 7.2 per cent of official income-
poverty line in 2000–1. When I excluded income from direct social security
payments (actually received at the time of survey) from the incomes of the
surveyed households, the head-count ratio of poverty increased from 42.5 per
cent to 44.4 per cent.
The estimation of social security income as a share of total income, however,
does not fully capture the benefits from social security payments to its benefici-
aries. The initiation of a scheme to pay retired agricultural workers a monthly
pension is not a programme of poverty alleviation, but a protective social
security cover aimed at reducing economic vulnerability and deprivation among
the poor. In Morazha, direct social security assistance played a significant role
in reducing vulnerability and deprivation. Two points highlight this argument
effectively.
First, I compared the quantity of cereals purchasable with one year’s pension
with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) per capita recommended
dietary allowance of cereals. The recommended dietary allowance of cereals was
420 g per capita per day, or 153 kg per year. With the average amount of Rs 1585
received as pension, a beneficiary could purchase 132 kg of rice from the open
market in 2000–1. This quantity purchasable was equivalent to 86 per cent of the
ICMR’s recommended dietary allowance.
According to NSSO data, the per capita annual consumption of cereals in
rural Kerala was 119 kg in 1999–2000. The average pension amount for a benefi-
ciary in 2000–1 in my survey was sufficient to purchase 132 kg of rice per year,
which was higher than the actual consumption of cereals by an average rural
household in Kerala in 1999–2000.
Secondly, for beneficiaries who were old aged and economically dependent on
their children due to poor health, the pension they received from the government
was a matter of great joy and pride; it gave them a feeling that they were also
earners and raised their levels of economic security and self-esteem significantly.17
16
Apart from monthly pensions and allowances, members of Welfare Funds also received social
insurance and welfare assistance. There was a retired female agricultural worker in my survey who
received a grant of Rs 2000 for her daughter’s marriage and another worker who received Rs 300 for
the purchase of spectacles in the reference year of 2000–1.
17
Gulati (1990) had noted that the receipt of social security pensions helped the beneficiary to
finance 50 per cent of the cost of his or her annual cereal consumption and also significantly increased
the social acceptance of older persons in their households.
© 2006 The Author.

324 R. Ramakumar
Thus, protective social security initiatives of the state like pension schemes
played a major role in reducing levels of vulnerability and deprivation and
raising the social dignity among manual labour households involved in agricultural
wage work in Morazha.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) of Food

Kerala has the best-functioning Public Distribution System (PDS) of food among
all States in India. The ration shop network that forms the PDS in Kerala has its
origins in the struggle by the Left-led peasant movement to establish ‘Producers
and Consumers Cooperatives’ (PCCs) for the public provisioning of food grains
that began in 1942 in Malabar, and continued in different forms through the
1950s and 1960s. Till 1997, the PDS in Kerala covered almost the whole of the
population of Kerala through a deep-running network of ration shops. Ration
shops in Kerala supply mainly four commodities: rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene.
Four ration shops operated for Morazha’s population in 2001.
Access to PDS
In Morazha, 157 out of the 162 manual labour households involved in agricultural
wage work (97 per cent) possessed ration cards in 2001. Estimates at the State
level show that about 97 per cent of households in Kerala had ration cards in the
year 2000 (Suryanarayana 2001).
Though the PDS in Kerala was universal for a long period of time, it had
ceased to be so by 2001. Under the neo-liberal regime at the centre, universal
PDS was scrapped and a Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) was
introduced in 1997. Under the TPDS, the population had to be classified into
Above Poverty Line (APL) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) categories.18 In 2001,
subsidized food was to be made available to only the BPL households, and the
APL households had to pay a price equivalent to the full economic cost of
purchasing and handling the food grains.19
In Morazha, out of the 157 manual labour households involved in agricultural
wage work with ration cards, 96 households (61.2 per cent) were officially
classified as BPL and 61 households (38.8 per cent) were officially classified as
APL in 2001. It is clear at once that the number of manual labour households
involved in agricultural wage work classified as income-poor in my survey and as
Below Poverty Line (BPL) as per ration cards differ considerably. In my survey,
only 42.5 per cent of households were classified as income-poor.
18
For detailed information on targeted PDS, see Swaminathan (2000). Throughout this article, the
terms APL and BPL refer to the households classified as Above Poverty Line and Below Poverty
Line by the government.
19
Swaminathan (2000) argues that the use of an income-criterion to classify rural households into
APL and BPL may not be appropriate, as wages and days of employment in the informal sector
fluctuate widely. An estimation of annual incomes of households is, thus, very difficult. Further, as
the income-poverty line itself is fixed at a near-destitution level, the exclusion of a household just
above the destitution line of income from social assistance schemes cannot be justified.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 10. Distribution of households by income-poverty classification and type of

ration card, manual labour households involved in agricultural wage work, Morazha,
2001
Households that by income Households that by ration Number

