72 SOCIAL SCIENTIST The report says that 60 per cent of these peasants had to dispose of their livestock and utensils and mortgage or sell the land; 50 per cent of them are starving partially. The landless labourers are the worst hit victims of the famine. Though some are employed in agricultural operations on yearly or monthly or daily wage terms, the majority have been rendered jobless with the expiry of the agricultural year, and not more than a quarter of those formerly employed have been absorbed again on the commencement of the agricultural year. The rest of them are knocking at the doors of scarcity works. In Sakri only a small fraction of the labour force on scarcity works will return to agricultural work with the onset of the rains, and that only for the sowing season. The poor peasants, now on the work sites, who have no bullocks surviving, will have to stay back; and high school boys above 14 years also will have to continue working, foregoing their education. About ten per cent of these working people live in houses, while the rest crowd into huts. Cheap grain shops cater only to between 5 and 10 per cent of their needs and hence they are completely at the mercy of open or 'black5 markets. The daily wages on scarcity works have been raised by 50 paise recently to Rs 2.50 to Rs 3. But after slaving for the whole day the workers barely receive Re 1 to Rs 1.50, compared to the daily wage ofRs 4.75 paid to the unskilled road labourers employed by the Buildings and Construction Department of the Zilla Parishad. Irregularity and fraud mark the payment of daily wages for scarcity work. To make matters worse, bajra and jowar, the staple foodgrains of the rural workers, are sold at about Rs 2.50 per kilo, pulses at Rs 3.50 and groundnut oil at Rs 9 per kilo. The price index of 221 (1960 ==100) is evidently an underestimate, for the prices have more than doubled during the famine itself. No wonder the report puts 80 per cent landless labourers as undergoing acute starvation. The report takes Rs 33 as the minimum required at present for the upkeep of a person for a month. On this basis, it finds that only the first two categories, that is, 6 per cent of the rural population in the taluka, are above the minimum subsistence level while the rest, 94 per cent, live below this level. The adivasis are the poorest of the lot, their per capita expenditure being Rs 8.5 per month ! "War is a continuation of politics", but famine is definitely a continuation of Congress politics. The authors of the report observe, Famine is causing the sale of rural wealth in the form of livestock, utensils, houses and lands. Agricultural labourers and poor peasants are compelled to sell much of their movable and immovable wealth. It is being bought off at low prices by big farmers. . . and thus a new type of landlordism is being created. The new landlordism is more strong and durable than the old one. The present landlordism occupies a most strategic position in the social set-up. ... In spite of the lower ceilings, these acts have left so many loopholes that they