Critique of Caste System

Introducation

                      The idea of founding of a socially and politically equal and just India would never be complete without B. R. Ambedkar, one of the most illustrious social and political thinkers, a leader and activist, and the Constitution-Maker of modern India. It is said that the roots of Ambedkar’s philosophy were not in politics but in religion, particularly the Hindu religion which laid the foundation of caste system. His socio-political thought began with his criticism of Hindu religion because of its evil practices of caste system and seeking (or presenting) solutions for untouchables to free from this evil practice. Ambedkar himself was an untouchable and faced many humiliations as one. As such, the liberation of ‘depressed classes’, the awakening and organisation of untouchables, and safeguarding their rights and interests centred to his political and social ideas. The political and social thoughts of Ambedkar therefore are found in his fight to uplift the untouchables, the ‘depressed classes’. It is aptly described that the political philosophy of B. R. Ambedkar was often shaped by the politics of social reform and by India’s special brand of minority politics^.

Critique of Caste System

Caste not merely a division of labour but a division of labourers: 

                                                                                                              The most evil practice in Hindu religion is the practice of casteism and the categorisation of certain sections of people as Untouchables. Ambedkar proved this. Many Hindus including Gandhi defended caste system on many grounds, the first being the division of labour as necessary for a civilized society. However, Ambedkar said that caste system as such is not merely division of labour, but it is also a division of labourers. Moreover, it is a hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the other.

Caste system is unnatural: 

                                                   In such a system, the division of labour is not spontaneous; such a system is not based on individual choice. Individual sentiments and individual preferences have no place in it. It is based on the dogma of predestination. And, therefore, social mobility of occupation is prevented thereby making it impossible for a Hindu to gain his or her livelihood in changing circumstances. The system does not permit the readjustment of occupations among caste and this makes caste a direct cause of much of unemployment in the country.As an economic organisation, Caste, contrasting the views of its Hindu defenders, is a harmful institution in as much as it involves the subordination of man’s natural powers and inclinations to the exigencies of social rules.

Caste cannot preserve a non-existent ‘racial purity’: 

                                                                                                   Some Hindus opine that the object of Caste was to preserve purity of blood. However, Ambedkar argues that such a ‘racial purity’ among Hindus is non-existent. Caste system came into being long after the different races of India had commingled in blood and culture. Caste system does not demarcate racial division. In contrast, Caste ‘is a social system which embodies the arrogance and selfishness of a perverse section of the Hindus who were superior enough in social status to set it in fashion and who had authority to force it on their inferiors.

Hindu society is merely a collection of castes: 

                                                                                       Ambedkar says that the Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of castes. In every Hindu, the only consciousness that exists is the consciousness of his caste. Each caste is conscious of its existence, each living for itself and for its selfish ideal. Caste is the real explanation as to why the Hindu has let the savage remain a savage in the midst of his civilization. Caste deprives Hindus of fellow-feeling.

Caste destroys public spirit, public opinion and public charity: 

                                                                                                                        The caste system prevents common activity and by preventing common activity it has prevented the Hindus from becoming a society with unified life and a consciousness of its own being.  It encourages hatred of one caste by another. As such, caste destroys public spirit, public opinion and public charity. A Hindu’s public charity, his responsibility and his loyalty are restricted only to his caste. Virtue has become caste-ridden and morality has become caste-bound. A Hindu will follow a leader if he is a man of his caste. The capacity to appreciate merits in a man apart from his caste does not exist in a Hindu.

Caste prevents Hinduism from being a missionary religion: 

                                                                                                                  Caste has prevented the Hindus from expanding and from absorbing other religious communities. Caste again makes unity impossible among Hindus. One Hindu cannot regard another Hindu as his ‘Bhai’. So long as caste remains, there will be no unity and so long as there is no unity, the Hindu will remain meek and weak. According to Ambedkar,

Human Rights Under Hindu Social Order

                                                                                The Hindu social order, particularly its main pillars: the caste system and untouchability, presents a unique case. As a system of social, economic and religious governance it is founded not on the principle of liberty (or freedom), equality and fraternity - the values which formed the basis of universal human rights - but on the principle of inequality in every sphere of life. In Ambedkar's view, the doctrine of inequality is the core and heart of the Hindu social order. It leaves no difference between legal philosophy (and law) and moral philosophy (morality). (Ambedkar 1987 first published, Deepak Lal, 1988). The three unique features of the caste system need to be understood.