criterion were card type were
Above poverty line Above poverty line 45

Above poverty line Below poverty line 46
Below poverty line Above poverty line 16
Below poverty line Below poverty line 50
All households 157
Note: Of the 162 study households, only 157 had ration cards.
A widespread complaint from other parts of rural India after the introduction
of TPDS has been the existence of a major mismatch between households class-
ified as BPL by the government and their actual standard of living (Swaminathan
2000; Swaminathan and Misra 2002; GoI 2002c). A high-level committee
appointed by the government in 2002 concluded that ‘the narrow targeting of
the PDS based on absolute income-poverty is likely to have excluded a large part
of the nutritionally vulnerable population from the PDS’ (GoI 2002c).
I attempted to estimate the errors of inclusion and exclusion of households
from PDS in my survey in Morazha. First, 46 households were classified as BPL
by the government, although they were not income-poor by my survey (Table 10).
Secondly, there were only 16 households which were classified as APL by the
government, but were income-poor by my survey.
I then estimated the error of wrong inclusion (E) and error of exclusion (F).20
The E-ratio refers to the proportion of non-income-poor households in all house-
holds who are classified as BPL by the government. The F-ratio refers to the
proportion of income-poor households in all households who are classified as
APL by the government. Evidently, a high F-ratio represents a more serious
welfare failure than a high E-ratio from the viewpoint of social security. As seen
from Table 11, the F-ratio in my survey was only 10.2 per cent while the E-ratio
was higher at 29.3 per cent. These ratios are very different from those estimated
by studies in other States; Swaminathan and Misra (2002) found in a Maharashtra
village that under the TPDS, the F-ratio was 42.6 per cent and the E-ratio was
6.1 per cent.
The low F-ratio and the high E-ratio noted for Morazha is a result of
the efforts of the State government and the Left-political parties to bring in a
larger proportion of households under the ambit of the PDS than the proportion
20
For a discussion on the measurement of inclusion and exclusion errors in targeted programmes,
see Cornia and Stewart (1993).
© 2006 The Author.

326 R. Ramakumar
Table 11. E- and F-type errors in the provision of PDS,

manual labour households involved in agricultural wage
work, Morazha, 2001
Measure of error Value (in per cent)
Error of wrong inclusion, E 29.3

Error of wrong exclusion, F 10.2
stipulated by the Central government. From the time of initiation of the PDS in
the 1960s, the system was universal in its coverage in Kerala (Koshy et al. 1989;
Mooij 1999; Swaminathan 2000; Suryanarayana 2001); all households had the
same terms of access. At the time of introduction of the targeted PDS in 1997,
the Central government wanted the State government to restrict the supply of
subsidized provision of food grains to only the income-poor, or 26 per cent of
the State’s population. This figure was arrived at based on the NSS survey on
Consumer Expenditure in 1993–4. As such, the quantity of food grains that the
Central government provided to the State from 1997 onwards at subsidized
prices was calculated according to the requirements of only 26 per cent of the
population. This effort to convert the universal PDS to a targeted PDS led to
public protests and agitations, and there was intense pressure from Left-political
movements to restore the universal character of the PDS.
The Left government in Kerala argued that the HCR of 26 per cent cited by
the Central government did not conform to the actual state of poverty in the
State, and wanted the benefits of the PDS extended to 42 per cent of the popula-
tion. The Central government did not agree with this view, but the State
government went ahead on its own and extended the benefits of food subsidy to
42 per cent of its population. According to Suryanarayana (2001), the additional
burden on the State government in extending this benefit was Rs 480 million in
1997. The better coverage of income-poor households under PDS in Morazha,
as compared to other States, was due to this decision of the State’s Left-
government to extend food subsidies to an additional section of the population.
Purchases from the Public Distribution System, Morazha

In Table 12, I have presented the purchase of commodities from the PDS by four
categories of surveyed households according to their status based on income-
poverty and on the type of ration card. On an average, an income-poor house-
hold classified as BPL purchased 23.6 kg of cereals per month from the PDS:
23.1 kg of rice and 0.5 kg of wheat. In a year, an income-poor household
purchased 283.4 kg of cereals: 277.2 kg of rice and 6.2 kg of wheat (Table 12). At
the per capita level, an individual from an income-poor household purchased
67.5 kg of cereals annually from PDS: 66 kg of rice and 1.5 kg of wheat.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 12. Extent of purchases of commodities from PDS, manual labour households
involved in agricultural wage work
Households that by Households that by Rice Wheat Sugar Kerosene

income-criterion were ration card type were
(a) Average purchase per household (rice, wheat and sugar in kg per year, kerosene in litres)
Above poverty line Above poverty line 136.8 10.5 – 37.2
Below poverty line Above poverty line 96.8 9.0 – 38.4
Above poverty line Below poverty line 355.2 12.9 27.6 40.8
Below poverty line Below poverty line 277.2 6.2 21.6 44.4
(b) Share of households purchasing (per cent)
Above poverty line Above poverty line 55.6 15.6 0.0 100.0
Below poverty line Above poverty line 37.5 37.5 0.0 100.0
Above poverty line Below poverty line 97.8 13.0 97.8 97.8
Below poverty line Below poverty line 98.0 12.0 92.0 100.0
The recommended dietary allowance of the ICMR of cereals is 420 gm per

capita per day, or 153 kg per year. As a share of the ICMR allowance, per capita
purchases from the PDS by income-poor BPL households formed 44 per cent.
As a share of the NSS estimate of the actual per capita annual consumption of
cereals for rural Kerala in 1999–2000 (119 kg per capita), per capita purchases
from PDS in an income-poor manual labour household involved in agricultural
wage work formed 57 per cent. The data suggest a significant contribution by
the PDS towards raising the levels of food grain consumption of manual labour
households involved in agricultural wage work in Morazha.
The extent to which manual labour households involved in agricultural wage
work accessed the PDS to purchase commodities was very high in Morazha.
About 98 per cent of all BPL households (irrespective of whether they were
actually income-poor or not) purchased rice from the ration shops in 2000–1.
Over 97 per cent of BPL households purchased kerosene from the PDS in
2000–1. Evidently, the reach of this instrument of food security in the desam was
very deep.
Benefits from the Public Distribution System, Morazha

To quantify the extent of State support that each household received from PDS,
I first calculated the implicit State subsidy it received through PDS. Implicit
State subsidy was defined as the difference between the total expenditure in-
curred by a household on PDS purchases and the expenditure if the household
had turned to the open market for its current PDS purchases. Of course, the
assumption here is that price elasticity of demand is zero.
© 2006 The Author.

