the saga of the commons in kuttanad

RESEARCH PAPER

The saga of the commons in Kuttanad: appropriations,contests, developments

Mathew Kuriakose

� Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2014

Abstract The paper argues that the mutually enforc-

ing processes of enclosure of land and entanglement of

labour have been central to the development of state

and capitalism in Kuttanad, a protected Ramsar site in

the south Indian state of Kerala. The driving force of

epochal changes in Kuttanad was the transformations

of the commons; different regimes that ruled Kuttanad

have actively engaged in the appropriation, distribu-

tion and production of commons along with and for the

dominant sections in the region. Reclamation and

re-reclamation of backwater lands, spanning over one

and half centuries, are thus carried out by the

distributive state apparatus in collaboration with its

constituent class sections. The resultant shifts in land,

crop, labour, technology and resources are what define

the crisis of commons in the region.

Keywords Commons � Primitive accumulation �Governance � Land appropriation �Reclamation �Rice cultivation

Introduction

There is no doubt that land contributes significantly to

economic processes in society. However, there is no

consensus over how land actually functions as a factor

of production or more than a passive factor. The land

cover of a region, as in paddyfields, backwaters, rivers

and garden lands, not only constitutes the ecological

commons but also functions as the key determinant of

changes in livelihoods, society-nature interactions

and region-specific governance strategies. This paper

explores the tortuous interactions between colonial-

ism, development and ecology in the Kuttanad region,

in the south Indian state of Kerala in order to portray

the labyrinthine redrawing of its colonial, develop-

mental and ecological geographies. By examining two

distinct phases in the history of this region—the

backwater reclamation1 phase in the colonial times

and the re-reclamation phase of post-independence

times, one can easily discern that transformation of the

ecological commons, especially land was the single

most important factor that decided the nature of the

region’s economy. This myriad process of accumula-

tive development led to transforming commons by

appropriating, distributing and producing them in

ingenious ways. As a result, new types of commons

emerge which in turn redefines the contours of

economic life. Most importantly, the transformation

of commons through state intervention develops as

M. Kuriakose (&)

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian

Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India

e-mail: [email protected]

1 The large-scale land reclamation of the shallow parts of the

Lake Vembanad was mostly carried out between1870 s and

1940 s. These lands were converted as polders for paddy

cultivation with state subsidies.

123

Decision

DOI 10.1007/s40622-014-0049-x

Author's personal copy

whole into a mode of governance wherein develop-

mental dependency is created and sustained.

After giving a socio-economic overview of the

region, the paper proceeds to examine Kuttanad’s

early encounter with colonialism, the historical

changes that occurred with large-scale reclamation

of backwater lands from 1860s to 1940s, and the

developmental re-reclamation phase from India’s

independence to the present. The paper then examines

the configuration of primitive accumulation in the

specific context of Kuttanad and how it shapes the

transformation of commons. The study is a work in

historical sociology. The attempt is to retell the history

of the region from the perspective of transformation of

commons, especially land. The study combines archi-

val research with field work which is being carried out

as part of author’s doctoral research.

Kuttanad: an overview

Kuttanad is located in the south Indian state of Kerala.

Kuttanad is a fragile wetland eco-system; a delta

consisting of eight agro-ecological zones. Lake Vemba-

nad2 is the mainstay of this wetland, which in turn is

nourished by the flood waters of four rivers in central

Kerala (see Fig. 1). The Kuttanad region is one of the

few places in the world where below sea level rice

cultivation is practiced. The region is spread into

Alappuzha, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts. The

region is part of the Vembanad wetland ecosystem (a

protected Ramsar site which remains scientifically

unprotected!). Rice cultivation has been the primary

livelihood. Fishing, duck-rearing, clam collection,

toddy3 tapping, canoe-making, water transporting, coir

weaving and lake piracy4 too have been the notable

traditional sources of livelihood. Tourism, developmen-

tal projects, perennial crops, real estate and construction

and fisheries are the major sources of livelihood at the

present time. There is a tenuous coexistence of new and

old livelihoods. The government’s latest attempt to

improve the economic conditions of Kuttanad through

the Kuttanad package5 taps into these various livelihoods

and has further contributed to the uneasy co-existence.

The Kuttanad delta covers approximately an area of

1,100 km2, and consists of seventy panchayats and

seven municipal corporations. It is a densely populated

area, inhabited by around 1.5 million people. Compact,

semi-compact and disperse settlements patterns can be

identified in the region. Compact settlements are mainly

in the highly urbanised areas in and around Tiruvalla,

Changanassery, Kottayam, Mavelikkara, Chengannur,

Vaikom and Alappuzha. Semi-compact settlements lie

in and around small towns and village centers like

Athirampuzha, Kumarakam, Thalyolaparambu, Ne-

dumudi, Thakazhi and so on. The former slave castes

are still mainly confined either to isolated homesteads

on dykes or to marginal government housing colonies

situated in geographically isolated places.