                                                                             In the social sphere the caste system involves (a) division of people in social groups (castes). The social, religious, cultural and economic rights of members of the castes are predetermined in advance by birth into that caste and are hereditary (b) an unequal distribution of these rights across caste groups (c) provision of a mechanism of social and economic ostracism calculated to ensure rigid adherence to the system and justification of the social system by the philosophy of Hinduism. In the sphere of economic rights, the Hindu social order also lays down a scheme of distribution, namely (a) it fixes the occupations for each caste by birth and its hereditary continuation; (b) unequal distribution of these economic rights related to property, trade, employment, wages, education etc., among the caste groups; and (c) hierarchy of occupation based on social stigma.

                                                                              These features imply that the Hindu social order is based on three interrelated elements, namely predetermination of social, religious and economic rights of each caste based on birth; the unequal and hierarchical (graded) division of these rights among the castes; and provision of strong social, religious and economic ostracism supported by social and religious ideology to maintain the Hindu social order.

                                                                             In this framework the concept of "human rights" under the Hindu social system takes on a specific meaning. Unlike other human societies, the Hindu social order in its classical form does not recognize the individual and his distinctiveness as the center of the social purpose. The unit of the Hindu society is not the individual. Even the family is not regarded as a unit of society except for the purposes of marriages and inheritance (Ambedkar 1987, first published). The primary unit of society is caste. There is no room for individual merit and the consideration of individual justice. Rights that an individual has are not due to him personally; it is due to him because he belongs to a particular caste. Similarly, if an individual suffers from a lack of rights, it is not because he deserves it by his conduct. The disability is imposed upon the caste and as a member of the caste that is his lot.

                                                                           The other implication is that, the caste system also involves the principle of rank and gradation, in so far as the rights increase in ascending order from untouchable to Brahmin. It is a hierarchically interlinked system. In this framework castes are artfully interlinked with each other in a manner such that the right and privileges of higher castes become the disabilities of the lower castes, particularly the untouchables. In this sense, in Ambedakar's view the caste in a single number cannot exist. Caste can exist only in plural number. There cannot be such a thing as caste as a singular phenomenon. So one has to look at the castes as a system, where each is interlinked with other in unequal measures of social, religious, economic relations and rights.

                                                                          This hierarchically interlinked character of the caste system implies a concept of "human rights" and "humanhood" which is different and unique. In this particular order of hierarchy the Brahmins are not only placed at the top but are considered to be "superior social beings" worthy of special rights and privileges. At the bottom, the untouchables are treated as "sub-human beings or lesser human beings" considered unworthy of many rights. Untouchables are considered as inferior social beings and therefore not entitled to any individual rights i.e., civic, religious, political and economic. In fact, the disabilities are so severe that they are physically and socially isolated and excluded from the rest of the Hindu society. Isolation and exclusion of untouchables is a unique feature of the Hindu social order. Classes or social groups are common to all societies, but as long as the classes or social groups do not practice isolation and exclusiveness they are only non-social in their relations towards one another. "Isolation and exclusiveness" makes them anti-social and inimical to one another. (Ambedkar, first published 1987).

The Evidence

                            The annual reports of the Commission for Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe provide the data on the registered cases of untouchability and atrocities against the Scheduled Castes. Table 1 revealed that average number of cases registered under Anti Untouchability Act (or Human Right Act) were 480 during the 1950s, 1903 during the1960s, 3240 during the1970s, 3875 during the1980s and 1672 during the first half of the 1990s. Table 2 shows that during the nine year period between 1981-86 and 1995 -97 a total of two lakhs cases of atrocities on the SC were registered, which means on an average three thousand cases of atrocities were committed on them annually.

                                 The break-up of the atrocities for the year 1997 shows 504 cases of murder, 3452 of grievous hurt, 384 of arson, 1002 of rape and 12149 cases of other offences. The data for the period between 1981 and 1997 showed that on an average annually about 508 SC persons were murdered, about 2343 hurt, 847 subjected to arson, 754 became victims of physical violence and about 12,000 were subjected to other offences.