328 R. Ramakumar
Table 13. Average annual implicit subsidy per household from PDS, manual labour
households involved in agricultural wage work, Morazha, 2000–1
Households that by Households that by Average implicit As a share of the

income-criterion ration card type subsidy per household income-poverty
were were (Rs per year) line (%)
Above poverty line Above poverty line 290.20 1.2

Below poverty line Above poverty line 193.50 0.8
Above poverty line Below poverty line 1571.70 6.6
Below poverty line Below poverty line 1205.20 7.5
On an average, a BPL income-poor manual labour household involved in

agricultural wage work received an implicit assistance of Rs 1205 from the PDS
in 2000–1 (Table 13). As a share of the income-poverty line, this implicit assist-
ance was 7.5 per cent of the income-poverty line. The average assistance to a BPL
non-income-poor household as a share of the income-poverty line was 6.6 per
cent of their income-poverty line.
In sum, as an instrument of social security in the provision of food, the role of
the PDS in Morazha was crucial. The share of average subsidy assistance in the
poverty line for income-poor BPL households, for instance, underlines the sig-
nificance of PDS in increasing their command over essential commodities, raise
their levels of calorie consumption and thus, overcome economic vulnerability.21
Public Action and Access to Credit

Provision of credit at affordable costs to the poor is an important component of
any social security strategy. In their work on social security for the poor, Dreze
and Sen (1991, 13–14) note that
the time pattern of earnings [of poor households] may not at all match
with the time pattern of needs. Indeed, sometimes the needs are maximal
precisely when incomes tend to be minimal . . . This inter-temporal
mismatch would not matter greatly if capital markets were ‘perfect’, allowing
adjustment of expenditure to needs even without altering the pattern of
earnings . . . But capital markets . . . are frequently non-existent or feeble
(especially in developing countries). Social security has a special role in
these circumstances.22
21
Studies based on NSS data have noted that Kerala and West Bengal were the only States in India
where the consumption of cereals in both rural and urban areas increased over the 1980s and the 1990s
(see Swaminathan and Ramachandran 1999; Patnaik 2001).
22
On the importance of credit institutions in social security policies, see also Burgess and Stern
(1991).
© 2006 The Author.

Historical Features of Rural Credit Markets in Malabar

A historical survey of the nature of rural credit markets in Malabar till the 1950s
shows that these markets were characterized by heavy indebtedness among the
peasantry, presence of landlords and traders as major lenders, and the incidence
of usury as a major form of surplus extraction.23
In 1956–7, according to the Second Agricultural Labour Enquiry, nearly 95
per cent of the attached agricultural workers in Malabar, who mostly belonged
to the deprived castes, were in debt. This burden of debt forced labourers and
small tenants to enter into oppressive and bonded forms of labour and land
relations. While one section of workers of the traditional slave castes became
debt-bonded attached workers under their old masters, the others remained heavily
indebted to informal sources even when not debt-bonded.24 E. J. Edona, a mis-
sionary in Kannur in the early twentieth century, wrote of debt-bonded workers
that ‘social disabilities and economic bondage have fettered their freedom’ and
that ‘the perpetual burden of debt binds them with an iron chain to their masters’
(Edona 1940, 133).
In 1951–2, 83 per cent of the principal borrowed by rural households in
Malabar was from landlords and traders, as per the All India Rural Credit Survey
(AIRCS). Loans from landlords and traders also came at very high interest rates.
According to Sreenivasaraghavaiyengar (1893, 254), Malabar was the region in
Madras Presidency where moneylending appeared in its most oppressive form –
one that he described as being of a ‘genuine usurious type’. My calculations from
the case studies presented in Sreenivasaraghavaiyengar (1893) suggest that interest
rates ranged from 40 per cent to 150 per cent per year.
Features of the Rural Credit Market in Morazha, 2001

Even a cursory look at the data from Morazha in 2001 indicates a revolutionary
change in the character of the credit market since the 1940s. The data show a
remarkable expansion in the provision of credit to the poor from the formal
sector. Further, credit was provided at terms that were generally favourable to
the poor – in respect of the purpose for which credit was advanced, in respect of
the collateral that was required and in respect of the interest rates on loans (for a
detailed analysis, see Ramakumar 2005).25
23
A detailed historical survey of the nature of rural credit markets in Malabar is in Ramakumar
(2005).
24
See, in this context, Ramakumar (2005) and Herring (1983). Hjejle (1967, 109) writes that even
after the abolition of slavery in Malabar in 1843,
the majority of slaves . . . lived on the properties where their ancestors had worked and their
conditions did not seem to have altered in any considerable way. They were no longer bought
or sold, but frequently hired out by their masters. In general, it was their indebtedness, which
left the slaves in the hands of their masters.
25
Field studies from other parts of rural Kerala in the post-land reform period also show substantial
changes with respect to agricultural workers’ access to formal sector credit. George (1992, 117) wrote
of the relatively low dependence of rural workers on local moneylenders in the 1980s and their
© 2006 The Author.