Early colonial encounter in Kuttanad until 1865

As a region, the prominence of Kuttanad has seen ups

and downs with the rise or fall of various regimes from

ancient times. It was in the reign of the Chera dynasty

(which peaked in the period between CE 9th and 12th

centuries) that Kuttanad became a prominent place in

south India. In the eighteenth century, it was annexed by

the expanding Venad Kingdom and thus became part of

the Tiruvitamkoor6 Kingdom. With the British advances

in South India, Kuttanad became a dependent region in

the global imperialist market chain. The colonial effect

on Kerala was experienced through the invention of

plantations which produced spices for export. The

monopolistic and imperial control of spices plantation

and market prices by British settlers caused the conver-

sion of up-hill lands (where paddy was originally

cultivated by the local population) to spices-plantations

turning Tiruvitamkoor into a rice deficit state. It is

2 The largest wetland system in India, covering around

2,000 km2. The lake is an internationally renowned tourist

hotspot.3 Country liquor, extracted from coconut tree.4 The disgruntled upper castes often made use of the slave

castes to attack the flourishing commodity transport through

Lake Vembanad during the 18th and 19th centuries.

5 A relief package in official parlance worth Rs. 18,400

millions, primarily aimed at renewing the crisis-ridden rice

cultivation in the region but extended to soil conservation,

distribution of livestock, enhancement of irrigation, construc-

tion of bunds and barrages and renewing water bodies. The

package attempts to integrate tourism, fisheries and agriculture

in a harmonious manner.6 Tiruvitamkoor is the original Malayalam name of Travancore.

Throughout the report, Tiruvitamkoor is used except in direct

quotes where the spelling is otherwise.

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argued that ‘[b]eginning from the mid-19th century,

however, Travancore became a net importer of rice

draining supply from the Asian trading system, from

Bengal, Burma and Siam. Coastal firms—Metropolitan,

European firms involved in planting, trading and

manufacturing on the Malabar coast— were the main

importers of rice from Burma and adjoining regimes’

(Rammohan 2006, p. 14). Kayal reclamation7 was

invented as a strategy to deal with dwindling rice

production in the Tiruvitamkoor Kingdom.

In addition to the conversion of upland hill-slope paddy

fields as plantations (which produced spices for export)

and the making of wage labour in plantations and factories

(which ceased to become food producers), the import of

rice to the Kingdom became an absolute necessity. One

cannot forget that ‘Travancore was self-sufficient in rice

till about the mid-19th century. By the early 1870s, import

of rice represented a quarter of Travancore’s all imports.

This rose to nearby half of all imports by 1914’

(Rammohan 2006, p. 14). This brought the region under

a dependency regime and colonial control.

Fig. 1 Kuttanad region

7 Kayal (backwater) reclamation was an arduous process

through which the lakebed was converted into paddy fields by

enclosing portions of lake with bunds and draining out water

using sophisticated indigenous technologies.

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The increasing dependency of the Kingdom could

be traced through the making of a series of monop-

olistic and uneven agreements between the regime and

the British such as the Pepper Contract of 1793, the

military agreement between Rama Varma and the

Company in 1788 and the 1805 treaty. With the failure

of the coup in 1808–1809 led by Velu Thampi Dalava

and his estranged Nair supporters, the Kingdom

became a tributary-dependent state. The army of the

Kingdom was quickly disbanded, followed by the

forced de-arming of the warrior castes. As a result, ‘the

Tiruvitamkur army of 1.5 lac soldiers was dismantled

and instead, a tiny ornamental force of 700 soldiers

was created. The expenditure on the army, which was

Rs. 5.44 lacs, in 1807–1808, went down to Rs. 0.44

lacs by 1812–1813. The state was dispossessed of

arms and military stores, and no one could keep

firearms without the express consent of the Dewan-

Resident’ (Rammohan 1996, p. 15). After Munro’s

reforms,8 much of the devaswom lands were converted

as state property and leased out for cultivation creating

a new stratum of tenant-landlords. Initially, most land

in the Kingdom was owned by temples as devaswom

property which contributed to the caste power of Nairs

and Brahmins. By precipitating the disintegration of

native bureaucracy and the conversion of temple lands

as state lands, the social power of Nairs and Brahmins

was significantly curtailed. The paramount power not

only tried to dismantle the upper caste social base of

the Kingdom but also to fill the void with a new loyal

social base (inter caste-class in character). Marthanda

Varma (ruled from 1729 to 1758) supported this by

liquidating Nairs who were the indigenous aristo-

cratic-military-bureaucratic caste-class. This void in

social control was filled by the elevation of Syrian

Christians in the social ladder. This had direct

consequences for the future of land and labour in

Kuttanad for the Syrian Christian landlords were later

to become the pioneers of reclamation agriculture.

As the dependent regime effectively transferred the

costs of dependency onto the subaltern people by way

of raising taxes, the social churning that followed was

inevitable. The transformation of the Tiruvitamkoor

Kingdom from a sovereign theocratic state to a

tributary-dependent state intensified taxing on the

land. Taxation had to be rationalised in order to keep

paying the ‘colonial dues’ to the British. Rationalisa-

tion of taxes made state intervention in economic

affairs, i.e. primarily in agriculture which was the

principal source of income for the Kingdom, inevita-

ble. Thus, the state in Tiruvitamkoor gradually and

progressively reinvented itself as a developmentalist

state that encouraged kayal reclamation through a

variety of measures such as the campaign to raise food

production, tax waivers, subsidies and loans.