Four Regional Cases

                                         Generally, cases which are registered with the police are of a severe nature and attract public attention. A large number of cases however remain unreported. The studies based on village surveys bring out the actual magnitude of the practice of untouchability and atrocities. From the massive literature on the practice of untouchability and atrocities, four regional studies are presented here; from Karnataka (1973-74 and 1991) and Andhra Pradesh (1977) in the south, Orissa (1987-88) in the east and Gujarat (1971 and 1996) in the west.

Father of the Indian Constitution

                                                              Despite Ambedkar’s defeat in the elections of 1946, the Congress party, which wanted to present itself as the nation’s unifier, turned to him, and Nehru, following Gandhi’s request, named him Minister of Justice. Even more importantly, Ambedkar returned to the Constituent Assembly and, having impressed many of the Congress party by his mastery of the law and by the compromise solutions that he proposed, was named head of the committee responsible for drafting the Constitution. Thus Ambedkar could defend in the Constituent Assembly the political principles that he had absorbed during his studies in the United States and England. In particular he proposed putting into place a British-style judicial system, thus opposing a centralizing dynamic to the option supported by Gandhi, who was in favour of a decentralization of power down to the village level. He had great influence throughout the drafting of the text, and with a considerable amount of diplomacy and political skill he managed to marginalize the influence of Gandhi’s positions. As a result, the Constitution, promulgated on January 26th, 1950, carries a strong imprint of Ambedkar, who ensured the codification of fundamental rights and the guarantee of state involvement in social reform: untouchability was abolished, and every form of discrimination prohibited.

Bibliography

Dasarathi Bhunia - Understanding Ambedkar

                                                 internet sources of information

Transition from feudalism to capitalism

Intorducation

                             Feudalism existed in Europe from about 300 to 1400 AD, as the concept of capitalism started to take shape. It's generally believed that feudalism ended with the renaissance in Europe, a time in which there was a great revival of art, science, literature and human freedom. Although the renaissance played a key role in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, several other factors also contributed to the transition. These factors include flaws within the feudal system as well as external forces that created a long-lasting impact on the medieval societies.

                                                                                Some of the internal factors that led to the collapse of feudalism include internal wars, rebellions by the common folk and inefficiency of the system as a whole. The feudal system placed heads of groups between the monarch and the inhabitants, thereby increasing tension between the common folk and the monarch. A Peasant Revolt ensued all over Europe in the 14th century, which resulted into the old system being broken up and the beginning of the modern social economy. The Revolt led to the division of national wealth among small landed entrepreneurs.

                                                                                 The Crusades and travel during the middle ages opened new trade options for England. More trade saw the growth of more towns and thus more merchants. Another disruptive force was the increase of communication, which broke down the isolated homesteads, assisted the rise of towns, and facilitated the emergence of the middle-class. This process was greatly accelerated in the 14th century and did much to destroy the feudal classifications of society. Towns and cities in turn provided alternative employment opportunities, improving the livelihoods of the peasants and in the process encouraging rural to urban migration. Fiefs left their lords for towns and cities, leaving landlords labor less hence contributing to the demise of feudalism.

                                                                              Lords were to ensure that their fiefs had access to the church. They were also not permitted to force the fiefs to work on Sundays. In essence, the feudal arrangement was a subsistence system that focused on two elements, survival and salvation (Hamilton 2007). As Europe became safer, merchants invaded the rural society giving way to wealthy towns and cities. Vassals and fiefs were replaced by private armies and commoners, as merchants became the new source of power for the kings.

                                                                             Karl Marx points out the fall of feudalism should be mainly attributed to internal factors. As demand for commodities grew as a result of new markets and increase in trade, the inefficiency of the rigid feudal structure of production failed to meet new demand. New methods of production arose, thereby increasing division of labor which enhanced productivity. As capitalist modes of production improved, landlords began to perceive themselves as businessmen, thus striving for higher economic returns. As technology improved, new modes of production were only probable if farming was on larger fields. Fiefs were kicked off the land, those who left moved on to join towns and cities while the rest remained to become paid laborers.

