POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AGRICULTURE 21 Records Department and supervised by the officers of the Revenue, Land Records, Agriculture and Statistical Departments. A nucleus Census unit has been set up under the overall control of the State Agricultural Census Authority. The major data has been collected and will be classified in seven tables : (i) Number and area of operational holdings operated by size class, in 12 size groups, (ii) Holdings reporting irrigation, and area irrigated by size class of operational holdings, (iii) Number and area of holdings by tenure and size, owner-operated, (iv) Number and area of holdings by tenure and size, tenant-operated or rented, (v) Area under different land uses by size distribution of holdings and a nine-fold classification of land utilisation, (vi) Source-wise area irrigated by size distribution of holdings, and (vii) Area under principal crops by size distribution of holdings. The processing of the data is expected to be completed by the end of 1973 and the results to be available in the beginning of 1974. It is learnt that there are about 5.5 million 'operational holdings' in the State excluding Madras, Nilgiris and Kanyakumari districts. While this is undoubtedly the first serious Census of agriculture, the indices and criteria adopted by the Census do not seem sufficiently to have taken into account the scale and type of agriculture as the basis of classification. For a classic discussion on this point, see V I Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967, pp 71-190. 11 K S Sonachalam, op. cit., p 21. 12 P Sundarayya, "Congress and Land Ceilings", People's Democracy, July 30, 1972. 18 The expression is Lenin's. See Development of Capitalism in Russia, op. cit., p 180. 14 Towards A Greener Revolution, op. cit., Vol II, p 32. 15 I&id.,p^i. 16 Note that the classification, 'workers5, adopted by the Census is partly unreliable. The definition adopted is : "A 'worker' is a person whose main activity is participation in any economically productive work by his physical or mental activity. Work involves not only actual work but effective supervision and direction of work'*. This definition means that a section of landlords, who are utter parasites, and capitalist farmers have been included in the classification, 'rural workers'. Only certain 'absentee landlords' seem to have been excluded. 17 Apart from the element of unreliability that enters the data from the improper definition of'workers', the Census data on 'cultivators' and 'agricultural labourers' present another serious problem. According to the Census authorities, the 1961 definitions of these two categories are not strictly comparable with the 1971 definitions. Speaking broadly, the 1961 definition seems to have inflated the figures on 'cultivators' by adopting a liberal definition. For example, it was noticed that an agricultural worker declared himself to be a'cultivator'and was counted as such even if he cultivated just a couple of cents in his backyard. It is one thing to allow for this element of unreliability in the Census data on the increase in the number of agricultural labourers. It is wholly another to pretend, as some of the Census authorities do, that for this reason, one cannot read into the data on 'cultivators' and 'agricultural labourers' the conclusion that pauperisation has taken place on a large scale between 1961 aod 1971. The trend of large-scale pauperisation and proletarianisation of the poor and middle peasantry is conclusively established by the Census data. 18 See Report ofthe Group on Agrarian Structure, Second All-India Conference of the Indian School of Social Sciences on the theme, "Character of State Power in India", Tambaram, Madras, September 1971. 19 The Government of Tamil Nadu sanctioned this scheme in the three districts in January 1971. According to the Report of the Task Force on Agriculture, Vol II, cited above : ''it is too early to pass any judgment on their achievements or their shortcomings", (p 118). 80 Towards A Greener Revolution, op. cit., Vol II, pp 114-115.