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LAND AND POVERTY

ABRAHAM

Poverty is not an abstract concept. It is the term that describes the 'living' conditions of millions of people in Asia — who are deprived of the barest minimum for existence. And the number of such under poverty line in many countries in Asia is staggering. It is sad to observe that, quite often, in the circles in which we move and work, there is either inadequate knowledge of the magnitude of the problem or unwillingness to face up to it. The hardship about which we often complain so convincingly among ourselves pale into insignificance when compared to those of the millions below poverty line.

Magnitude of the Problem

If calorie intake is taken as the standard for measuring the magnitude of poverty, a comparative study of the international situation will indicate the poor conditions which prevail in Asia. In the Challenge of Hunger Father Noel Drogat has drawn an actual map of calorie intake. The daily

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supply of the United States, Argentina, Britain, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand is over 3,000. Canada, the Soviet Union, and Western Europe have between 2,200 and 2,600. The rest, including most of Africa and all of Asia, have less than 2,200. (It is reckoned that to keep him .functioning effectively a man's diet should provide him with a daily intake of 2,500 calories).

Statistics can be dull and boring. But their import is inescapable. It is a fact that the majority of mankind is poor and hungry. With the help of statistics we know that it is a fact.

It is not entirely true when we describe as poor only those who are under the poverty line. Poverty can also be thought of as a lack of goods and services that one desires to have. This presupposes that the poor are free to believe that a higher standard of living is possible and is attainable. This group may include those in .absolute poverty, but it also includes those who are not in absolute poverty but still feel the need for more goods and services.

As far as absolute poverty is concerned, it can be said that the eradication of it could be an end in itself. Life has to exist. Only then can arise questions, indeed possibilities, of quality of life, its purpose, etc. The primary concern of groups like us should be the elimination of absolute poverty.

Poor Becoming Poorer

The most disturbing aspect of the condition of the poor in the developing countries is that they not only continue to be poor but have become poorer even after considerable developmental activities. Speaking about the Indian situation, an official document entitled Towards an Approach to the Fifth Plan published in June 1972 states, "Economic development in the last two decades, has resulted in an all-round increase in per capita income. The proportion of the poor, defined as those living below a basic minimum standard of consumption, has slightly come down. Yet the absolute number of people below the poverty line today is just as large as it was a few decades ago. And these people living in abject poverty constitute between two fifths and one half of all Indian citizens". C.T. Kurien, an economist, comments, "It is also true that while one half of all citizens of India have continued to be in abject poverty, those in upper half, especially those in the very top layers (say the top 10 per cent or so) have made substantial gains in their position. And so the cliché has come true in our case: two decades of planned development have led to the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer". (Poverty and Development, CISRS, Bangalore, 1974).

The pattern of economic growth found in India is typical of many other developing countries. The bulk of the capital investment is concentrated in the industrial or advanced sector in the belief that rapid industrialisation would create conditions for wider utilisation of the abundant labour available and reduce inequalities in income distribution. But what has really happened is that, though a decline in productivity levels in the traditional sector has been prevented, the advanced sector has achieved considerably

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more expansion with the result that the gap between two sectors had widened. In other words, the majority of the population (nearly 80 per cent in India) are left outside the development process. The result is that a third of the entire national income is appropriated by the richer ten per cent of the population.

Most of the industrial production is geared to the consumption of the upper or middle classes. Every day the market is flooded with more and more sophisticated luxury goods; after-shave lotion, foreign liquors and cigarettes, etc; which only a small minority in the cities can afford to buy, while the large majority lack even the necessities of life. One therefore is faced with the conclusion that the present economic system is such that it enables the rich minority to exploit the labour of the majority for the production of goods which they alone can consume.

Poverty and Unjust Structures

Poverty, thus, is not merely an economic problem. There is a system that produces it and perpetuates it. Broadly defined, such system is one in which the procedures of decision-making and control by which the society is ordered are concentrated in the hands of persons or groups whose interests are so fundamentally inimical to the well-being of the society as a whole. Meaningful gains in the achievement of social justice require the defeat of these interest. Structures that embody these vested interests are many and careful analysis of their seemingly concealed working is highly essential.

Land Holdings

A majority of the population in Asia depends upon land fonts living. Because land is in short supply, the inequalities in the land holdings has become a source of continuing poverty.

In India, the rural poor consist predominantly of agricultural labour households and small land holders with cultivated holdings less than 5.0 acres and particularly less than 2.5 acres. The two groups would also include village artisans progressively thrown out of their traditional employment. The urban poor are only an overflow of the rural poor into the urban area. (Conclusions of Dandekar and Rath Study).

It is also important to realise that the present pattern of land holdings i? not only unjust but economically unproductive. Ownership and management of land rest wholly and directly with substantial landlords. The areas held by them are large enough to form efficient and prosperous economic units. While peasant farmers have holdings which are small and uneconomic, most landlords are, however, content to play the role of rent-receivers, and do not care to invest in the improvement of the soil, so that both the worker and the land he works upon are equally exploited. The need is to create a new system which will be at once dynamic and socially progressive.