                                                                              One of the major external factors that led to the transition form feudalism to capitalism was the expansion of trade. Merchants begun to prosper as Europe became more stable. They were a unique class of individuals in that they were not bound by obligations, thereby conducting trade in their own interest, or else everything would come to a standstill. Merchants started to transform society, from subsistence to an economic one, thereby revitalizing the notion of capital gain. The new merchant class also provided important money for kings, who stood much to gain by encouraging their trade.

                                                                              Monarchs could now raise money through merchants and build armies that were only loyal to the king, instead of relying on the commoners for military force. Mercenaries had few loyalties, except to money, and were feared all through Europe. The threat of mercenaries led to the employment of professionally trained private soldiers; the Standing Armies, and ultimately the end of Feudalism in Europe. The system of raising armies for wars ultimately led to the substitution of money for land. The old system of feudal levy, which formed the basis for feudalism, became obsolete as money became the symbol of power. Land ceased to be as valuable as it once was in the eyes of the monarch. In this sense, Europe started transforming from a land based economy to a money based economy. Land was later-on rented in exchange for money and the rights of lords over labor decreased.

Another external factor that weakened feudalism was the demographic crisis in the 14th century. The Great Famine (1315-1317) led to a decline in agricultural production, meaning the lords had to come up with new strategies to obtain sustainability. The Black Death (1348-1350) severely decreased Europe's population, thereby making labor a valuable commodity. The lords tracked their tenants as capital pleaded for labor. All provisions to control labor proved futile, as poor men entered into service of their own lords as hired laborers.

                                                                               In conclusion, the platform that held feudalism in place failed to pass the test of time. The mechanisms put in place weren't stable enough to fend off the concept of capitalism, what came to be termed as economic freedom. The renaissance in Europe also took its toll on feudalism, as the people embraced art, technologies and change, which marked an end of the medieval times and transition into the modern world.

Decline of the manorial system 

                                                              Increased agricultural production initially encouraged the growth of trade and commerce. Later it led to the decline of the manorial system. The feudal lords started depending more on cities for their demand of luxury items. They needed money for the purpose. To meet their need for money they started renting their land to peasants in exchange for money rent. In this process they simply became the landlords and in most of the cases absentee landlords.Peasants, on the other hand, found it profitable to sell their grain in the market for money and use this money to commute their labour services. This way they were free from all ties to the manor.They were free to sell their surplus in the market and pay the rent to the feudal lord. All these changes led to weakening of feudalties                                         ..
                                                                                 The dissolution of manorial system was further aggravated by disasters of the fourteen and the fifteen centuries. The hundred-year war between France and England (1337-1453) caused unrest in these two countries. Next, the bubonic plague of the 1350s reduced the English population by half. As we know, any disaster affects the poor more. The nobility tried to overcome labour scarcity by revoking the commutation of labour services. But all their attempts to revive the feudal ties were in vain. In some cases, peasants even resorted to violent revolts.

Creation of the Working Class

                                                             The dissolution of the manorial system and changes in the economy in the sixteenth century created a class which owned no means of production and were forced to sell their labour power to the owners of the means of production for wages. Only with these wages could they buy necessities.                                                 .             
                                                                               The peasants used to collect food, fuel and fodder from the village common land. By the thirteenth century the feudal lord started enclosing this land to meet the increased need for money. They used this land for grazing sheep. As a result the village people were denied access to this land. They moved to cities  in search of jobs. Cities became a haven for these rootless people. Guilds in cities have started concentrating on the material well-being of their members. The unemployed started concentrating in the urban centres. There was strict punishment against unlawful farming and begging. These inimical situations created a working class.

Other forces in the transition to Capitalism

                                                                         The discovery of some navigation devices (compass and telescope) helped in the transport of heavy precious metals and later in colonization. In the medieval times (1300-1500) money mainly consisted of gold and silver coins but the production of precious metals stagnated in Europe, causing a problem in transactions. The shortage eased when gold from the Americas travelled to Europe in the sixteenth century. Europe experienced very high inflation during sixteenth century to the tune of 150-300%, depending on the region. The price rise was more for the manufacturing sector than for agriculture and wages. As a result farmers and wage earners suffered more capitalists. With higher profit, the capital stock of the merchants  rose which, in due course, was reinvested and led to more capital. This way the process of capital accumulation progressed. The capitalist class earns profit from its capital stock and more capital means higher profit in the future. This period is also marked by the appearance of nation states. The monarchs needed support from the emerging capitalist class to fight the war with the feudal lords. Capitalists provided resources to monarch to fight wars and in return the monarch promised them military support and freedom from various rules and regulations of the manorial control. In addition a system of uniform weights and measures was introduced.

