Guest post by BHIM REDDY

[The movement for a separate Telangana state has been raging now for quite some time. At Kafila, we have not yet had the occasion for a discussion on the pros and cons of the issue. This post deals with one aspect – that of agricultural economy and its relationship to the perceptions of discrimination. We hope that this post will lead to some debate on a very important issue. AN]

Rural Telangana has experienced income declines for ninety percent of its population, increase in inequality and a drastic decrease in the class-size of cultivators accompanied by an increase in the class-size of agricultural labourers since early 1990s.  This revealing evidence is presented in Srikrishna Committee (Committee for Consultations on the Situation in Andhra Pradesh, headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna) Report based on NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi) surveys conducted once in the year 1993-94 and another in 2004-05. The Committee’s concern over this scenario, despite the purpose of its constitution being to study the situation in Andhra Pradesh state in the context of unrest in Telangana region, has not attracted any attention beyond its worry that the vulnerability of the deprived masses can be ‘used’ by political groups: “…most of the deprived communities in Telangana are facing hardship and therefore are vulnerable to mass mobilization on one pretext or the other, including political mobilization with promises which may or may not be met”. Beyond this shallow concern the Committee is indifferent to such evidence that any study characterised by objectivity and rigorous interrogation would be compelled to undertake a critical examination of the trajectory of economic development and state’s policy, and attempt to explain the cause of such deprivation and growing inequity.

Instead there is a clear disjunction between Committee’s ‘Equity Analysis’ of negative trends in incomes and inequity on the one hand and its positive analysis of agricultural growth on the other. Lacking account to its own equity analysis the Committee based on its analysis of agricultural ‘growth’ concludes that Telangana experienced improvements in the condition of life without substantiating this conclusion with any tangible evidence: “It can be clearly established that the condition of residents of Telangana region (other than Hyderabad) has, indeed, experienced larger improvements during the past half a century and it has caught up with the broad economic conditions prevailing in coastal Andhra. This is possible only when the relative growth in the identified indicators (in agriculture) has been much faster in Telangana compared with coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions”. I argue, in the following paragraphs, that the Committee’s analysis of agricultural growth itself is partly distorted and lacks critical examination of trends in identified indicators. The nature of agricultural growth in Telangana during the last two decades is such that it excluded and deprived most of small and marginal cultivators, which explains income declines, inequity and withering cultivator class.

Agricultural growth in Telangana

Agricultural growth the Committee referred to actually occurred from mid 1970s with a shift in cropping pattern accompanied by a drastic increase in ground water irrigation. Change in incomes and inequity from early 1990s that it merely reports actually suggest deprivation of ninety percent of the region’s population. It assessed growth in agriculture in Telangana as ‘robust’ based on ‘growth’ in three indicators: gross cropped area, irrigation and productivity. A closer examination of the analysis of these three indicators suggests a distortion of both facts and conclusions drawn.

1. Cropped Area: Growth in agriculture in terms of increase in GCA (gross cropped area) occurred by 20% in Costal Andhra and only 5% in Telangana while there was a decline in the same in Rayalaseema from mid 1950s to the present going by the Report itself. Committee, however, ignored a contradictory trend in NCA (net cropped area) in Telangana. Nor did it analyse a huge increase of fallow land in Telangana. Change in GCA does not actually reflect if there is any decrease in the extent of actual cropped land (NCA) when there is an increase in multiple cropping due to increase in irrigation. Region wise land utilisation shows 26.35 lakh hectares of fallow land (Current and Other fallows combined) in Telangana, 9.07 lakh hectares in Rayalaseema and 6.77 lakh hectares in Costal Andhra (p.183). Compared to the mid 1970s with the present, there is a decrease of 11% in NCA in Telangana, 13.86% in Rayalaseema and 3.5% in Coastal Andhra. The NCA till the turn of the century in Coastal Andhra region has actually increased while there had been a decline in the other two regions from 1970s. This huge increase in fallow land and a corresponding decrease in NCA in Telangana raise serious questions about the nature of growth in agriculture and its sustainability in Telangana. Creation of irrigation by those sections of cultivators with capacity to invest in groundwater irrigation facilitated cropping more than once but those sections without such capacity to invest seem to be abandoning cultivation that accounts for decreasing NCA.

