Social Classes in India & Industrial Class Structure | Sociology Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Agrarian Class Structure 

• The concept of agrarian class structure refers to the type of the class structure that prevails in an agricultural society or set up. Scholars such as S. Bhargava, D.R. Gadgil and others have stated in their studies that the agrarian classes did exist in pre-independent India. The agrarian social structure consists of agrarian classes which represent different social groups in rural India.
• An analysis of the post independent Indian rural set up reveals the existence of four classes. They are -
  (i) landowners,
  (ii) tenants
  (iii) labourers, and
  (iv) nonagriculturists.
• A.R. Desai has stated that landowners constitute about 22%, tenants about 27%, agricultural labourers about 31%, and non agriculturists about 20%.
• It is found that a large majority of the cultivators [about 60%] are marginal cultivators with less than 2 hectares of land, followed by small cultivators [about 16%) with 2 to 5 hectares of land, medium cultivators [about 6%]with 5 to 10 hectares of land and big cultivators [about 18%] with more than 10 hectares of land.

Daniel Thorner's Classification of Rural Classes into Three Social Categories
Daniel Thorner classified rural classes into tree social categories namely;
(a) maliks,
(b) kisans and
(c) mazdoors, on the basis of three criteria which are as follows:
(i) Income obtained from the land- i.e. through rent, one's own cultivation or wages.
(ii) The nature of rights- i.e. ownership rights, tenancy rights, sharecropping rights, or no rights at all.
(iii) The extent of field work actually performed- i.e. doing no work at all, doing partial work, doing total work, and doing work for others to earn wages.
The three agrarian classes which Daniel Thorner spoke of are (a) Malik, (b) Kisan, and (c) Mazdoor.
According to Thorner, the prevalent agrarian relations can also be analyzed in terms of these three specific terms.

• Maliks or Landlords
  The term Maliks refers to the big landlords and considerably rich land owners who constitute the relative affluent class in the village set up. The Malik obtains his agricultural income mostly, but not solely, from property rights in the land. It means a share of the produce of land [i.e. the land over which he has ownership rights] is realized by him either in cash or in kind, or sometimes both. The Maliks sometimes cultivate lands personally by making use of hired labourers. They many employ managers to supervise the cultivation of land.
  The Maliks can be grouped into two groups, namely, the big absentee landlords, and the rich resident land owners.
  (i) Absentee Landlords i.e. those who do not stay in the village but in a far away town or city and get the cultivation done through the mangers or supervisors. These Maliks are normally big landlords who have their rights over lands spread over several villages. They are absentee landlords for they do not have any personal interest in the land, and get it managed by supervisors.
  (ii) The rich resident land owners i.e. those Maliks who reside in the village in which they own land. These people also do not work in the land personally but get the cultivation work done by others.
• Kisans or Working Peasants
  
  The Kisan has come to symbolize Indian agriculture
  The term kisan refers to the working peasants. They, occupy the intermediary position in the three-tier agrarian class structure. This class consists of small landowners or tenants. In comparison with the Malik, the Kisan owns land which is smaller in size and unlike the Malik, the Kisan and his family embers actually take part in the cultivation work that goes on in the field. Some of these Kisans secure relatively poor income and hence in order to compensate it they, along with their family members, often work as agricultural labourers. They very rarely employ outside labourers, but often invite others to work in their fields on exchange basis. It is also probable that most of the Kisans belong to what are known  as intermediary castes.
• Mazdoors or Labourers
  The term Mazdoors refers in the rural context to the landless villagers who work as labourers on wage basis. They obtain their livelihood primarily from working on other people's land. The class of Mazdoors may consist of poor tenants, share croppers and landless labourers. The mazdoors receives wages in cash and sometimes in kind also. These Mazdoors are often forced to migrate to the neighbouring villages, to other districts or states, particularly when they fail to find enough work in their own villages. Some of them even turn out as construction or industrial workers.

Dhanagare's Model of Agrarian Classes
Prof. D.N. Dhanagare has commented that Thorner's classification of agrarian classes suffers from its own limitations for it is not based on any theoretical assumptions. Dhanagare himself has suggested yet another model of agrarian classes. Dhanagare's model consists of five categories or classes which are as follows:
(i) landlords
(ii) rich peasants
(iii) middle peasants
(iv) landless labour
(v) poor peasants.
Agrarian classes based on the size of the cultivated land
On the basis of the size of the land possessed by the peasants and the other sources of income which they obtain, one can speak of a fivefold classification of agrarian classes. It is as follows:
(i) Big farmers who hold more than four hectares of land.
(ii) Medium farmers owning 2-4 hectares of cultivable land
(iii) Small famers possessing 1-2 hectares of land
(iv) Marginal farmers having land whose size is less than one hectare.
(v) Agricultural labourers who may [or may not] possess a small piece of land and who mainly relies on wage labour as their source of income.

Conclusion

The above mentioned classifications of agrarian classes signify that a few more classifications are possible. It is very difficult to make a clear identification and analysis of agrarian classes in the Indian rural set up for it is highly varied and complex.