The initial phase of capitalism is known as mercantilism. Mercantilism originated simultaneously with scarcity of gold and silver in Europe. Mercantilist policies attempted to keep the gold and silver within the country and discouraged its outflow. Spain which experienced maximum gold and silver flow from Americas imposed various restrictions on its outflow. It even announced death penalty for illegal exporters. But, to meet the requirement of trade, the merchant class managed to smuggle it out by bribing the government officials.

                                                                 The government adopted various other measures to encourage the inflow of gold and silver. First, the domestic shipping and insurance agencies were promoted both for exports and imports over the foreign counterparts. Second, the government encouraged domestic monopoly because a single seller could have more control over price in the international market than if there were more than one domestic seller. In order to control foreign competition it even went ahead with the colonization of economic important regions. The export of raw material was also prohibited.

                                                                 Imports to the European countries, especially England, were restricted. If an industry was unable to withstand the foreign competition then the government provided various types of support and subsidies to overcome the setback. In the opinion of Hunt the resources necessary for capitalism could have been generated from trade and commerce, the putting-out system and the enclosure movement.

                                                                  During the transition period, the rent earning landlord class was still the dominant class. A small sector of commodity production also existed in this period. Dobb and other economists have called this as “petty mode of production period”. In this mode of production with artisans and peasants, who had turned into small capitalists, even with hired labour could not have changed this mode of production to capitalism. Prof. Habib suggests that the petty mode of production could have intensified landlord coercion and extension of merchant capital at the cost of small producer’s capital. This would only have delayed the onset of capitalism.

                                                                 Capitalism requires labourers who could be hired and fired by the employers, and factories using machines. Machine-based division of labour is different from that in the previous modes of production. Factories dependent on machines became a dominant form of production in England by the early eighteenth century. As Prof. Habib argues, even technological development could not have generated enough resources for the capitalist system. He suggests that the resources required for the growth of the capitalist system could only be made available from the primitive accumulation involving internal exploitation or control over other economies, for example, colonization.

Landlords and peasants history

Landlords and peasants history

Introducation

                            Land grants became frequent from the fifth century AD. According to this, the brahmanas were granted villages free from taxes which were collected by the king from the villages.In addition, the beneficiaries were given the right to govern the people living in the donated villages. Government officials and royal retainers were not permitted to enter the gifted villages. Up to the fifth century, the ruler generally retained the right to punish the thieves, but in later times, the beneficiaries were authorized to punish all criminal offenders. Thus, the brahmanas not only collected taxes from the peasants and artisans but also maintained law and order in the villages granted to them. Villages were made over to the brahmanas in perpetuity. Thus, the power of the king was heavily undermined from the end of the Gupta period onwards.

                                                                        In the Maurya period, taxes were assessed and collected by the agents of the king, and law and order were maintained by them. In the initial stage, land grants attest to the increasing power of the king. In Vedic times, the king was considered the owner of cattle or gopati, but in Gupta times and later, he was regarded as bhupati or owner of land. However, eventually land grants undermined the authority of the king, and the pockets that were free from royal control multiplied. Royal control was further eroded through the payment of government officials by land grants. In the Maurya period, the officers of the state, from the highest to the lowest, were generally paid in cash. The practice continued under the Kushans, who issued a large number of copper and gold coins, and it lingered on under the Guptas whose gold coins were evidently meant for payment of the army and high functionaries. However, from the sixth century onwards, the position seems to have changed.

                                                           The law-books of that century recommended that services should be rewarded in land. Accordingly, from the reign of Harshavardhana, public officials were paid in land revenues and one-fourth of the royal revenue was earmarked for the endowment of great public servants. The governors, ministers, magistrates, and officers were given portions of land for their personal upkeep. All this created vested interests at the cost of royal authority. Thus, by the seventh century, there is a distinct evolution of the landlordism and a devolution of the central state authority.