2. Irrigation:  The Committee reports, “The NIA (Net Irrigated Area) in all the three regions of AP has increased over the years. In fact the NIA in Telangana has doubled (from 0.8 million hectares in 1956-60 to 1.7 million hectares by 2006-09). Thus Telangana has experienced a whopping 113% increase; while coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema have experienced a much lower growth of NIA at 30% and 55% respectively”. Firstly, what is serious is that more than 2 lakh hectares of tank irrigation is lost in Telangana, an area more than what is created (‘potential created’) through major and medium projects over the last fifty odd years, is casually dismissed by the Report as a “nationwide phenomenon”. A serious question that Committee did not look into is the impact of this loss of irrigation, mostly in the last 15 years, on the households which hitherto were dependent on tank irrigation. And, whether all the sections of cultivators dependant on tank irrigation were able to compensate for themselves by creating ground water irrigation? At present even rain fed crops are not cultivated under the ayacut (command area) of these tanks because of water logging in rainy season or in expectation of the tanks getting filled to enable irrigated crops. The newly created ground water irrigation is more unevenly distributed across the sections of cultivators than the irrigation in the past under tanks. Further, some of the Scheduled Caste and other lower sections of the rural households own small patches of land only under tank and not elsewhere. Majority from these sections who possess land elsewhere do not have the capacity to invest in groundwater irrigation. Tanks becoming redundant have cost the lowest sections of cultivators not only access to irrigation but deprived them of their subsistence, i.e. rice. Whether it was “purposely destroyed” due to negligence of tanks by the state as alleged and whether this was a conspiracy plotted on the upper catchment area of rivers in view of the large potential for hydro-electric power, and canal irrigation to regions of natural gradient, it has dispossessed large sections of cultivators from irrigation.  Secondly, growth in ground water irrigation, one of the indicators that the Report attributes to growth in agriculture, is ill-conceived. Committee notes “well irrigation has shown a marked increase and today forms the bulk of the total irrigation (14 lakh hectares out of the total of 18 lakh hectares)”. It dismisses the grievance that this ground water irrigation has cost the farmers with huge investments, losses and indebtedness as based on “misconception”. Groundwater irrigation per se is not an unviable mode of irrigation. It is viable in those regions where there is optimal rainfall and surface irrigation to recharge water table. But the irony in this state is that canal irrigation was created with public expenditure, where groundwater irrigation was possible and viable, where as mostly left it to the farmers to create groundwater irrigation with own private investment in the regions where rainfall is scarce. What the Committee did not present is that majority of the dug/ open wells in Telangana region have become redundant with overexploitation of ground water with deep borewells. For instance, in Mahabubnagar district alone, irrigated area under open wells which reached 89 thousand hectares by 1990-91 is reduced to 10 thousand hectares at present, while during the same period the irrigated area under borewells has increased from a negligible amount to 1.2 lakh hectares. This is apart from a reduction of tank irrigation to almost negligible area at present from 68 thousand hectares in 1955-56. In other words, the increase in groundwater irrigation with the technology of deep borewells has caused severe losses to those households dependant on open wells, apart from the loss to households due to drying up of tanks. This occurred more severely in south Telangana region where the rainfall is scarce. The Committee itself presents data on over-exploitation of ground water that there are altogether 181 blocks identified in Telangana as ‘over exploited’, ‘critical’ and ‘sub-critical’ depending on the extent of exploitation of ground water, while it is 37 blocks in Costal Andhra. Further, the Committee did not acknowledge the failure of borewells and the loss incurred on account of such failure. Also unrecorded are those several unsuccessful attempts to sink borewells that make the present count of borewells that account for growth in irrigation. According to a sample survey in the state during the year 2004 by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, 26% of the farmers have invested in sinking borewells during the previous five years. It was highest in south Telangana, where nearly 50% of the farmers invested on borewells and 66.5% of the investment was lost due to failure of borewells. While the Committee “recognised that tube wells do involve costly investments and in pockets of low groundwater availability, operating costs are also high”, it did not compare how this private spending on borewells affects the returns in agriculture in Telangana with that of Costal Andhra which predominantly depends on canal irrigation. Oblivion to several studies on agrarian crisis in Telangana that point to investments and losses in borewells that lead to indebtedness and impoverishment the Committee remarks that “such a large increase (in ground water irrigation) would not have taken place if it was leading to the general impoverishing of all farmers”.

