Agrarian Class Conflict. The Political Mobilization of Agricultural Labourers in Kuttanad, South India

Tharamangalam, Joseph

doi:10.5771/0506-7286-1982-2-251

Cited by 6 publications

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“…The following section will examine in detail the strike as an event that opens up the relationship between the strike and various aspects of the plantation life. It will be followed by a discussion on the unions' corruption and their 5 A number of studies in the 1980s focused on trade unions' mass mobilizations and their contribution to improve workers' conditions (for Kerala, see Tharamangalam, 1981;Kannan, 1988;and see Nair, 2006 for the history of trade unions in the plantations within the broader history of trade unions in Kerala). Critical analyses of Indian trade unions since the 1990s focused on many aspects including increasing corruption (Ramaswamy, 1977;Rammohan, 1998;Sanchez, 2016), corruption in Kerala's tea plantations, (Neilson & Pritchard, 2009;Raj, 2013;Raman, 2010), careerism or professionalism within unions (Fernandes, 1997;Rammohan, 1998;Sanchez, 2016), favouring of certain privileged workforce leaving out the rest (Parry, 2013;Rammohan, 1998), their attempts to marginalize alternative unions (Sanchez, 2016), confrontation and divisive politics between trade unions (Parry, 2013;Raj, 2013), unions as instruments of state hegemony and tools of private capital (Fernandes, 1997;Parry, 2009), and criminality and violence (Rammohan, 1998;Sanchez, 2016).…”

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Beyond the unions: The Pembillai Orumai women's strike in the south Indian tea belt

Raj

2019

Journal of Agrarian Change

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The article examines an extraordinary wildcat strike led by women tea workers against a giant tea plantation company and dominant trade unions in the south Indian tea belt of Munnar. It employs situational analysis to examine the larger processes that led to the strike, implications for the workers, and to the wider socio‐economic relations in the tea belt. It is argued here that in addition to the exploitative plantation production and the poor implementation of welfare measures, the strike was largely fuelled by and directed against union corruption and the breach by union leaders of egalitarian relations in the workers' society. At the end, the article calls for an understanding of local conceptions of inequality, injustice, and humiliation as forces that have the potency to initiate and intensify labour resistance under exploitative production relations.

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confidence: 99%

Beyond the unions: The Pembillai Orumai women's strike in the south Indian tea belt

Raj

2019

Journal of Agrarian Change

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“…The percentage of farmers who adopted HYVs was about three fourths in the zone [15]. Per hectare consumption of fertilizers had increased from 61kg in 1961-62 to 190 kg in 1968-69 periods [16]. Only six per cent of the farmers carefully followed the fertilizer recommendation [15], whereas the rest applied more than what was needed.…”

Section: The Major Environmental Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Analysis of the ‘Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS)’ of the FAO: A Case Study of Kuttanad, South India

Jacob

Mathew

Ray

2018

MCDA

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Kuttanad, the broad below-sea-level polder-farming-system located around the Vembanad Ramsar site is the second globally significant agricultural heritage system (GIAHS) of the FAO in South India. At one point in time, Kuttanad was well known for its rich and traditional indigenous farming practices and the associated high aquatic biodiversity. However, intensive green-revolution practices and regular sewage inflow from the up towns over the past few decades caused the entire wetlands to remain eutrophicated. Continuous application of diverse agrochemicals in the paddy fields and leakage of diesel and engine oil from the intensive operation of tourist diesel-boats in the water bodies resulted in excessive accumulation of toxic residues in Kuttanad. The fish and other aquatic biodiversity-wealth of Kuttanad have been destroyed and the farming remains highly uneconomical. Therefore, the 'GIAHS' title of Kuttanad is an opportunity to regain its lost ecological balance. Invitation of global attention to this fact is the principal objective of this investigation.

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“…During the 1970s and 80s, the state's post-colonial development was hailed by development experts and scholars alike for its achievements in literacy, health, and inclusive development. This history has broadly been shaped by the Indian state led by the Indian Congress Party at the national scale and by the social, political and economic reforms implemented and facilitated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the regional and local scales (Lindberg 2005;Tharamangalam 2011;Menon 2007). The extraordinary strength of state intervention and history of urban and agrarian TRACING A FEMINIST GEO-POLITICS OF FEAR IN THE PRODUCTION OF NATURE socio-political struggles in Kerala had even made it known as a desirable and replicable model of social democracy in the Third World (Dreze and Sen 1995;Oommen 1999;Parayil 2000).…”

Section: Tracing the Context Of Keralamentioning

confidence: 99%

Darly and Her Battle with the Sand-Mining Mafia: Tracing a Feminist Geopolitics of Fear in the Production of Nature

Binoy

2017

Human Geography

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This paper draws on the testimonials and writings of Darly and other environmental activists based in the South Indian state of Kerala to illuminate the workings of the sand mining industry in contemporary India. Darly is a 65-year-old woman from Olathani, a village located along the Neyyar River in Southern Kerala, who has voiced her opposition to the operations of the sand mining industry for several years. Due to her actions, she endured several years of physical and psychological abuse from local authorities and individuals affiliated with the industry, which had taken a serious toll on her mental and physical health. I draw upon Darly's testimonial and writings on the effects of sand mining in the Neyyar, along with the work of Anitha Sharma, an environmentalist based in Kerala, to argue for the need to understand uneven development, and the production of nature, as conceptualized by Neil Smith (2010) in the context of contemporary India through lived, embodied articulations and experiences of fear wrought by this process. Darly's own work I argue, illuminates the ways in which the production of nature as an abstract concept is actually experienced, lived and struggled with through an everyday emotional geopolitics of fear; an emotional geopolitics that is not only reflective of the crucial affective dimensions of the production of nature facilitated by capitalist accumulation, but also reflective of struggles and practices that claim ecological citizenship. Here I draw on Tolia-Kelly's (2008) concept of ecological citizenship to contextualize from Darly's practices and lived experiences of trying to fight and stand in opposition entities involved in the sand-mining business in Olathani.

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Agrarian Class Conflict. The Political Mobilization of Agricultural Labourers in Kuttanad, South India

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Beyond the unions: The Pembillai Orumai women's strike in the south Indian tea belt

Beyond the unions: The Pembillai Orumai women's strike in the south Indian tea belt

Critical Analysis of the ‘Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS)’ of the FAO: A Case Study of Kuttanad, South India

Darly and Her Battle with the Sand-Mining Mafia: Tracing a Feminist Geopolitics of Fear in the Production of Nature

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