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A Note on Landlessness, Literacy and Agrarian Communism in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Donald S. Zagoria
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Extract

One of the most controversial and complex questions which has aroused a good deal of scholarly interest in recent years has to do with the conditions necessary to transform the peasantry, or a significant portion of the peasantry, into a revolutionary force (I). In this article, I want only to discuss one of the most crucial, but neglected, variables—the revolution of communications which is breaking down the cultural isolation of the village.

Type
“A Sack of Potatoes”?
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1972 , pp. 326 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1972

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References

(1) See Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars of the XXth Century (New York 1969)Google Scholar, and Moore, Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston 1961)Google Scholar.

(2) Sorokin, P. and Zimmermann, C. C., Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (New York, Holt and Co, 1929), p. 412Google Scholar.

(3) See my The Ecology of Peasant Communism in India, American Political Science Review, 03 (1971), 144–160Google Scholar.

(4) The figure for the communist vote is the average vote in the three general elections, 1957, 1962 and 1967. It includes the combined vote in 1967 of the CPI and CPM, the two communist parties that compete in elections. The electoral data are based on the State Legislative Assembly elections.

(5) “Largely rural” means a rural popu lation of more than 866 per thousand in the district. That is the median figure for the 285 districts included in this study.

(6) “High literacy” means a literacy rate of more than 201 per thousand in the district. That is the median figure for the 285 districts included in this study.

(7) “Low literacy” means a literacy rate of less than 201 per thousand. This is the median figure for 285 districts.

(8) Wolpe, H., Some Problems Covering Revolutionary Consciousness, The Socialist Register(1970), 251–280Google Scholar.

(9) Schuman, , Inkeles, and Smith, , Some Social Psychological Effects and non-Effects of Literacy in a New Nation, Economic Development and Cultural Change [Univ. of Chicago], XVI (1967), pp. 1–140Google Scholar.

(10) Rogers, Everett, Modernization among Peasants (New York, Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1969), p. 92Google Scholar.

(11) Ibid. pp. 72, 83.

(12) Lerner, Daniel, Toward a Communication Theory of Modernization, in Pye, Lucian (éd.), Communications and Political Development (Princeton 1963), p. 341Google Scholar.

(13) As Wolpe has pointed out, the two specifica differentia of “mass revolutionary consciousness” are, first, a belief that revolution is necessary and, second, a perception that change is possible in two different senses. Institutions which appear immutable must come to be seen as man-made and changeable; and the structure of power must be seen as assailable. It is not enough that there be a feeling of overwhelming dissatisfaction with the status quo.

(14) It is indeed surprising that in the entire collection of articles edited by Pye, on communications and political development (see footnote 12), only one addressed the critical question of the relationship between communications and radical movements, And that one on China concerned the communist use of communications only after they took power.

(15) Béteille, André, Castes Old and New (Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1969), pp. 100–101Google Scholar.

(16) See Dandekab, V. M., Poverty in India, Economic and Political Weekly [Bombay], 01 2 and 9, 1971Google Scholar.