Unorganised Rural Labour In India - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Unorganised Rural Labour In India

structure

(1) Opening    —    Impirical description of the unorganised rural labour.

(2) Body    —    Problem of unorganised rural labour.

    —    The 1981 Census data .

    —    Increase in casual workers.

    —    Factors for commercialisation of agriculture and agro- 

foresty.

    —    Migration of rural labourer to loans.

    —    The case of bonded labour.

    —    Social Security system.

(3) Closing    —    The government's legislations and commitment.

What is common to unorganised rural labour in -all the variegated areas is that such labour is (a) non unionised and so has no protection from a trade union, (b) in reality unprotected by state legislation, regulating conditions of work and has limited or non access to government, (c) involved in traditional, indigenous technology, which is physically demanding, and (d) found in small scale agricultural and allied (dairying poultry, fishing, forestry) and non agricultural rural occupations. This is not a definition but an empirical description of the unorganised rural labour in the country, and is at the heart of the programme of rural development to which the plan from its inception has been committed and which has received new content and urgency in the Eighth Plan.

In dealing with the problem of unorganised rural labour within the programme of Rural Development, the question of whether such labour is a transitional phenomenon which will cease to exist as the rural area, led by agriculture and allied activities become capitalistic, or whether it is sector nurtured by capitalist production for its own roots and inescapable being, which will resist the inroads of capitalism and its alleviating efforts, must be faced in devising the rural development strategy. We should prefer to the third (last) option, modified with some inputs from and to the capitalist modern sector, which at the same time is open to some exploitation by the urbanised modern sector. This preferred option follow from the historical persistence of the peasant type of organisation centred in the family farm, using in the main wage household labour and some extra household labour, with its competitive advantage over capitalistic forms of production, following from the absence of the profit factor, and its replacement by the intensive fragmented competition, involving harder work styles and minimal consumption, which in the case of non peasant(landless) workers provides a fertile ground for exploitation. That is basically unorganised labour whether in the rural or urban area is conterminous with poverty, because whether it be the marginal farmer, or landless labourer or the migrant urban slum worker, they are each involved in a set of survival activities on the margin of poverty.

The 2011 Census data shows that about 50 percent of the total  workers are engaged in agriculture where the line between self employment and wage employment is hazy, and where agricultural workers are the majority of the unorganised and weaker sections of the workforce. Agricultural workers as fraction of India's total population have decreased only marginally since 1951. While 27% of the people were agricultural workers in 1951; their fraction stands 21.7% as per census 2011 data.

Out of the total agricultural workers. The fraction of  cultivators has gradually gone down from 72% in 1951 to 45.1% in 2011. On the other hand, the fraction of Agricltural Labourers- has gradually gone up from 28% in 1951 to 54.8% in 2011.

And here in regard to the majority agricultural workers, it is important to recall that the 32nd and 38th rounds of NSS refer to the under-employment of those workers being 19.07 per cent and 21.04 per cent, which is more serious than their full time unemployment, which it establishes at 3.74 per cent and 3.97 per cent. Applying these ratios of underemployment to the current labour force of 400 million workers, it is found that 50 million of marginal farmers and landless labourers (usual status) are underemployed, and 9 million fully unemployed. Thus the unorganised rural labour-whether in farm or non-farm employment are (a) seriously underemployed and (b) to a lesser extent totally unemployed.

Of late there has been a sharp and continuing increase in casual workers. This disturbing increase in the percentage of casual workers is attributed to (a) decline in the average size of land holding of the rural household which results in its being leased out and the marginal owner becomes wage or casuals labour, (b) the breaking, etc. and (c) increased commercialisation of the rural economy to which reference is made later. Rural unorganised labour is becoming increasingly casualised.

Several factors which are making both for commercialisation of agricultural and agro-industries have resulted in the proportion of wage labour in the rural workforce rising, and for that wage labour to be growingly casualised as just noted. The growing commercialisation of agriculture has intensified the process of widening of rural industry, and allowed urban products increasingly to penetrate the rural market. These trends have led under-employment and unemployment of unorganised agricultural labour.

The commercialisation of agriculture, fed by the rapid growth of rural-urban transport improved commercial net works which have pushed increasingly the underemployed rural labour to migrate to towns in search of employment or use the improved transport facilities to continue living with their rural homes and commute to their jobs in nearby towns. There is as yet no comprehensive information of the trend in the move of the unorganised rural labour to urban areas, except the growing volume of data on slumps in the 12 metropolitan centres of the country, which give an impressionistic picture of this being a growing volume. The question is however posed, why the non agricultural sector-both urban and rural- is not able to absorb all the available surplus labour from the rural areas. The question needs study.

On of the most scandalous features of the system of unorganised rural labour is the system of bonded labour. The NIL report that the implementation of the Bonded labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 is tardy, and attempts to give the impression that the problem has been solved by the government, which reports smaller number of those still in bondage, and large numbers being freed, and even larger numbers being rehabilitated whereas data published on the basis of surveys by the Gandhi peace Foundation, the Labour Bureau and the Ministry of Labour shows that the bonded labourers number 262 lakh, of whom only 21 lakh have been freed, and 16 lakh rehabilitated. Bonded labour seems to be an inescapable part of unorganised rural labour. 

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, India has the most bounded Labour in teh word. There are an estimated 46 million people enslaved worldwide with more than 18 million in India.

The country's social security covering old age pensions, health and sickness insurance, accident compensation, maternity benefits, payment of gratuity, unemployment relief-completely exclude 90 per cent of India's workforce and all of the rural unorganised labour. In a thought provoking analysis of this situation and what can be done for providing a minimum of social security here and now, with the limited resources available to the government at the Union and State levels, a three point action plan is proposed covering the unorganised poor in the rural labour sector which need not wait till the country becomes rich and poverty is abolished. It proposes that the social security system can be closely targeted towards the poorest deciles, who are not or will ever be reached either by the growth process or the anti-poverty programmes- IRDP, MNREGA etc. The plan involves (a) the enlargement and improvement of promotional programmes for employment generation, drought relief, primary health care, medical anti natal and maternity facilities, rehabilitation of the handicapped, widows and orphans living in poverty; (b) the creation and maintenance of a nation wide old age pension scheme for those living in poverty; (c) the extension of life insurance for the poor with a subsidy from the Union and state government as a measure of survival benefits. This social security system for unorganised rural labour is practical and viable and should be given serious consideration.

What is needed to help the unorganised rural labour is for the National Commission on Rural Labour to function primarily with a view to (i) monitoring the implementation of minimum wage legislation by the states, ensuring that the states review minimum wages every 2 years and using not only the inspectors but enforcement and (ii) making a start on the 3 point social security system for the unorganised rural poor, particularly for those not being reached by any other programme.