Kayal reclamation became absolutely necessary

since the Tiruvitamkoore Kingdom became the de

facto executive of the colonial regime. The tributary

state was held responsible for managing the collective

affairs pertaining to colonial accumulation in the

region, which was the only way to avoid complete

annexation. And the state had to literally outgrow

itself to cope with ever-growing pressure from colo-

nial and popular forces. Without reincarnating as a

developmentalist state, the Kingdom could not have

successfully contained the social, political and eco-

nomic transformation unleashed by colonial depen-

dency. This also helped to consolidate the freshly

educated aspiring classes as the new social base of the

tributary state. The increasing interventions of the

developmental state led to the enclosure of land and

entanglement of labour in Kuttanad.

The search for new paddy fields was catalysed by

British colonialism and promoted by the native

developmentalist state. It was implemented by a

new set of landlords who were similarly colonial in

their approach and whose oppressive actions, towards

the exploited castes constituted a form of internal

colonialism. Reclamation activities gave birth to a

new stratum of landlords who were primarily drawn

from the professionals (mainly lawyers and teachers)

who had connections with the royalty in the Tiruvi-

tamkoor Kingdom. The landlord-professionals used

their social capital (educational background and

networks) for obtaining royal permissions (pattayam)

for reclamation along with financial loans and tax

holidays. These landlord-professionals hailing from

the borders of the region entered into partnerships

with the local landlords for actualising the arduous

task of reclaiming kayal lands. Importantly, the new

landlords, although educated, were not indifferent to

using slave/servile labour for the labour-intensive

reclamation activities. The land to be reclaimed was

five metres or more under water which caused the

frequent breach of dykes. This struggle against the

8 In the first decades of the 19th century. He served the

Kingdom as a resident Dewan.

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might of nature gave birth to a new practice of

sacrifice of Pulaya/Paraya slave labourers, based on

the belief that human sacrifice was the final step in

stopping dyke breaches.

The early agricultural labourers in Kuttanad were

slave or attached labourers (Alexander 1973) of the

feudal landlords whose dominance was sanctioned by

mechanisms of caste society. Kamalasanan (2005,

p. 23) a leading labour activist from the region, points

out in his memoirs that the spiritual relationship

between janmi (landlord) and tenants was based on

rituals. He argues that the landlord and tenants ‘were

like family members. The serf had to give gifts on the

occasions of Onam, Makam and Vaavu, and he was

paid back accordingly. If anyone deforms his lord his

blood would boil. If the serf does any mistake the lord

would punish him. In Kuttanadu, there were many

occasions in which the serf died due to severe beatings

by lord’. The slave labour of Kuttanad was also a part

of the commons of the region. The transition from

such slave labour to servile labour happened due to

British legal intervention and the abolition of slavery

in 1855 and the stoppage of slave sale (George 1987,

p. 141). However, the dependency of these ‘erstwhile

slave caste groups on the landlords remained for two

reasons; first, labour was attached to the landlords

because they stayed either in the landlord homesteads

or in the lands of the landlords as kudikidappukar

(tenants); and second, the slave castes could procure

paddy for food only by exchanging their labour

(monetary economy came to existence much late in

Kuttanad). As no state support was extended to the

newly ‘freed’ labour, their dependence on the lord

continued (George 1987, p. 141). Thus, the slave

labour which belonged to landlords as their commons

(res omnium- things that belong to everyone) now

became servile dependent labour and in some sense

res nullis, which ‘belonged to nobody’ yet could not

really survive freely.

The labour of Pulaya/Paraya castes was fully

dependent on the landlords as the paddy they received

in return for their labour was their only source of

subsistence. The labour of men in the Ezhava caste,

primarily toddy tappers but seasonally worked in rice

cultivation, was semi-dependent labour because it had

the freedom to exchange its products for paddy.

However, this freedom was seriously hampered as the

Ezhavas had to rent out the coconut trees for toddy

tapping from the landlords, and their caste status was

low with relations to the Nair-Syrian Christian-Brah-

min landlord castes. The labour of Ezhava women too

was semi-dependent as it was primarily seasonal

labour for sowing and harvesting. It was some of these

labourers who engaged in susbsistence coping mech-

anisms by reclaiming small patches of lands for

homestead farming. It is the reclamation techniques of

the poor that the new elite had later adopted for large-

scale kayal reclamation.

The transformation of Kuttanad as the ‘rice bowl’

of Kerala became possible only because of the

extensive reclamation of land from the Vembanad

Lake, a direct result of the integration of Tiruvitam-

koor Kingdom into the imperialist commodity chain. It

is crucial to remember that the reclamation activities

in Kuttanad began in the same period, around 1870s.

Observers like Panicker (2005, p. 5) called the kayal

reclamation ‘one of the most important things in

Travancore history’. One cannot forget that Tiruvi-

tamkoor’s ‘important thing in history’ was abso-

lutely necessary for keeping both wages and food

prices low and thereby keeping popular unrest in

check. Besides, the rice-centric development of

Kuttanad (Narayanan 2003) was accompanied by

the development of rice-centric dietary practices

amongst the people of the region. As rice cultivation

intensified, rice started replacing various indigenous

tubers as a major source of nutrition, further

increasing the dependence of the servile class on

agricultural economy.

