4 - The Nonagriculturalists

Summary

In 1951 about 28 percent of Thanjāvūr's people depended mainly on occupations other than primary production in agriculture, fishing, or pastoralism. A total of 211,429 self-supporting persons in this category were distributed as shown in Table 4.1.

I have already noted some of the unbalanced and “colonial” features of Thanjavur's workforce, especially the fact that about 77 percent of the people were engaged in producing, storing, processing, trading, or transporting paddy. Other colonial features apparent in Table 4.1 are the fact that in spite of the low technological level and extreme poverty of most of the people, only 30 percent of those outside primary production, or about 8.4 percent of the total workforce, were adding to the society's wealth through material production. They were equaled by those in trade or transport, and outnumbered by those in public or private services. In all these areas, as in agriculture, unemployment and underemployment were prevalent and competition was acute.

Whereas the state provided a skeletal framework of public services, and whereas such employment was eagerly sought, the public sector engaged a relatively small percentage of the people in 1951. Exact figures are not available, but because most of the personnel engaged in health, education, and public administration and a few in other services worked for the government, we can assess government employees as roughly 12 percent of the nonprimary producing workforce, or about 3.4 percent of the total workforce.