330 R. Ramakumar
Table 14. Principal borrowed, by sources of borrowing, manual labour households

involved in agricultural wage work, Morazha, 2001
Source of Number Share of (2) Principal Share of (4) Shares within

borrowing of loans in total (%) borrowed (Rs) in total (%) sectors (%)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Cooperatives 184 97.4 1,971,550 97.3 99.1
Government 2 1.1 18,550 0.9 0.9
Formal sector 186 98.4 1,990,100 98.2 100.0
Moneylenders 1 0.5 5,000 0.2 13.9
Friends and relatives 1 0.5 25,000 1.2 69.4
Chit finance 1 0.5 6,000 0.3 16.7
Informal sector 3 1.6 36,000 1.8 100.0
Total 189 100.0 2,026,100 100.0 –
Between the 1950s and 2001, there was something of a reversal of the roles of
the formal and informal sectors of credit in the credit portfolio of rural manual
workers in our study area. In 2001, about 99 per cent of the total principal
borrowed by manual labour households involved in agricultural wage work in
Morazha came from the formal sector (Table 14). Landlords, traders and other
moneylenders were effectively eliminated as sources of credit. Within the formal
sector, cooperative credit societies accounted for 99 per cent of the credit ad-
vanced. About 97 per cent of all loans taken by the study households were from
the cooperative sector. Of all the credit supplied by cooperatives to the study
households, one society – The Morazha-Kalliasseri Service Cooperative Bank
(henceforth MKSCB) – accounted for about 89 per cent of total number of loans.
The study households borrowed from the cooperative sector mainly for con-
sumption expenses, a major purpose for which rural poor households require
credit. Some of the major purposes of loans drawn were house construction and
repair, marriage expenses, medical expenses, educational expenses and repay-
ment of other debts. Credit from the formal sector was available at easy terms
and conditions for households. Immovable collateral, such as land, was insisted
on as security only for loans of large size. The surveyed households were able to
borrow loans of larger sizes also by surrendering land (obtained through land
‘marginal’ dependence on landlords for credit; the main reason for the change, he wrote, was the
‘collapse of feudal relations in the agrarian sector’. Cooperative banks and societies had become major
sources of loans for agricultural workers. Bureaucratic delays in obtaining loans were far less than
before, because agricultural workers had gained a major say in the functioning of cooperative banks.
According to George, one reason why moneylenders could not charge high interest rates in rural
Kerala was that the threat of physical violence could not be used to recover loans advanced to unionized
agricultural workers. A district-wise survey of agricultural workers by the Government of Kerala in
1983–4 also showed similar results. For the State as a whole, the survey found that 53 per cent of
total number of loans was from public commercial banks and cooperative societies (GoK 1985, 73).
© 2006 The Author.

reform) as collateral. The cooperative society had eliminated arbitrariness and

set standardized quantities of credit that could be provided on each type of
collateral, such as gold. Rates of interest charged by the cooperative bank were
also standardized for each type of loan. No manual labour household involved
in agricultural wage work (except one) in Morazha paid an interest rate more
than 18 per cent per annum for any loan outstanding in 2001.
Public Action and the Emergence of the Cooperative Movement

The spread of the cooperative movement in Morazha had a direct link with the
political movement for land reform in Malabar led by the Left peasant unions.
During the Second World War, at a time when Malabar was experiencing an
acute food shortage, the peasant movement launched an agitation to prevent the
hoarding of food grains by landlords and traders. This movement aimed at
forcibly collecting food grains from the granaries of landlords and traders and
selling them to the general public through Producers and Consumers Coopera-
tives or PCCs (Ramachandran 1996). After the War, most of the PCCs were
converted into credit societies that began to advance credit to cultivators at low
interest rates. These societies were called Aikya Nanaya Sanghams (Cooperative
Money Societies). These Aikya Nanaya Sanghams were later converted into service
cooperative banks, the form in which they operate today.
Struggles against janmi landlordism were very active in Morazha and the
neighbouring villages like Kalliasseri and Pappinisseri. One of the first PCCs to
be established in Malabar district was in Pappinisseri.26 It was as part of this
movement that the Aikya Nanaya Sangham that functioned at Anchampeedika,
Morazha’s main market place, was transformed into a cooperative society
(Morazha-Kalliasseri Multipurpose Cooperative Credit Society) in 1950.27
Morazha is thus distinctly different from other Indian States and many devel-
oping countries with respect to the provisioning of credit as an instrument of
social security. The major historical features of the rural credit market in Malabar
were usury-based exploitation of the poor and oppressive relations of debt bond-
age. Public action in Morazha developed a banking institution that helped to
eliminate these exploitative features of the credit market, and expanded the
access to affordable credit of manual labour households.
The Conditions of Housing

The conditions of housing for the rural poor in Kerala are closely related to land
reforms. The free provision of homestead sites to landless agricultural workers
was an important step in that workers could avoid the difficulties of financing
the purchase of land to construct houses. Given that the most important barrier
26
The PCC formed at Pappinisseri was converted into an Aikya Nanaya Sangham and later into a
cooperative rural bank. This bank – The Pappinisseri Cooperative Rural Bank – still exits.
27
For a case study of the society, see Ramakumar (2005).
© 2006 The Author.