Early kayal reclamation in Kuttanad from 1865

to 1947

The times we characterise as the early reclamation

period came into existence from 1865, the year of

Pattom Proclamation. The Proclamation can be

viewed as the Magna Carta of Tiruvitamkoor King-

dom. It transferred ownership rights to tenants which

crucially initiated the commodification of land in

Kuttanad (recall that land was mostly held as a

commons through temple lands previously). The

changes in land ownership were later to be manifest

in the reinvigorated quest for adventurous new recla-

mations (for an extended discussion, see Varghese

1970, pp. 64–65). The reclamations from Lake

Vembanad were carried out in phases in the following

decades. Interruption in reclamation activities was

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caused by differences between the Kingdom and the

British over its ecological impacts. Reclamations were

intensified on the last decade of 19th century and the

first decade of 20th century but continued on in

varying degrees around the time of India’s indepen-

dence from British empire (Table 1).

Re-reclamation of Kuttanad: 1947 to the present

In the post-independence period from 1947, what

changed is not just the degree of reclamation in

Kuttanad, but the very nature of reclamation. There

was an absence of large-scale reclamation as com-

pared to the kayal period. But more importantly, the

ecosocial technologies of reclamation practices under-

went radical changes. The thrust activity in this period

was to alter land use and land cover of the region by

conversion of wetland into dryland. The postcolonial

developmentalist state was now at the forefront of re-

reclamation of the region. A set of developmental

activities that included construction of irrigation

channels, canals, bunds and barrages, embankment

of various types, extensive road networks, bridges and

sluices altered the land cover, especially the water-

spread of the region substantially. The huge infra-

structure that the Public Works Department of

Government of Kerala in collaboration with the

Central government and various international agen-

cies has built up in Kuttanad can be called the new

developmental commons. Developmental commons

in Kuttanad have profound role in changing the

ecological commons of the region. For instance, the

construction of Thannermukkam Barrage alone

caused the division of Lake Vembanad into two

distinct agro-ecological zones in which one zone

remains organically saline and other zone with con-

trolled salinity levels. The primary strategy of re-

reclamation was the state-led formation of develop-

mental commons, which was aimed at making Kutta-

nad a rice-centric region. Various complementary

strategies such as land filling, cultivation of perennial

crops like coconut instead of paddy, leveling of

waterspread areas and encroachment were all charac-

teristic of this period. Thus, in a sense, it was the

process of extraction of a different and/or possibly

higher economic value from the land which had

already been reclaimed from the Lake Vembanad in

the previous period of kayal reclamation. Thus, it

would be apt to characterise this phase as re-reclama-

tion period. To put it simply, re-reclamation was a

result of the combined effects of large-scale develop-

mental projects such as Thannermukkam Barrage9 and

Table 1 Large-scale backwater reclamations in Kuttanad

(Reclamation Period between 1865 and 1947)

No. Polder Village Area (in

acres)

1 Chithirakkayal Kainakari 716.60

2 Marthanadam kayal Kainakari 674

3 Rani kayal (T block) Kainakari 568.59

4 C block kayal Kainakari 633

5 Aarupankukayal Kainakari 486

6 Cherukalikayal Kainakari 251.55

7 Oloorankayal Aymanam 52

8 Vattakayal Aymanam 213

9 Malik kayal Aymanam 103

10 Seminari kayal Kumarakam 418

11 Padinjare Pallikkayal Kumarakam 107

12 Thumbekayal Kumarakam 87

13 Kizhakke Pallikyal Kumarakam 102

14 J block 900 Thiruvarppu 1791

15 MM block Thiruvarppu 596

16 F block Thiruvarppu 889

17 Vechoor kayal Thiruvarppu 800

18 H block Kunnumma 1396.40

19 Mangalam Manikya

mangalam

Kunnumma 1,006.4

20 KL block Kunnumma 827.30

21 Rajaramapuram Kavalam 1,370.17

22 I block Kavalam 351.60

23 E block (2,400 kayal) Kavalam 2,366

24 Sree moolamangalm Pulinkunnu 590.82

25 D block Thekku Pulinkunnu 600

26 D block Vadakke

Aarayiram

Pulinkunnu 600

27 D block Puthan Arayiram Pulinkunnu 600

28 Vadakke MathiKayal Pulinkunnu 330.45

29 Thekke Mathi Kayal Pulinkunnu 382.60

30 Padinjare Venattukari Pulinkunnu 99.86

31 Madathil Kayalpokkam Pulinkunnu 93.11

32 Madathil Kayalthazhchha Pulinkunnu 292.62

Total acres = 19,395.07

Source Kamalasanan (1993, pp. 63–64)

9 Even the Thannermukkam Barrage was built up with volun-

tary labour. Unpaid labour is the fundamental commons in

Kuttanand, one wonders.

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Thottapilly Spillway (designed to control flood and

salinity intrusion) and also small-scale, sporadic

‘plebeian’ interventions on land. Both in combination

irrevocably transformed the ecological commons in

the region.