Industrial Working Class 

• The effects of industrialization have been: 
  • The percentage of workers engaged in agriculture has come down while that of workers engaged in industrial activities has gone up 
  • The process of social mobility has accelerated. 
  • Trade unions have organized industrial workers to fight for their rights. 
  • Since industrial workers maintain continued  and  close relationship with their kin groups and castes, caste stratification has not affected class character. 
  • The traditional and charismatic elite have been replaced by the professional elite.
• Morris D. Morris has referred to two viewpoints regarding the behaviour pattern of the industrial labour. One view is that labour being short in indus try, employers had to scramble for their workforce and make all sorts of concessions which weakened their hold on the workers. The workers frequently returned to their villages to which they were very much attached. The other view talks of surplus of labour available in villages for urban employment. Because of easy availability, the employers abused workers unmercifully. Since working conditions in the factories were intolerable, the labour was forced to go back their villages. Thus, in both views, it was held that workers retained their rural links which limited the supply of labour for industrial development. As a consequence, proletarian type of behaviour did not develop. It also resulted in high rates of absenteeism and labour turnover and the slow growth of trade unions.
• Besides the above features, four other features were also visible: First employment of women and children in industries was very limited. About 20 to 25 percent of labour force consisted of women and about 5 percent of children. This was because employment of women in night shifts was prohibited and children below 14 years could not be legally employed. Secondly, though it is argued that industry is caste -blind  because no single caste can provide an adequate supply of labour and because employees are uninterested in caste affiliation, yet workers did not permit the employers to employ workers of untouchable castes. Thirdly, large number of workers  in the industries  were those  who had no significant claim to land. Fourthly, workers employed were not necessarily from the same district in which the industry was located but were recruited from different districts as well as neighbouring states.
• There were, thus, no geographical barriers inhibiting the flow of labour into the industry. The rural social structure (joint family system etc.) was also not a barrier to the flow of population needed for urban economic expansion. According to one estimate, of the total workers in any industry, about 25 percent are local, 10 percent come from within 100 kms of industry's location, 50 percent from 10 to 750 kms and 15 per cent from more than 750 kms. This shows a tendency for industry hands to be drawn from increasingly distant areas. All these features explain the class aspect of industrial labour force in India.
• Analyzing the working class, Holmstrom has said that all workers do not share all interests; rather they share a few interests only. He has also said that  it  is necessary to draw a class line between the organized and the unorganized sector industrial workers. Joshi (1976) also has said that organized and unorganized sector industrial workers are two classes with different and conflicting interests.
• This can be explained on the basis of difference in four factors: wage s, working conditions, security and social worlds.
• The wages depend upon whether the industry is big (more than 1,000 workers), small (250-1,000 workers) or very small (less than 50 workers). In 1973, West Bengal laid down different minimum wages for above three types of industries. The big industries pay much more than the small industries because of the economics of scale, unions and workers' strong bargaining position. Naturally, the interest s of workers depends upon the type of industry they work in.
• The working conditions also affect the interests of workers. Workers in industries with more pleasant conditions, having safety measures and fewer accidents and less noise and monotony and fatigue, shorter hours, more space, freedom from close control or harassment, a chance of learning something more, canteens and creches and washing rooms,  have different interests form those which do not provide all these amenities. As such, they work as two different classes of workers.
• Security and career chances also demarcate the two classes of workers. A permanent worker has not only a job but also a career while the temporary worker is bothered more about the security of the job. The permanent worker's career extends into the future but the temporary one remains bogged down into the present. The former may plan to improve his job by learning a skill and getting promotion; the latter is terrified of losing his job if he joins a union.
• Lastly, the social world also divides workers in two different classes. The social world refers to differences in economic conditions, life chances, mutual aid and dependence etc. The factory workers in the organized sector have more solidarity, fewer hostilities and lesser tensions. Their interests and ideology  keep them separate from the outsiders. Thus, the organized sector workers form a privileged class within the working class.

Middle Classes in India 

• The emergence of the new middle class is an interesting development in the era of economic liberalization in India. Academic studies had, no doubt, focused earlier on the character of the Indian middle class in general, but it is only recently that the rise of the new middle class has attracted the attention of social scientists.
  
  Economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh greatly contributed to the expansion of the Indian Middle Class
• In a celebrated study of the Indian middle classes, B.B Mishra has suggested that the members of the educated and professionals, such as government servants, lawyers, college teachers and doctors, primarily constituted the bulk of the Indian middle classes. He also included the body of merchants, agents of modern trading firms, salaried executives in banking and trading, and the middle grades of peasant proprietors and rentiers under this category. This notion of the middle class has continued for years for the purpose of examining the role of the middle class in contemporary India.
• It has been argued that in the early years of the Independence, material pursuits of middle class were subsumed in a broader ethical and moral responsibility to the nation as a whole. A restraint on materialistic exhibitionism in a poor country was the ideal reflector of the character of the middle class. Changes have, however, occurred in the basic character of this class. Pavan Varma, for example, in his book 'The Great Indian Middle Class' has initiated a significant debate on the declining social responsibility of the Indian middle class. It is in this context that the idea of a new middle class has been made popular in India.
• The current culture of consumerism has given rise to the mew middle class. The economic liberalization initiated in India in the 1990s portrays the middle class as a sizeable market which has attracted the Multi National Corporations (MNC). Images of the urban middle class in the print media and television contribute to prevalence of images of an affluent consumer. The spread of the consumer items such as cellphones, cars, washing machines and colour televisions has also consolidated the image of a new middle class culture. Advertising images has further contributed to that perception.
• The new middle class has left behind its dependence on austerity and state protection. The newness of the middle class rests on its embrace of social practices of taste and consumption and a new cultural standard. Thus, the newness of middle class involves adoption of a new ideology rather than a shift in the social basis of India's middle class.
• Critics of this new middle class have pointed out the negative effects that middle class consumerism holds in terms of environment degradation and a growing indifference towards socioeconomic problems of the country. However, proponents of liberalization have projected this new middle class as an idealized standard for a globalizing India.