332 R. Ramakumar
to better conditions of housing – lack of ownership of house sites – was over-

come through land reform, worker households in Kerala were in a better initial
position to improve their housing conditions.28
The proportion of households living in pucca houses was 52 per cent in rural
Kerala at the Census of India 1991, as compared to 31 per cent in rural India.29
One of the important reasons for Kerala moving ahead of other States in this
respect was State action that supplemented the benefits of land reform. The
implementation of public housing schemes of the Kerala government began in
the early 1970s. One of the important schemes was the ‘One Lakh Houses Scheme’
of 1972, which envisaged the provision of houses to landless agricultural
workers who did not receive homesteads under land reforms. The efficient
implementation of public housing schemes resulted in a rapid reduction of the
difference between the number of households and the number of houses in rural
Kerala (Gopikuttan 2002). Gopikuttan noted that houses in Kerala have a larger
average number of rooms, higher value and better quality compared to other
States. Importantly, he concluded that ‘unlike in other parts of the country,
being a State with an educated population aware of the popular programmes of
the government, the major proportion of public housing schemes in Kerala
seems to have reached the target groups’ (2002, 6). In the period after 1996–7,
local panchayats have also started taking serious interest in the schemes to provide
housing subsidies to poor households.
Data from secondary sources show that the conditions of housing and
sanitation for rural households in Kerala are considerably superior to those in
other parts of India. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 1999 showed
that 77 per cent of houses in rural Kerala were pucca houses, while only 19 per
cent of houses were pucca houses in rural India (IIPS 2001) (Table 15). The mean
number of persons per room, a measure of sufficiency of housing space, was 1.3
in rural Kerala and 2.7 in rural India. The share of households with no toilets at
home was 17 per cent in rural Kerala and 81 per cent in rural India.
The Kerala Statistical Institute conducted a district-wise survey of quality of
life in 1996–7 (KSI 1999). The study area in Kannur district was Madayi village.
This survey found that 97 per cent of households in Madayi lived in tiled or
concrete houses. Only 3 per cent of households lived in huts. No household
reported the source of drinking water as an ‘unprotected source’, while an earlier
survey by the same organization in Madayi had shown that 1.2 per cent of
households belonged to this category. About 96 per cent of households reported
28
Vyas (1964, cited in Ramachandran 1990) noted that in the Gujarat villages that he studied, the
dependence of halis on their employers was considerably weakened after the allotment of plots of
land by the government to the halis for construction of houses. In villages where the allotments were
not made, the conditions of dependence remained strong.
29
The Census of India classifies the types of houses into three: pucca, semi-pucca and katcha. The
definition of these three types is based on the type of materials used for the walls and roof. If both
walls and roof are made of pucca material, the house is called pucca house. If both walls and roof are
made of katcha material the house is called a katcha house. If only either the wall or roof is made of
pucca material, the house is called a semi-pucca house. The NFHS, on the other hand, classifies a
house into pucca, semi-pucca and katcha on the basis of the materials used in the walls, roof and floor.
© 2006 The Author.

Table 15. Distribution of households according to selected housing and sanitation

characteristics, India and Kerala, rural, NFHS, 1999
Housing characteristic Share of households (%)
India Kerala
(a) Type of house:

Katcha 41.4 7.8
Semi-pucca 39.5 15.5
Pucca 19.0 76.7
Total per cent 100.0 100.0
(b) Mean number of persons per room 2.7 1.3
(c) Sanitation facility:
Flush toilet 8.8 15.4
Pit toilet/latrine 10.0 67.3
No toilet facility 81.1 17.3
(d) Source of drinking water:
Piped 25.3 11.4
Hand pump 47.3 2.2
Well water 23.5 83.6
Surface water 3.5 1.1
Other 0.7 1.7
Source: IIPS (2001, Table 2.9, 25).
‘protected well’ (covered well) as the source of drinking water; 79 per cent
among the above 96 per cent had ‘own protected wells’. About 90 per cent
of households reported using a flush or ESP (borehole with water seal) toilet
facility.
Housing Conditions in Morazha, 2001

Data on the housing conditions of all households in Morazha desam are available
from a survey undertaken by the local panchayat in 1996. Data from the survey,
presented in Table 16, show that a large proportion of houses in the desam (73
per cent) were tiled. While 19 per cent of houses had a concrete roof, only 8 per
cent of houses had thatched or partially thatched roofs. The survey also shows
that in the whole of Andhur panchayat, there were only 14 homeless households
out of 4197 households (0.33 per cent). Results of this 1996 survey are not
available for agricultural worker households alone. Nevertheless, it does show
that the task of providing safe shelter for the population had been achieved to a
large extent in Morazha by 1996.
© 2006 The Author.

334 R. Ramakumar
Table 16. Distribution of houses according to roof type, all households, Morazha
desam, 1996
Type of roof Number of houses Share of houses (%)
Thatched 19 1.4
Partially thatched 97 7.0
Tiled 1015 72.9
Concrete 261 18.8
All types of houses 1392 100.0
Source: Andhur Panchayat (1997).
My survey in Morazha in 2001 showed that no manual labour household

involved in agricultural wage work in Morazha was homeless. No manual
labour household involved in agricultural wage work lived in a katcha house. All
houses had pucca roofs. About 91 per cent of houses had their own latrines, with
only 9 per cent left without their own latrines.
As mentioned, land reform was the critical policy measure that ensured
housing space for the poor in Morazha. One important driving force behind
the ability of households to finance house construction on their land was the
availability of credit at affordable rates of interest from cooperative societies
(another product of public action). About 44 per cent of the principal borrowed
by the manual labour households involved in agricultural wage work (and unpaid
at the time of survey) was for the construction of houses. One of the most
important purposes for which the cooperative society in the desam provided
credit was also for the construction of houses.
The data also show that the task of providing separate latrines to poor house-
holds in Morazha has been achieved to a very large extent. The provision of
latrines on such a mass scale was achieved primarily due to the subsidies for
latrine construction provided under the decentralization policy of the Left-led
government from 1996–97. About 32 per cent of the manual labour households
involved in agricultural wage work received the fixed subsidy of Rs 2000 per
household from the panchayat for latrine construction. My field notes show that
this amount was fully utilized by all households either to construct latrines or to
construct better latrines in place of old and dilapidated ones. The transparent
process of selection of beneficiaries in the grama sabhas (assemblies of villagers)
helped to ensure that only the needy households received the subsidy. The stand-
ard reaction to a question ‘What did you gain from the new panchayat system?’
from many of my surveyed households was: ‘we got Rs 2000 for the construc-
tion of latrine’. There is no doubt that the availability of finances to construct
houses and the provision of subsidies for latrines led to major improvements in
sanitary conditions in Morazha.
Sanitation facilities for the poor in the Indian countryside have been a point
of serious analysis in The National Human Development Report (NHDR)
© 2006 The Author.