With the growth of rice production, labour struggles

intensified. Crop shift and land shift were the two

prominent strategies of capitalist cultivators to deal

with increased labour unrest. The early farmers’

strategies of economic and extra-economic coercion

were no longer viable, due to the presence of a general

social democratic consciousness in Kerala society and

the particular strength of communist, labour union

movements. Rice cultivation was the sphere of

production in which the land-labour displacement

conundrum was best (or worst?) manifested. Labour

mobilisation was met with systematic land-use shifts

favouring cash crops which were not labour intensive.

The cultivation of perennial crops, replacing rice also

caused large-scale loss of labour days, especially for

women. The near impossibility of making profit from

rice cultivation became an entrenched excuse for the

crop shift. Moving to perennial crops like coconut

helped the capitalist cultivators to reduce their depen-

dence on agricultural labour. Crop shift, from rice to

other cash crops, makes labour redundant. It especially

affected women’s labour as rice production was

intensive of ‘womanly’ works. Crop shift enabled

the easy exchange of agriculture land from the hands

of rice cultivators to corporate intersts, boosting up

realestate consequently. Or, rice cultivators them-

selves become corporate land dealers.

It was possible to substantially increase the eco-

nomic value of the land for the owner by converting

his/her wetland-paddy fields into dry lands, in effect

transforming it into real estate ‘plots’. This land shift

also became a contributing factor in the growth of the

tourism industry in the region. The agricultural

labourers then had the only option of forcefully

putting an end to the conversion of paddy fields which

they attempted but tragically failed (the Save the

Paddy Fields Campaign initiated by the leading

agricultural labour union of CPI (Marxist)). The

agrarian distress in Kuttanad was the result of

continuing primitive accumulation of nature and

labour which happened in varying intensity and pace.

It almost appears that labour struggles for emancipa-

tion, particularly for wage rise, were detrimental to

rice production.

Whilst agricultural labour was extensively affected

by the shift from paddy cultivation, the fishing

community, another traditional livelihood group, was

adversely affected by agriculture itself. The inflow of

marine waters into the Lake and the surrounding areas

was beneficial for their catch, whereas the intrusion of

salinity adversely affected agriculture. There have

been several contests around the opening and closing

of the barrage and spillway, and in fact around their

construction itself because of these conflicting

resource needs. In addition, the Lake and the various

boat race festivals/games and the backwaters—the

present day transformed commons—became part of

the tourism sector with active encouragement and

support of the state. Parts of the lake began being

appropriated for tourist resorts and other related

activities, pushing the fishing communities into the

margins. This marginalization of the fisherfolk inten-

sified the conflict between agriculture/paddy, tourism

and fishing.

The displacement of labour from nature had dire

impacts on the food economy of the working poor.

Labour has the added responsibility of giving life to

itself and to other factors of production because it is a

living commodity which has to be constantly repro-

duced. Food is the most vital commodity that deter-

mines the capacity of labour to reproduce itself and

resultantly the other factors of production. Crop shift

caused food price inflation and reduced the general

availability of food grains for the consumption of poor.

Foraging had been a vital source of extra-nutrients for

the people of Kuttanad and especially for the dispos-

sessed castes. Land shift hastened ecological degra-

dation and lowered the possibilities for alternative

indigenous food which used to be abundant in a region

like Kuttanad. Thus, labour that was displaced from

nature was easily thrown into the vicissitudes of a

service economy.

Recent developments around land and rice

in Kuttanad

Nowadays, large-scale rice production has resumed in

Kuttanad, largely because agricultural workers have

already been displaced, and mechanization is more

profitable. It is also important to note that paddy

cultivation is not more merely a livelihood issue.

Given the high land prices, the low margin of profit

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and the risk of crop failure, the possibility of

sustainable rice cultivation is extremely thin. The

new trend in Kerala is to promote rice cultivation as a

leisure cum conservationist venture. Rice cultivation

aims on the one hand to conserve the authentic Kerala

tradition of ‘eating the rice cultivated by oneself’ and

on the other to conserve paddy fields from encroach-

ments. School children, youth clubs and environmen-

tal groups are more than willing to pump in voluntary

labour to sustain rice cultivation. As if supply of ‘free

labour’ is a necessary condition for rice cultivation!

There is an ongoing vociferous campaign to reclaim

paddy fields for rice cultivation fuelled by the media

outcry about Kerala’s increasing food grain depen-

dency on other states in India. Even celebrities like

Mammotty, Sreenivasan and Sathyan Anthikkad

amongst many others have turned to pastime rice

cultivation, and political leaders have joined the

chorus making rice cultivation an endangered ‘essen-

tial utility service’.

Primitive accumulation and the appropriation,

distribution and production of the commons

in Kuttanad

Carl Schmitt, the (in)famous German legal theorist,

discusses the consequences of appropriation, distribu-

tion and production whilst focusing on the imperial

manoeuvers of land conquests. According to Schmitt

(2006, p. 327), ‘in every stage of social life, in every

economic order, in every period of legal history until

now, things have been appropriated, distributed and

produced’. He argues that the sequence of these three

has profound implications in the making of legal

orders as they are different for different historical

situations. For centuries and for philosophers, he

insists, land remained the first substantive acquisition

on which the succeeding economy was to be built up.