3. On productivity the Committee notes that “Telangana has shown large improvements in output per hectare during the last 5 decades or so and it is consistent with growth in irrigation as well”. It also shows growth in productivity for rice, cotton and groundnut has improved considerably. Growth in productivity in Telangana is documented by other studies too. Distress amidst growth is a ‘paradox’ that characterises agrarian crisis in Telangana. Scholars attributed this crisis to agricultural liberalisation policies on the one hand and an increasing dependence on excessive ground water irrigation borne out of private investment in the region as resulting in immiserisation – increasing poverty, indebtedness and also frequent committing of suicides – of the peasantry on the other. This growth mostly in the yield component due to increase in the use of HYV seeds, fertilisers and pesticides and due to shift in cropping pattern is explained as ‘distress inducing growth’ and ‘growth inducing distress’ for this region by Vakulabaranam in his study on agrarian crisis in Telangana. However, there is no evidence if growth is induced by distress across all sections of cultivators. The shift in cropping that occurred in Telangana is from ‘traditional’ rain fed crops like jowar towards paddy and cotton that require higher investments including for that of groundwater irrigation, are now the major two crops of the region. The fact that there is a drastic decrease in the cultivated area of these former crops suggests that they are un-remunerative and least preferred. The fact that these un-favored crops are still cultivated in considerable amount of area and considerable amount of area of land is left uncultivated in Telangana suggest, in absence of data on class of cultivators vis-à-vis crops cultivated, access to irrigation and holding fallow land, that most of the small and marginal cultivators who lack capacity to invest either still pursue these crops or leave land fallow.

Understanding  deprivation and inequity in Telangana

The evidence presented in the Report shows that there is a marginal decline of per-capita income for ‘cultivators’ and a steep decline for ‘agricultural labourers’ along with falling wage rates. In fact, income decline for ‘cultivators’ appears meager because a considerable size of this category is reduced to the category of ‘agricultural labourers’, as an occupational category is determined, as mentioned in the Report, by the largest share of income. The share of cultivators in all occupational categories has declined from 39% to 25% and the share of agricultural labour has increased from 38% to 47% in Telangana. Income has increased only for ‘non-farm self employment’ occupational category. Perhaps this latter category includes money lenders, seed, fertilizer and pesticide traders, agricultural commission agents, borewell-drilling machine owners and contractors of public works in this region. This occupational category seems to correspond and form the ‘well off’ class which has shown increase in income while all other classes – ‘most deprived’, ‘deprived’, ‘lower middle class’ and upper middle class’- have experienced decline in income. And, the same occupational category seems to belong to the ‘High Hindu Castes’ which has shown improvement in income while ‘SCs,’ ‘STs’, ‘OBCs and Minorities’ which form ninety percent of this region’s population have experienced a decline in incomes.

Fall in incomes for ‘cultivators’ in general reflects agricultural crisis in Telangana as also documented by scholars despite growth in irrigation and productivity. Lower sections of cultivators and agricultural labourers experienced higher welfare declines during this period. Increase of incomes for ‘non-farm self employed’ category and a steep decline for the lower sections account for the increased inequality in the region. The increase in ground water irrigation, increase in the share of cultivated area of crops like paddy and cotton on the one hand and decrease in NCA, decrease in tank irrigation, higher disparity in ground water irrigation on the other suggest a class dimension to growth in agriculture as well as deprivation in Telangana. As mentioned above, majority of the small and marginal cultivators who lack financial capacity to shift to crops like paddy or cotton either still pursue ‘traditional’ crops like jowar under rain fed cultivation which have become non–remunerative in the recent years, along with hiring out for agricultural wage. Some of them abandoned cultivation (which accounts for reduction in NCA) as they find it more economical only to engage in wage labour than to pursue such crops. Most of these sections who own land under tanks are deprived of both irrigation as well as cultivation. And, in all these cases their share of income from wage labour has outweighed the share from own cultivation, and, thus they would be recorded as agricultural labourers. Thus, there is a decline in share of ‘cultivators’ and a simultaneous increase in share of ‘agricultural labourers’. Argument of deprivation of marginal cultivators is further supported by the fact that the size of marginal cultivators which increased up to early 1990s has declined since then.  Dispossessed from irrigation and cultivation these sections engage more number of man-days in hired labour than in previous decades, adding to the number of agricultural labourers to be hired. Secondly, the increase in share of small and semi-medium operational holdings due to increased fragmentation of land for various reasons has in turn lead to increased engagement of own/ household labour reducing the demand for hired agricultural labourers. Increased use of machinery like tractors has also substituted for agricultural labour. All these factors could have, thus, led to fall in agricultural wage rates. These sections of agricultural labourers,  marginal and small cultivators mostly belong to and constitute most of the rural SC, ST and OBC population, which explains declining incomes for these communities.

This crisis in Telangana while partly reflects a general agrarian crisis after the implementation of neo-liberal policies in India its specific nature and severity also has a regional dimension that is borne out of a policy marked by neglect and bias in agricultural development. Unrest over this crisis witnessed a change of government in 2004 in the state. But with no respite yet in this region this time it finds its expression in the rural masses joining the agitation for a separate state.

 Bhim Reddy is a Ph D scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Hyderabad