2001. The report observes the following on the provision of latrine facilities
in India:
A majority of India’s population does not have access to toilet facilities in
their dwellings and lacks sanitation facilities for the disposal of wastewater.
Apart from the availability of safe drinking water, lack of sanitation, par-
ticularly sewage and disposal of solid waste including night soil has been
observed as among the main reasons for prevailing ill health and morbidity
levels in the country. As per the 1991 Census, less than one-fourth of the
households in the country had toilet facility within the premises of their
residence. (GoI 2002b, 40)
The NHDR cites Kerala’s commendable performance in toilet provision to its
population (51 per cent as against less than 25 per cent according to Census of
India 1991 and 85 per cent as against 36 per cent according to NFHS, 1998–9)
and comments that, ‘the problem of sanitation for the majority, at household level,
is essentially of awareness and education and not really of resources’ (2002b, 40).
Other studies have also pointed out the importance of educational achieve-
ments and the increased awareness that follows as an important determinant of
improved health indicators in Kerala. Advances in female literacy and schooling,
for which Kerala is famous, had led to a better and scientific understanding of
health and sanitation issues in rural households. As Ramachandran (1996, 235)
noted, ‘the provision of health facilities has an outstanding effect on societies
where social, economic, and political conditions are such that people are ready to
receive and make good use of these facilities’. Improved sanitation facilities in
Morazha are a reflection of this empirical fact.
REPRISE AND CONCLUSIONS

Public action was the driving force behind the celebrated social development
achievements of the State of Kerala in India. Through public action, the State
in Kerala implemented a historic land reform, invested heavily in education
and health, initiated a number of social security measures (such as schemes for
subsidized food distribution and for social assistance and social insurance for
unorganized workers and destitute sections of the population) and encouraged
cooperatives. The general objective of these social security schemes, as for coun-
tries across the world, was to address issues of deprivation, economic vulner-
ability and the low quality of life of the poorer sections.
In this article, my major concern has been to examine the ways in which
public action affected different aspects of the standard of living (other than educa-
tion and health) of agricultural wage workers in Morazha desam in the Malabar
region of Kerala.30 Scholarly research has indicated that Malabar was the region
30
On Kerala’s achievements in education, see Tharakan (1984), Ramachandran (1996) and
Chandrasekhar et al. (2001). On Kerala’s achievements in health care, see Panikar and Soman (1984),
Krishnan (1994) and Ramachandran (1996).
© 2006 The Author.

336 R. Ramakumar
in India where agrarian relations were most oppressive before 1956, and where
agricultural workers experienced the most backward working and living
conditions. The effort in this article has been to trace the changes in the living
conditions of households involved in agricultural work in Morazha over time,
and relate these changes to the processes of public action that have marked
the history of socio-political life in Kerala.
I first examined the progress of the State in reducing income poverty. Not
only were the levels of income poverty among agricultural labour households
and all rural households in Kerala much lower than the national average, but also
these rates of poverty had declined at a much faster rate in Kerala than in other
Indian States. However, absolute levels of income-poverty among agricultural
labour households have continued to be high in Kerala. In Morazha desam, 42.5
per cent of all manual labour households involved in agricultural wage work
were income-poor in 2000–1.
Even while the absolute level of income-poverty in Morazha was high, income-
poor households enjoyed higher levels of standard of living (with respect to
certain important indicators) than is normally associated with such low income
levels among labouring households. In particular, they enjoyed higher levels of
landownership and asset ownership, better access to credit, better access to social
security schemes and subsidized food distribution systems, and better conditions
of housing and sanitation compared to similar socio-economic groups in other
States. The argument in this article is that such a transformation of socio-
economic conditions was brought about through public action from above and
below, and could not have been secured by any other means.
It was land reform that prepared the ground and set the pace for every socio-
economic advance made in Malabar after 1956–7. It is significant to note here
that the long struggle for land reform in Kerala was an integrated one: a struggle
where there was a convergence of resistance against different forms of class-,
caste- and gender-based discriminations. Land reforms undermined not only
feudal landlordism, but also the traditional economic base of upper caste domi-
nation. Without land reforms, it would have been impossible to imagine the
universal spread of female literacy and mass schooling for girls in Malabar. Thus,
land reforms in Kerala were important, both intrinsically and instrumentally (see
Ramachandran 2000). Intrinsically, land reform was important as it weakened
the foundations of an oppressive agrarian regime and freed workers from different
forms of unfreedom. Land reforms were instrumentally important, as the post-
land reform society that emerged was favourable to advances in the social and
economic conditions of the poorer sections.
My data from Morazha clearly show how traditional agrarian power was
weakened by land reforms. Land reforms resulted in historic changes in the
patterns of land ownership among different social groups in society. Big land-
lordism and the extreme concentration in the ownership of land, which was a
distinct feature of agrarian relations in Morazha before land reforms, no longer
exist. Land reforms helped to transfer significant areas of land in Morazha from
upper caste households to backward and oppressed caste groups. The largest
© 2006 The Author.