Therefore, the claim that ‘land-appropriation is always

the ultimate legal title for all further division and

distribution, thus for all further production’ (Schmitt

2006, p. 328). Further he strongly asserted that

appropriation (often colonial in nature) preceded and

remained a precondition for further distribution and

production. The present study points to the fact that

land appropriation in the form of backwater reclama-

tion in Kuttanad was central to further distribution and

production of commons in Kuttanad, the particular

historical form it took in the region was transformation

of commons with state support and anchored on the

slave-attached labour of oppressed castes. The land

reclaimed from Lake Vembanad was distributed

amongst an incipient agrarian bourgeoisie (peopled

by a combination of professionals, entrepreneurs and

landlords) termed by many as agripreneurs10 under the

financial blessings of a dependent regime. This

extensive land-appropriation from a lake purportedly

owned by none was what catalysed further (land and

social) divisions in the region, a complex political

process unfolded through direct confrontation with

both the forces of internal and external colonialism.

The background process of urbanisation was at once a

cause and a result of these large-scale transformations

of land and labour. A semi-rural, semi-urban type of

‘splintered urbanism’ (Graham and Marvin 2001)

emerged in Kuttanad which was inevitable given the

semi-feudal, semi-colonial character of the region.

Since ‘urban’ in Kuttanad is dispersed and unevenly

spread, the effect of which on the commons is also

uneven. One cannot forget that what Roy (2005)

celebrates as ‘urban informality’ has only added to the

woes of the commons in Kuttanad; Kumarakam, a

global tourist attraction, the village that suddenly

became a semi-urban area due to huge inflow of high

end tourists attests to this fact because it developed

without a master plan.

In Kuttanad, the appropriation, distribution and

production of commons was facilitated actively by

state intervention. The state, whether it was the

erstwhile tributary-dependent-developmentalist Tiru-

vitamkoor reign or the modern post-independent

welfare state, had actively appropriated commons,

redistributed entitlements, ownership and usage rights

over commons and unequal rewards, incentives and

disincentives for production based on commons. The

resultant transformation of commons can be mapped

onto five different shifts, namely, (a) land shift (b) crop

shift (c) labour shift (d) technology shift and

(e) resource shift. A distinctive mode of urbanisation

is set out as the background process which articulates

these shifts and is simultaneously a resultant state of

these shifts. Since it is almost impossible to individ-

ually analyse the complex history of land shift, crop

10 Those who led reclamation are known to combine agriculture

and entrepreneurship since most of them were professionals

cum landlords.

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shift, labour shift, technology shift and resource shift

in neatly separated compartments, we would attempt

to construct a model of these interdependent shifts, for

the early reclamation period and the later re-reclama-

tion period.

Of the shifts, the most obvious are with regard to

land, crop and labour. Diversity of/in land (uses) and

labour (practices) is a defining characteristic of the

region which is the product of centuries-old process of

territorial (dis)integration. According to Panicker

(2005, p. 8), ‘Agriculture is a venture; the razed

human relationships that changed it into war are what

ensued the devastation of land’. Land shift seems to be

a more dangerous strategy because it devastates both

nature and labour. Land shift—converting wetlands to

dry lands to real estate—had irrevocably altered the

fragile ecology of the region and led to growth in

urbanisation and tourism. The crop shift from paddy to

perennial cash crops was in many ways synonymous

with the land shift and led to sudden changes in

livelihoods. Soil degradation is coupled with the

spread of alien biota in the region, not only affecting

agriculture but also tourism and fisheries. Thus, with

basic appropriation of commons, nature is displaced

from the primary sector of the economy to the tertiary

sector with a single stroke, forcing the flight of labour

to the same service economy. This displacement of

nature has been simultaneously facilitated by and

constitutive of the shifts in the nature of labour itself.

First, the land was conquered by means of reclamation

using slave labour; in the next phase, servile labour

(legally free but dependent) helped the intensification

of rice production in these below sea level backwater

lands; by the 1970s, the landlord response to the

militant struggles by subordinate labour was conver-

sion of paddy fields into cash crop plantations; at

present, the degraded lands are rejuvenated for tourism

and fish farming using the service labour through

projects such as the National Rural Employment

Guarantee Scheme and contract labour in various

government-sponsored Kuttanad Development Pro-

jects. The nature of the labour relation has forever

been changed by the dynamic interaction of other

shifts and is itself contributing to these shifts. The

transformations of slave labour to servile labour to

subordinate labour to service labour to contract labour

were accompanied by corresponding changes in land

(use). Reclamation was central in making Kuttanad a

rice bowl. This would not have been possible without

the bonded labour of the oppressed castes. Ironically,

the emancipation of labour often appears as adding to

the degradation of nature, and the protection of nature

seems to be going against the interests of labour (as

understood in being free). Labour in Kuttanad is

condemned to survive/perish in constant negotiation

with the transformations of land.

But, it was not just labour which was actually

shifting. Along with it shifted various kinds of elite-

different caste, religious and economic groups. All

sought to gain new status or redeem old ones in this

appropriation-distribution-production matrix. The

landlord class in Kuttanad too knows no less varieties

and hybrids; traditionally, ranging from absent land-

lords to adjacent landlords to cultivating landlords to

tenant landlords to immigrant landlords to partner

landlords to professional-entrepreneur-bureaucratic

landlords to Christian-Nair-Brahmin landlords—and

in the present, distant landlords, out-migrant land-

lords, non-cultivating landlords, resort landlords and

real-estate landlords.

