Re-conceptualising ‘feudalism’ in Mithilanchal – 200 years of agrarian and ecological change in North Bihar and the Nepal Tarai
Venue
Violet Laidlaw Room, Chrystal Macmillan Building, 15a, George Square, EdinburghDescription
Drawing upon 18 years of research, this study explores the complex trajectory of agrarian change in the Mithilanchal region. This part of the Gangetic plains, which spans the Nepal-India border, has long been a peripheral region which is far from the centres of global capitalist production. The Mughal era system of land administration was adopted by both the British colonialists to the south and expanding Gorkhali kingdom to the north in the late 18th century. This consolidated feudal landlordism as the primary agrarian formation for much of the last two centuries. From the 1960s till the 80s, the agrarian formation represented archetypical ‘feudalism’, dominated by control over extensive estates by landlords, an interlinkage between land and money lending, and low circulation of cash – with limited development of the productive forces in agriculture, which was almost entirely rainfed.
The 1990s was a defining moment for the region – with economic liberalisation, a wave of rural monetisation, and a rapid expansion of irrigation and transport infrastructure. This period also saw new stresses, most notably the creeping impact of climate change on an already food insecure tenant and marginal farmer majority. There is a dearth of research on what these changes have meant for the so called ‘feudal’ agrarian systems which once characterised this region. This study attempts to fill in this gap, showing that while landlordism remains entrenched, the relationship between the marginal and tenant farmer majority and the landed classes has changed, with the breakdown of caste based ideological ties, fragmentation of landed estates, and reduced dependence on single landlords for loans. Most importantly, this breakdown in old power relations, combined with a new wave of agrarian distress, have consolidated migrant labour as a core feature of the rural economy. The Mithilanchal region has now transformed into one of the primary surplus labour pools for both the urban centers of Western and Southern India as well as the Persian Gulf, in a classic articulation between the pre-capitalist and capitalist.
Chair: Dr. Regina Hansda, Lecturer in Development and Justice, University of Edinburgh
Key speakers
- Dr Fraser Sugden, Associate Professor in Human Geography, University of Birmingham