Without this drastic change towards a collective ownership of the land any effort to improve the land by massive investments will not help the poor. This is made quite clear in the much publicised Green Revolution. The

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Green Revolution did achieve some spectacular results. But the benefit has gone exclusively to the rich farmers. Several studies show how even after the Green Revolution the agricultural workers belonging to the scheduled caste in the areas where it happened are worse off in the seventies compared with the fifties.

It will not be fair to say that there has been no attempts to change basic socio-economic structure. There have been 'radical' land reform legislations in India. But in effect they are little more than a legislative achievement without any significant change.

Money Lending System

Most of the villagers are under the clutches of money lenders. Wages they receive are inadequate even for daily sustenance. There is then nothing to fall back upon. Money lenders are only too happy to lend the poor villager small or big amount to meet his immediate needs, of course, at an exhorbitant interest. Practically every rural labourer would have borrowed money at one time or another from the money lender and is repaying the interest all his life. The government has enacted law whereby this is legally abolished. But it is doubtful how effective the law is. Where there is no credit facilities through co-operatives or other means, the money lending will thrive. Money lenders know how to operate successfully even illegally and the poor villager, in his dire need, will only be too glad to co-operate with him.

International Relationship

Developing countries are today dependent on foreign capital and foreign collaboration agreements for their economic developments. Such agreements are steadily increasing. During the last twenty six years since independence, the Government of India have permitted over 3,600 foreign collaboration agreements. Such collaborations are being permitted even in such non-priority sectors such as tooth paste, tennis balls and ladies under garments.

Private foreign capital in India has grown from Rs. 256 crores in 1948 to over Rs. 1,400 crores by now. The total external assistance received by India, both from foreign governments and international agencies, for the. period of 1966-73 is Rs. 10,886.4 crores. This has resulted in a big foreign debt and increased debt service obligations. Careful study of the foreign aid will reveal that it has done greater harm to the development of an aid-receiving country and does not help her to be on the road to self-reliance.

Population Explosion

The inter-relationship between poverty and population growth also needs to be discussed. It is often suggested that by limiting population the mass poverty can be eliminated. The answer is not so simple. Certainly in our age there is a great deal of awareness of a planned growth of population. It is important to see this in correct perspective. I can do no more than quote a clear presentation of this perspective by C.T. Kurien:

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"Attempts to eradicate poverty (or check the ecological crisis) through population policies are like efforts to bring down motor car accidents through effecting improvements in the weather after it has been established that accidents frequently occur on misty nights when drunk drivers drive cars with defective brakes.

Again, I am not trying to minimise the gravity of the population problem in our country or in the world as a whole. I am convinced also that steps must be taken to reduce the growth of population. But it is important to get the cause and effect relationships clarified and priorities established. The population problem in our country and in the world at large has resulted from a fall in the death rate by man's interference with nature through corporate decisions which have been part of the process generally described by the term 'development'. The way to solve it is to bring down the birth rate also. It can be achieved only by convincing married couples that in the matter of the size of their families they need not be governed solely by the forces of nature. Such conviction comes partly through awareness of the possibilities of controlling conception without interfering with the natural instincts and normal pattern of married life, but mainly through the couple realising that a limitation of the size of the family is necessary in their own interest, in the interest of their children and of the larger social order. A certain level of economic welfare and a degree of civic consciousness are prerequisites for this awarneess and for the ability to translate it into action. Hence the population problem can be effectively tackled only with the removal of mass poverty". (Poverty and Development)

Struggle for Justice and Power

Poverty is generated and perpetuated by a configuration of unjust structures like the ones we mentioned in the foregoing. A radical transformation of such unjust structures is the only answer to the mounting problem of poverty. This will, in turn, be possible only when there is a "subjective readiness" on the part of the people victimised by the society at large to engage in a revolutionary struggle. Their consciousness has to be awakened to the necessity and legitimacy of such a struggle. To this task the church's participation in society should be directed. The question which assumes a great significance is how to transform the exploitative structures into instruments of greater justice. Awakening the consciousness of the masses, recasting the basic structures (which includes destroying some) and building new institutional arrangements which would significantly advance the human quest for liberation — all these are urgently required to be done.

The crucial issue in the struggle for social justice for the people of Asia is the struggle for the transformation of existing power-structures, so as to enable the poor and the oppressed to participate in the exercise of power and in the processes of decision-making. M.M. Thomas points out, "while technological advance, agricultural and industrial development and modernisation of social structures are necessary, they accentuate the pathological exploitative characteristics of traditional society while destroying their

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traditional humanising aspects, if the traditional power-structures and the social institutions in which they are embodied remain unchanged".

Some consideration of the relation between power and justice is necessary.

"Power is best used when it serves justice in the forward movement to the full liberation of man. All men have the need and the obligation to participate not only in the struggle for the liberation of man from all forms of oppression, exploitation and ignorance, but also in the positive effort to master all wisdom and power in love so that all may attain to the fullness of the liberty of the children of God".

It is essential that the powerless should acquire power in order to participate with dignity in decisions affecting their lives. The urgent task is to create more just structures which can function as counter-power against entrenched power. The church has to exercise its moral power both in the struggle against unjust order and in the process of creating new power structures. This is not an easy task; but thought should be given to it. The charity-based operations of the churches are incapable of touching the hard realities of our situation.