The technology shifts are much more subtle:

reclamation was initially characterised by a simple

process of building dykes as embankments and

enclosing the lakebed for paddy cultivation. The

‘technology’ even included burying slaves under the

bund on the belief that it would stop the breaching of

dykes. The later eco-social technologies included crop

shift, leveling of land, mechanization to combat labour

unrest amongst other things. It was the ‘progress’ form

manually operated waterwheels to large electric

pump-sets that enabled adventurous kayal reclama-

tions (even from the deeper parts of the Lake) and

large-scale paddy cultivation. The spread of various

flood control and prevention of salinity intrusion

technologies helped to increase the frequency of rice

cultivation from one crop a year to three crops a year.

The resource shifts are much more prominent. If

backwater reclamation initiated the development of

bourgeois forms of property on land in Kuttanad and

bourgeois production relations, its integration to the

larger region and to the world market in unequal terms

hampered the autonomous development of capitalism

in this subaltern region. Embankment in the form of

dyke building concretised bourgeois forms of property

in the Kuttanadan backwaters. Construction of roads

was a developmental activity that had profound

consequences on the region. Vallikappen (2012, p. 4)

is of the view that ‘alongside this emblematic rural life

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of Lower Kuttanad, the new roads that networked the

region were dynamic always with people and fast

moving vehicles sounding their horns, as if announc-

ing the approach of developments and urbanisation’.

Roads announced the arrival of urbanisation even into

the interiors of the region, along with the arrival of

tourists and real-estate brokers. Developmental pro-

jects, initiated and funded by various governments

across the periods, were crucial in resource shifts; not

only in the way of diversion of project funds for

protecting the interests of special people in special

places but also by converting resource uses. The

region is at once imagined as a Special Agricultural

Zone, a Fishing Zone, a Special Tourist Zone and

many more within the competing paradigms of

different developmental visions. And developmental

projects based on such conflictually co-existing

imaginations readily add to the ongoing primitive

accumulation of land and labour in Kuttanad.

If reclamation period saw the seeds of accumulation

in Kuttanad, the re-reclamation period intensified it by

constantly over-exploiting nature and marginalizing

labour. The (un)freedom of wage(less) labour has been

the central driving force of ecological and social

changes in Kuttanad. The abolition of slavery was one

of the key factors that initiated the search for

‘discovering new lands’ by way of backwater recla-

mation. The reclamation of Lake Vembanad intensi-

fied the transformation of Kuttanad as the ‘rice bowl’

of Kerala. The intensity of primitive accumulation

constantly shifts from nature to labour and vice versa.

Not surprisingly, industrial labour has been destroyed

in a deeply entrenched de-industrialisation process,

especially in the coir industry, which was catalysed by

the rapid destruction of commons. But in the agricul-

tural sector, it is the very growth of industrial farming

that weakens labour, which in turn contributes further

to the tragedy of the commons.

Primitive accumulation is a two-sided sword: Marx

and many Marxist writers have defined it as expropri-

ation of marginalized sections following (often vio-

lent) appropriation of nature, in the form of enclosure

of land. In a functional electoral democracy like India,

primitive accumulation cannot appear as a naked

economic process of capitalist appropriation. There-

fore, it has to be presented as a developmental mode of

governance that transforms existing social relations

in the appropriation-distribution-production matrix

that governs commons. To put it bluntly, primitive

accumulation veiled as development is a governance

strategy formulated in the specific conditions of

primitive accumulation under democratic control in

order to enclose land and entangle labour which are

necessary for sustained capitalist accumulation.

Understanding primitive accumulation as a continuous

process (De Angelis 2001) spans various phases of

capitalist development is necessary to shed light on the

mechanisms that sustain accumulation in Kuttanad. In

capitalism, the separation of producers from the means

of production is not achieved once and for all. It is a

process repeated throughout various moments in the

consolidation of capitalism. As part of continuous

primitive accumulation, land and labour in Kuttanad

are constantly re-appropriated but in different forms

using different techniques. Whilst discussing the

concept of primitive accumulation, Hardt and Negri

(2000) point to the importance of looking at the source

of wealth and command that structure accumulation.

This would also help us to see resource shifts under

internal/external colonialism. In the first period of

reclamation, the wealth was produced by the slave-

attached castes but only a minimum essential was

spent on their consumption. The remaining surplus

was distributed in a graded manner; one share was

appropriated by the landlord caste-class, the remaining

was distributed amongst the native state and the

colonial state. The structures of command too were

formed with a graded system of inputs from landlords,

native and colonial states (the native state took the

mediator role). Whilst the landlords saw it to the

implementation of commands, the colonial state was

the paramount arbitrator. In the second period of re-

reclamation, a better share of wealth produced by the

labourers is distributed amongst themselves thanks to

labour militancy. What changed is the wealth sharing

mechanisms between the landlords and the local state,

and between the local state and the neo-colonial

market. The change is reflected in the structures of

command as well. Now, the command structure is

governed with inputs of new landlords, a mediating

local state and an arbitrary neo-colonial market which,

in the final instance, set the prices of commodities/

services produced in Kuttanad.

