TENANCY in Bihar is generally not of the type of “entre­preneur renting”. Big farmers leasing in land with a view to enlarging their operational holdings to undertake large-scale capitalist farming is a rare phenomenon in Bihar where land is primarily leased in by marginal and small farmers for sheer subsistence.

Various forms of tenancy are in vogue in Bihar, e.g.,

(a) Nagdi or Manibatai: Under this system the tenant has to pay a fixed amount of rent, whether in cash or grains, regardless of the total production. The landlord plays no role in the process of cultivation. In parts of Bhojpur, the prevailing rate is 16 maunds or Rs. 700 per bigha, going up to 22 maunds in case of better irrigation facilities.

(b) Tehai : Here the landlord and the tenant equally share the land revenue, irrigation charges as well as cost of fertilisers and seeds, but the latter gets only one-third of the produce.

(c) Chauthai : The landlord provides the total capital and the tenant gets one-fourth of the produce. In certain areas like south Gaya, the tenant gets only one-fourth of the produce even though he provides half of the capital.

In the irrigated areas of Bhojpur the yield of paddy reaches nearly 30 maunds per bigha, out of which 22 maunds have to be paid back as rent. The greater part of the 8 maunds left with the tenant is then spent on seeds and other investments for the next season. So in the kharif season the tenant is hardly able to save anything. However, in the ravi season the tenant is entitled to the entire produce.

A case-study of tenancy practices in Musahari block of Muzaffarpur district, conducted by B N Verma and B R Mishra of Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa, Bihar (Social Scientist, No. 135, August 1984), is worth mentioning in this connection. The study covered three villages and had the following major findings to offer.

1. Share in produce : The entire cost of cultivation is borne by the tenant, but the produce, of both main as well as by-products and in both HYV and local varieties, is shared equally between the landlord and the tenant. Any sharing of cost by the landlord during a bad crop year or during some crisis is considered as a loan to be repaid immediately after the harvest. The cost of cultivation comes to 45 to 50 per cent of the total produce and the tenant, therefore, is left with as meagre a margin as 0 to 5 per cent which naturally keeps him in a perpetual bondage of debt.

2. Labour service associated with tenancy : 85.50 per cent of pure tenants and 71.43 per cent of combined tenants (those with some land of their own) have to perform compulsory labour service in the landlords’ fields for an average of 118 and 96 days a year respectively. True, they are paid wages for that, but the fact remains that to protect their tenancy they must render service in the lessors’ fields and in some cases also in their houses. To some extent, their status may be compared to that of attached or bonded labourers.

3. Security and duration of lease : Land was found to be leased out for short periods and tenants were reported to be changed frequently.

4. Status of terms and conditions : Oral.

The landlords were generally found to prefer leasing out land to tenants who belonged to the lower castes, had small pieces of land of their own and large families. Moreover, they were also found to prefer leasing out their land to as many tenants as possible. This, they felt, enabled them to exercise greater control over the tenants and made the latter put in extensive labour.

The case of Musahari is by no means an isolated one, rather it represents the typical phenomenon in tenancy in Bihar, which, in its turn, constitutes a major plank of the State’s agrarian structure.

As tenancy is generally oral and renewed annually, land­lords try to raise the amount of rent every year. In the absence of solid organisational unity, this generates sharp competition among the bataidars themselves. Thousands of cases related to tenancy are pending in the courts of Bihar, but seldom does the judgement go in favour of the bataidars.

A great majority of bataidars have to resort to the sale of their labour-power as well, and as such, they fall in the category of poor peasants. Hardly one-third of the bataidars may be classified as lower-middle or middle peasants.

The Working Group on Land Reforms, set up by the Government of India, had the following advice to the bataidars of Bihar :

          Landowners … are organised and aggressive … with an obliging administration on their side, they are definitely not going to give up an iota of their rights, privileges and economic dominance without a stiff fight… No law, however good it may be, in conferring, on paper, rights, title and interest to the bataidars will have the slightest chance of success unless the bataidars have a strong and militant mass organisation of their own, capable of not only defending their own rights given by the law but also capable of mounting counter-action to prevent and forestall any direct attack on them.

    (Mainstream. Vol. 11, No. 40)

Well, when this advice is put into practice it results in Arwal-type massacres, and the Indian Parliament, the so-called representative body of the people, has no time to discuss such massacres.