In a society characterised by the dominance of a privileged minority, the conflict is just below the surface, and it would be a service to true social order to bring these conflicts into the open, to encourage the sufferers from injustice to recognize and fight for their rights, and to oppose, limit, or even dispossess the holders of power who deny justice to others.

Our Task

In more specific terms what can we say about students' responsibility in eliminating the unjust structures.

One, a process of self-criticism. Student community in Asia is a privileged community. They unconsciously reflect the interests of the power elite. In a period oftransitition where new skills, new technology and knowledge has to come in, it happens that they pass into the hands of those who have the means to receive and operate, it. Introduction of new knowledge almost by definition cannot be widespread. For this reason it gives rise to a situation where a strong positive correlation is obtained between the ownership of resources and the ownership of knowledge. In this situation it is imperative for us to face the question, whose interest are we representing? A group of Christian social scientists in India who met together acknowledged that the social scientist by means of his social theory often promotes the interest of the power elite. They went on saying, "the only way to break out of this confinements is for the social scientist to shift himself painfully out of the class of oppressors and to begin to examine social problems from the point of view of the oppressed. Even more, to commit himself both theoretically and actively, a process of conscientization of himself, and other through him, is needed in this context".

Second, conscientization. There is need for making masses aware of their needs and rights. There is also the need for making conscious the

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middle and upper classes of their duties and responsibilities. Students armed with the skill for analysis and research can perform this most admirably. In fact, in many countries in Asia direct careful attention must be paid to this.

Third, mass struggle. We should join with other men of good-will, including men of other faiths, ideologies, in exposing exploitation and oppression wherever it exists in our society and in organizing group-actions to counter them. The 1968 EACC Assembly emphasised the absolute necessity of what we call "mass struggles of people" for justice in local situation. M.M. Thomas says "without the Janasakti or people's power, developed through such struggles, parliamentary democracy only buttresses the established power-structure, the one party people's democracy tends to become bureaucratic, serving to minimise the people's participation. Mahatma Gandhi was a great advocate of the strategy of developing people's power as the only safeguard of justice in any political system." The importance of people's organised agitation against cases of concrete injustice should be recognised. But it is a strategy which needs a great deal of planning and training.

SEMINAR GROUP

I. Poverty is a malignant germ that has infected the whole civilisation, and the best part of the world. The causes of this vicious malady vary in different social structures, but the part which has been the most badly effected is Asia. Here millions are deprived of even those basic elements without which life is impossible, e.g. food, clothing, shelter, etc. Although there are countless causes, the basic of the most real and relevant can be summed up as follows:

1) Political: the colonial rule over all these countries for the last few decades.

2) Economic: feudal system of land ownership, growing population with limited land and resources (here it would be relevant to mention that all these countries mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihood).

3) Social and cultural: lack of self-consciousness which generates an attitude of dependency.

II. It is also true that in most of Asian countries the top 10% are very affluent and they control the countries' wealth. This unequal situation leads us to believe that poverty is not just the lack of food but the outcome of unjust economic structures buttressed by political power. One of the most disturbing aspects of the conditions of the poor in developing countries is that the poor continue to be poor even after considerable development activities. In this respect it is obvious that there are both internal and external forces which perpetuate and

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create this situation. These structures are identified as the political system controlled by the elite, the few vested interests hiding behind the facade of democracy — the elite who control the means of production and distribution, the multinational corporations of the advanced Capitalist countries who work hand in hand with the local elite. We reaffirm that only by dismantling this concentration of wealth and power in the few can change be effected in the conditions of the poor.

Land, Its Usage, Ownership and Production

In a situation where there is scarcity of food it is absolutely appalling that the cultivable land is being used by multinational corporations to grow timber and other raw material for their industrial expansion. We are concerned about priority, on the use of land Insufficient land is not the cause of poverty in Asia at all. As we saw in the film "Sandstone Hollow", the Chinese farmers struggled with the water, struggled with the land. Though there were so many rocky hills and so few plain fields they dug and removed the rocks away from the hill and used them to build the water reservoir. They got soil and fertiliser from places which were many miles away. Land is the life of the farmers.

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III. Population and Its Relation to Poverty.

The myth that population is the root cause of poverty has been propagated in most developing countries. However, when correctly analysed, it is observed that there is a positive co-relation between population increase and economic conditions. A big family was a "social security" system of the poor. Poverty is caused by unjust political and economic structures and not by galloping population. Of course, in any developing society there should be a planned growth of population, but to put all the emphasis on curbing the population growth as a remedy for poverty is to miss the basic reality of the Asian situation. Here we can learn valuable lessons from the Chinese experience.

Many liberals and so-called progressives are still hopeful of eliminating poverty, unequal ownership of land, unequal distribution of wealth, population explosion through legislative means in parliamentary democratic countries. However with correct theoretical analysis and with practical examples of land reforms in Pakistan and other Asian countries we find this theory out-dated.

The group agreed that the alternative that is most likely to bring a meaningful change in the means of production and distribution is a political system where there is mass participation in the real sense of the word.