Capitalist development, peasant differentiation and the state: Survey findings from West Bengal

The analysis which follows examines the structure of investment and production taking place in West Bengal, the reference point being the debate between Marxism and populism about peasant differentiation. The process of socio-economic differentiation has not stopped, but in methodological terms farm size alone fails to register its extent. The main claim advanced by populism - Chayanov's argument concerning demographic differentiation, that rising consumer/worker ratios are accompanied by higher family labour input - was found to be inapplicable. Of particular interest is the role during the last quarter century of the Left Front government in the process of agrarian transformation, and the extent to which its pro-poor policy interventions have stabilized smallholding peasant production. Among the effects of state intervention in the agrarian sector have been declines in (a) the number of holdings above ten acres (b) in the extent of sharecropping contracts, and (c) in the incidence of absolute landlessness. Although producers under 2.5 acres have been the main beneficiaries of institutional credit provision by the state, distress sales (in the form of marketed surplus) by poorer farmers are still evident.