Agriculture contributes progressively less to Kerala's economy these days, but retains its dubious status as the premier source of political unrest.The latest in a line of controversies is over reclamation of paddy fields. The output, as well as area under paddy cultivation have reached an all-time low.

The state's Planning Board's figures show that over the last six years, the fall in area has been around 88,000 hectares, while output has fallen from 10.45 lakh tonnes in 1993-94 to 9.55 lakh tonnes in 1995-96. Nearly 60 per cent of Kerala's needs are now met by other states.

There is a 20-year-old law against filling paddy fields. But political parties across the board have grabbed such fields not just to build party offices, but residential flats and commercial complexes. The role of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), whose farm labourers' wing launched the agitation, is by no means minor. The agitation has rocked the party, which is struggling to strike a balance between justification of the agitation and righteously deploring vandalism. The party has been in power thrice since the law against paddy field reclamation was promulgated.

In fact, paradoxically, its recommendation of inland fishing policy, reclamation of paddy fields, aggressive coconut farming and housing policy only helped belittle the cause of paddy farmers.

Paddy cultivators have been bogged down by fragmented land, shortage of farm workers and high cost of production. This high-cost and high-risk and low-returns structure of small farm holdings has not been attended to by any of the governments so far. Collective farming taken up by the government in 1989 is yet to produce favourable results. During the last decade, there has been a fall in farm hands from 28.23 per cent to 25.66 per cent of the workforce in spite of the farm labourer unions, including the militant ones. Add to these handicaps stiff resistance from the CPIM side to mechanisation. Land is now more a speculative commodity than a productive enterprise. For this, the role played by the much-trumpeted land reforms is not insignificant. Big plantations have been exempted from the purview of the Land Reforms Act. And it never dawned on the Communists then that paddy cultivation which was among the mainstay of Kerala's economy should also be given such protection.

It is high time the Marxists made introspection and did their cliched `self-criticism'. They have to ponder and assess whether the land reforms which they claim as their biggest achievement have not boomeranged. It is almost clear that the reforms have only benefitted the tenants not the farm labourers as such. Almost all except the avowed Marxists admit that the land reforms have been a big failure. It has only succeeded in fragmenting the land, rendering it useless even for its basic purpose of agriculture. As far as paddy cultivation in Kerala is concerned, the spread of high yielding varieties has been confined to hardly 30 per cent of the cultivable area, though the state is high up the ladder in the use of fertilisers and chemicals. Housing has been a serious problem in the wake of land scarcity. Estimates are that in 1991 there was a shortage of 8.74 lakh houses when the population of Kerala was 290 lakhs. And by 2000 AD, the population is expected to be around 328 lakhs, raising the housing gap to at least 16 lakhs. It is small wonder then that many farmers have sought greener pastures through planting cash crops or constructing flats or commercial complexes or have taken up inland fish farming, all these well encouraged and some subsidised through government policies.

But these remaining glaring facts, in a Rip Van Winklish fashion a revelation suddenly dawned on the Kerala State Karshaka Thozilali Union, the farm labourers wing of the CPM, that it has to reclaim all the paddy lands that had been filled to grow other crops. This newfound wisdom led the agitators to vandalism, destroying crops planted on reclaimed paddy fields, earning the wrath not only of the Opposition but also parties within the ruling Left Democratic Front. Worse, their parent party, the CPM, looked a divided house. The schism in the party came to the fore. It needed the high court to intervene directing the agitators not to destroy crops. The party failed to rein in its farm labourers and soon became the butt of ridicule. The wedge was driven deeper within the party with one group seeing the agitation as a move to tarnish the government and the other attempting to bring the rival group to book. Parties within the ruling Left Democratic Front also vented their feelings against the agitation. The Opposition, as has been its tradition, failed to look at the problem beyond immediate political gains. Their leaders went around replanting crops and even professing that though they would, if necessary, reclaim all the paddy fields. The agitation can be viewed as one with ominous portends for the party. Its image of a `disciplined and united' party has been shattered. Another fallout has been the CPM alienating farmers. With tenants having gained much from the land reforms, it can be seen that the agitation was in a way directed against the beneficiaries of the Communist largesse by its more proletarian counterparts.

That a party command cannot make an economy grow has been well proven by the collapse of the Fatherland. Even if the state government or the party orders from the top, it cannot make the cultivators in Kerala sow paddy and in the present conditions reap an economic disaster.

If the faithful are to follow the truthful tenets of Marxism they would not have taken to such a recourse. In its pure form, Marx says that it is the economy which determines politics, what he calls the ideological superstructure. In this sense when paddy cultivation has become a totally uneconomical activity, the champions of Marxism should have raised their political consciousness long long ago to make this a viable economic enterprise.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.