benefit to agricultural workers from land reform was through the acquisition of
ownership, free of cost, over homestead land.
The ownership of land on a mass scale was clearly associated with the high
value of assets owned by the surveyed households. Secondary data show that the
average value of assets owned by agricultural labour households was the highest
in Kerala among all States. In Morazha, the most important asset (in terms of
value) owned by the manual labour households involved in agricultural wage
work was homestead land.
Land reform is considered as the most important and effective social security
strategy for the rural poor. Kerala is a State where this role of land reform as a
central component of social security policy could be demonstrated best. First,
due to the ownership of homestead land, workers were freed from being forced
to depend on landlords for living space. Secondly, the free provision of home-
stead land represented a major financial saving for worker households, as invest-
ment in land for housing was not required. Thirdly, production in homestead
plots was an important supplement to the incomes of households. The average
net income from cultivation in homestead plots was the equivalent of about 8 per
cent of the official poverty line in 2000–1.
An analysis of other advances in standard of living made by the surveyed
households brings out the central role of the movement for land reform on the
one side and the role of the State and mass political organizations in sustaining
these benefits on the other.
There were major differences in the character of the rural credit market in
Morazha in 2000–1 on the one hand and in the 1940s and the early 1950s on the
other. Landlords and traders, who advanced loans at usurious rates of interest,
were the major sources of credit for manual workers in the 1950s. In 2000–1,
cooperative banks and credit societies had taken their place. About 98 per cent of
the total credit borrowed was from the formal sector and almost all of that was
from cooperative banks. The mean rate of interest and the modal rate of interest
at which my study households borrowed in 2000–1 were below 18 per cent per
annum. These societies provided loans mainly for various consumption purposes
of households, such as construction and repair of houses, marriage expenses,
educational expenses, medical expenses and repayment of other loans.
The establishment of cooperative credit societies was a major achievement of
public action in Morazha. During the Second World War period, when there
was a severe food shortage in Malabar, the Communist peasant union formed
small cooperatives – called the Producers and Consumers Cooperatives (PCCs) –
to forcibly secure food grains from the store rooms of landlords and distribute
them to the general public. After the War, the PCCs started to distribute credit
to peasants, and over time, these small units of credit supply were transformed
into larger cooperative banks.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) of subsidized food in Kerala is widely
recognized as India’s most effective. In Morazha, more sections of the rural poor
than in other parts of the country had access to the PDS. The average per capita
purchase of cereals from the PDS in 2000–1 for an income-poor household
© 2006 The Author.

338 R. Ramakumar
classified by the government as Below Poverty Line (BPL) was about half the
Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) per capita recommended dietary
allowance of cereals. On an average, the implicit subsidy received by an income-
poor household classified as BPL was about 8 per cent of the official poverty line
in 2000–1. The ration shop network in Kerala also has its origins in the peasant
movement for public provisioning of food grain that began in Malabar in 1942
(through the PCCs), and continued in different forms through the 1950s and
1960s.
For the beneficiaries of direct social security schemes, pensions were impor-
tant shields against destitution, and helped beneficiaries live with dignity in
society. The average amount of pension for a beneficiary in 2000–1 was sufficient
to allow the beneficiary to purchase a quantity of cereals equivalent to 86 per cent
of the ICMR’s recommended dietary allowance of cereals. The conception and
design of social security schemes in Kerala can be convincingly traced to the
efforts of Kerala’s working class movement in the 1930s and 1940s to integrate
the struggle against capitalists and the colonial state with their initiatives for
welfare and mutual benefit activities.
Housing conditions of the surveyed households were also remarkably supe-
rior to those of similar sections in other States of India. No manual labour
household involved in agricultural wage work in Morazha lived in a katcha house
in 2000–1. All households had pucca roofs. About 94 per cent of manual labour
households involved in agricultural wage work in Morazha had a latrine in their
house. In rural India as a whole, 81 per cent of households did not have a latrine
at home in 1999.
The condition of improved housing for the surveyed households was closely
associated with the distribution of land through land reforms. In a State where
land prices were the highest in India, the primary barrier to better housing
conditions is the difficulty to finance the purchase of house sites. This barrier
was overcome through land reform. The availability of cheap credit from the
local cooperative banks (the product of public action) to construct houses and the
availability of financial grants from the panchayats (the local organs of the State)
also helped the surveyed households to improve significantly their conditions of
housing and sanitation.
In sum, public action was the most important determinant of higher quality
of life in Morazha. The achievements of public action in relation to raising the
quality of life of manual labour households in Morazha were substantial. Land
reforms by the State changed the conditions in which labour power was sold; it
freed workers to sell their labour power to the employers of their choice. Land
reforms also provided worker households with homestead land free of cost. The
income from homesteads supplemented household incomes and helped raise food
intake and nutrition. Legislation by the State provided for an innovative pension
scheme for unorganized workers. The public distribution system of the State
served effectively to improve nutrition. The political movement for land reform
played an important role in eliminating older forms of usury-based exploitation,
and to establish cooperative credit institutions. Institutions of local government
© 2006 The Author.