The point we pursue here is that since surplus value

can be realised either from the overexploitation of

nature or of labour, there will not necessarily be a

balance between them. It means that the degree

of exploitation of nature and labour is historically

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contingent which was the case in Kuttanad. The early

reclamation coincided with the de jure freeing of slave

labour. In the beginning of backwater reclamation, the

primitive accumulation of nature and labour went

hand in hand; the intensity was on par. Therefore, the

mindless reclamation in the early period was matching

with the ceaseless exploitation of labour; first for

reclamation itself and then for paddy cultivation.

Because of the peculiar balance between internal and

external colonialism in Tiruvitamkoor in which the

survival of both are deeply entwined, people need not

necessarily be exterminated, especially if they are

laborious enough. Thus, the slave-attached labour of

Pulayas and Parayas was used in the reclamation

activity and subsequently intensified paddy cultivation

as if they were in a gulag. Systematically, they were

expelled into the margins of subsistence economy or

bare existence. However, as technology developed and

labour vigorously resisted, what intensified was the

primitive accumulation of nature, which still contin-

ues. This is a case of primitive accumulation sans

proletarianisation in which the majority of the dispos-

sessed become the surplus population of capitalism, a

human wasteland. And, the primitive accumulation of

nature, in its most concentrated form, has converted

the delta into a waterfill, a wasteland of wetlands. The

unitary model of development of Kuttanad as a rice

bowl was replaced with a new variegated model of

development under the present Kuttanad Package,

which aims to create heterogeneous spaces, because of

the radical changes in social and political subjectiv-

ities, economy and mode of governance. The trans-

formation of the commons effected by these

developments underlines the perpetual role of state

in the management of commons in Kuttanad.

Conclusion

‘Is the free sea Res Nullius or Res Omnium?’ The

question was once put forward by Schmitt (2006) in

terms of the governance of the seas. ‘Things belonging

to nobody’ is what res nullius refers to, whilst res

omnium means ‘things belonging to everybody’.

Commons have the characteristics of both res nullius

and res omnium i.e. they belong to all whilst owned by

none or belong to none whilst owned by all. However,

the embedded tension between ‘belonging to

everybody’ and ‘belonging to nobody’ calls for an

imposition of a nomos—a legitimate set of principles

for governance. This is what exactly happened over

Lake Vembanad with the imposition of authority by the

Tiruvitamkoor regime, under the conditions created by

the British. The immanent tension between res nullius

and res omniumis readily manifests as the imminent

tension between imposed statist nomos and existing

customary nomos. It is appropriation that brings forth a

solution to this conundrum. Whoever appropriates and

holds on to the land becomes the sovereign of the land

and the sovereign subsequently lays out the principles

of (further) appropriation. This is a typical colonial

tactic to see a land as ‘res nullius’ in order to seek its

violent appropriation. Imagining the Lake as a ‘res

nullius’, the colonialist framework chose to ignore the

existing customary laws and practices that governed

life in the region. The Lake as res omnium was the

general principle of governance in the post-indepen-

dence times. Therefore, different sections of popula-

tion with competing claims over livelihood options

have tried to remake the commons in Kuttanad in

their own desired ways. But substantial changes were

enacted upon the commons for protecting the interests

of the dominant classes such as capitalist cultivators

and tourism magnets. Against the widespread practice

of romanticising commons, we would like to conclude

by asserting that commons are inherently sectarian, not

belonging to all. Hardin’s (1968, p. 1243) hypothetical

call to ‘[p]icture a pasture open to all’ is a fictitious call.

Commons never have been ‘open to all’. It is more

productive to redefine commons as things ‘belonging

to many’ rather than ‘owned by none/everyone’.

Commons are de facto owned by specific communities

in specific regions. The distribution of (usage rights

over) commons indicates existing social inequalities

and privileges of one community over another (Par-

thasarathy 2011). Neither possible nor desirable is to

define commons sans community.

Capitalist development has often been understood

as a process of capitalist exploitation of labour through

primitive accumulation. However, the profound trans-

formation on nature caused by enclosure of land is yet

to be thoroughly explored. The enclosure of nature and

entanglement of labour are the two central tendencies

in the history of evolution of land and labour in

Kuttanad. And, it is the enclosure of land that paved

way for the further entanglement of labour. The state

has played an active role in actualising these changes.

The third world (developmental) state plays a vital role

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in the (re)distribution of effects in society. These

(re)distributive functions are considerably different

from (although not unrelated to) the functions of the

Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State

Apparatus as expounded by Louis Althusser (1971);

the organ of state that specifically manages these

(re)distributive functions can be termed as the distrib-

utive state apparatus. The totality of distributive and

redistributive functions of the state, which includes the

differential sets of rewards, punishments, incentives,

investments, disinvestments and resource shifts, is

what defines the functions of the distributive state

apparatus in Kuttanad. The distributive state apparatus

constantly engaged in transforming commons in

Kuttanad because it was necessary for sustaining

accumulation and managing relations of inequality

and dominance in the region, which also was its raison

d’etat.

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http://www.commoner.org.uk/02deangelis.pdf

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Documents

the saga of the commons in kuttanad