also provided subsidies to the poor to construct latrines, leading to significant

improvement in the conditions of sanitation.
The achievements in Morazha, and in Kerala, are remarkable also because the
gains were preserved over time. Here again, the credit goes to sustained public
action. Kerala’s society is marked by the presence of democratic political regimes
that work towards the welfare of the poor. It is also marked by the presence
of an alert citizenry; mass organizations, mainly from the Left, that represent
people of different backgrounds consistently strive to protect institutions of
public welfare from degenerating.31 This is one important way by which the
possibilities of rent-seeking or hijacking by elites of gains from public welfare
institutions are minimized. After 1996–7, a significant boost to transparency in
public administration was achieved through the State government’s decentraliza-
tion programme. Beneficiary selection through grama sabhas has also significantly
reduced corruption in the delivery of benefits from public schemes. There is,
moreover, a vigilant free press in Kerala, which enjoys wide readership across
regions and classes, and which highlights failures of public administration and
instances of leakages. In essence, it is the high levels of democratization of rural
public life that has helped Kerala, and Morazha, to preserve its social sector
achievements over the years.
The conclusions of this article can also be extended to develop a larger argu-
ment on the development experiences of Kerala vis-à-vis other Indian States. If
other Indian States are to achieve the high levels of social indicators secured in
Kerala, it is necessary that the bases on which different forms of class-, caste- and
gender-based discriminations survive are weakened. This requires (a) land re-
forms on a large scale; (b) social movements that question the relevance of tradi-
tional values and attitudes with respect to caste, social justice, the status of women,
education and health; (c) an enlightened political agency that actually helps to
bring about social change and delivers benefits to the poor; and (d) the dominant
presence of a pro-poor State, based politically on people’s struggles, that puts in
place and implements programmes of social change. The general level of social
indicators in many other Indian States is not high because these conditions are
yet to be met.
The Morazha that I surveyed in 2000–1 was very different from the Morazha
that Thomas Shea surveyed in 1955. Shea characterized the conditions of life of
agricultural workers as ‘wretched in the extreme’ (Shea 1955b, 1031). My study
documented the significant transformation in the quality of life of people that
took place in Morazha after 1955, through a significant weakening of the factors
that led to ‘wretched’ conditions of life. Public action was the driving force
31
An early example in this regard was provided by Joan Mencher (1980, 1781–2):
In Kerala, if a Primary Health Centre were unmanned for a few days, there would be a
massive demonstration at the nearest collectorate led by local leftists, who would demand to
be given what they knew they were entitled to . . . [T]he availability of doctors at a primary
health facility, and public knowledge that something will be done at any time of the day or
night if it is an emergency, has gone a long way to lowering child death.
© 2006 The Author.

340 R. Ramakumar
behind this transformation, and the destruction of traditional agrarian power by

the State through land reform was the most critical step.
ACRONYMS USED IN TEXT

AIDIS All-India Debt and Investment Survey
AIRCS All-India Rural Credit Survey
APL Above the Poverty Line
BPL Below the Poverty Line
GoI Government of India
GoK Government of Kerala
HCR Poverty Head Count Ratio
ICMR Indian Council of Medical Research
IIPS International Institute of Population Studies
KAWA Kerala Agricultural Workers’ Act
KSI Kerala Statistical Institute
MKSCB The Morazha-Kalliasseri Service Cooperative Bank
NFHS National Family Health Survey
NHDR National Human Development Report
NSSO National Sample Survey Organization
PCC Producers and Consumers Cooperative
PDS Public Distribution System
PGI Poverty Gap Index
PPGI Pro-Poor Growth Index
TPDS Targeted Public Distribution System
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Journal

Public Action, Agrarian Change and the

© 2006 The Author.

© 2006 The Author.

© 2006 The Author.

© 2006 The Author.

© 2006 The Author.

THE STUDY AREA AND SURVEY METHODS

© 2006 The Author.

LEVELS OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME-POVERTY: KERALA AND

Levels of Income-poverty among Agricultural Labour Households in Kerala

© 2006 The Author.

State Head-count ratios

Jammu & Kashmir 45.3 (6) 13.0 (1)

© 2006 The Author.

Levels of Income-poverty, Manual Labour Households Involved in Agricultural Wage

© 2006 The Author.

PUBLIC ACTION AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF MANUAL

Land Reforms and Changes in Household Ownership of Land

© 2006 The Author.

Table 2. Land assessment details, Morazha desam, 1936

Holdings assessed to Number (total) Extent (acres) Assessment (Rs. anas)

Rs 1 and less 67 29.1 37.6

Note: The ‘landowner’ in the table could be a temple or an individual.

Table 3. Distribution of land ownership, Andhur panchayat, by caste of landowners,

Temple managements 1214.7 28.8

Source: Andhur Panchayat (1996), Table 1.

© 2006 The Author.

Table 4. Distribution of number and area of household ownership holdings, by size-

Land size Number of Share of Area under Share in total

< 0.10 138 10.3 8.5 1.0

Table 5. Distribution of landownership across residents of Morazha desam, by caste

Caste group Share in Area owned Share in total

Brahmans 0.5 12.2 1.6

Source: Survey data, 2001.

© 2006 The Author.

Table 6. Distribution of homestead land among manual labour households involved in

Size class Number of Share of Average size

Note: One acre = 100 cents.

Net Revenue from Production in Homestead Plots

© 2006 The Author.

Table 7. Distribution of households by the shares of imputed net income from

Share of net income at 2001 prices in Number of Share of

Levels of Asset Ownership

© 2006 The Author.

Household asset Number of Number of

Kerala India Kerala India

< 15,000 52 182 29 76

Source: NSSO (2005).

Levels of asset ownership, manual labour households involved in agricultural wage

© 2006 The Author.

Asset type All households Households below Households above

Share in Average Share in Average Share in Average

Land 69.5 183,633 70.9 165,151 68.7 197,346

Source: Survey data, 2001.

Land reform in Kerala aimed at the distribution of a minimum of 10 cents of

State-supported Social Security Schemes

© 2006 The Author.

© 2006 The Author.

If we consider only the 38 households that received direct assistance in 2000–

© 2006 The Author.

The Public Distribution System (PDS) of Food

© 2006 The Author.