Landlords and peasants

                                                The growing population in the 16th century and the larger concentrations of urban dwellers required abundant supplies of food. In the course of the century, wheat prices steadily rose; the blades of late medieval price scissors once more converged. Money again flowed into the countryside to pay for food, especially wheat. But the social repercussions of the rising price of wheat varied in the different European regions.

                                                        In eastern Germany  Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Lithuania, and even eventually Russia, the crucial change was the formation of a new type of great property, called traditionally in the German literature the Gutsherrschaft (ownership of an estate). The estate was divided into two principal parts: the landlord’s demesne, from which he took all the harvest, and the farms of the peasants, who supplied the labour needed to work the demesne. The peasants (and their children after them) were legally serfs, bound to the soil. These bipartite, serf-run estates superficially resemble the classic manors of the early Middle Ages but differ from them in that the new estates were producing primarily for commercial markets. The binding of the peasants of eastern Europe to the soil and the imposition of heavy labour services constitute, in another traditional term, the “second serfdom.”

                                                                  In the contemporary west (and in the east before the 16th century), the characteristic form of great property was the Grundherrschaft (“ownership of land”). This was an aggregation of rent-paying properties. The lord might also be a cultivator, but he worked his land through hired labourers. Historians distinguish two phases in its appearance. The nobility and gentry, even without planning to do so, accumulated large tracts of abandoned land during the late medieval population collapse. However, depopulation also meant that landlords could not easily find the labour to work their extensive holdings. Population, as previously mentioned, was growing again by 1500, and prices (especially the price of cereals) steadily advanced. Inflation threatened the standard of living of the landlords; to counter its effects, they needed to raise their incomes. They accordingly sought to win larger harvests from their lands, but the lingering shortage of labourers was a major obstacle. As competition for their labour remained high, peasants were prone to move from one estate to another, in search of better terms. Moreover, the landlords had little capital to hire salaried hands and, in the largely rural east, there were few sources of capital. They had, however, one recourse. They dominated the weak governments of the region, and even a comparatively strong ruler, like the Russian tsar, wished to accommodate the demands of the gentry. In 1497 the Polish gentry won the right to export their grain without paying duty. Further legislation bound the peasants to the soil and obligated them to work the lord’s demesne. The second serfdom gradually spread over eastern Europe; it was established in Poland as early as 1520; in Russia it was legally imposed in the Ulozhenie (Law Code) of 1649. At least in Poland, the western market for cereals was a principal factor in reviving serfdom, in bringing back a seemingly primitive form of labour organization.

                                                                              No second serfdom developed in western Europe, even though the stimulus of high wheat prices was equally powerful. Harassed landlords, pressed to raise their revenues, had more options than their eastern counterparts. They might look to a profession or even a trade or, more commonly, seek at court an appointment paying a salary or a pension. The western princes did not want local magnates to dominate their communities, as this would erode their own authority. They consequently defended the peasants against the encroachments of the gentry. Finally, landlords in the west could readily find capital. They could use the money either to hire workers or to improve their leased properties, in expectation of gaining higher rents. The availability of capital in the west and its scarcity in the east were probably the chief reasons why the agrarian institutions of eastern and western Europe diverged so dramatically in the 16th century.

                                                                        In the west, in areas of plow agriculture, the small property remained the most common productive unit. However, the terms under which it was held and worked differed widely from one European region to another. In the Middle Ages, peasants were typically subject to a great variety of charges laid upon both their persons and the land. They had to pay special marriage and inheritance taxes; they were further required to provide tithes to the parish churches. These charges were often small—sometimes only recognitive—and were fixed by custom. They are often regarded as “feudal” as distinct from “capitalist” rents, in that they were customary and not negotiated; the lord, moreover, provided nothing—no help or capital improvements—in return for the payments.

                                                                           The 16th century witnessed a conversion—widespread though never complete—from systems of feudal to capitalist rents. The late medieval population collapse increased the mobility of the peasant population; a peasant who settled for one year and one day in a “free village” or town received perpetual immunity from personal charges. Personal dues thus eroded rapidly; dues weighing upon the land persisted longer but could not be raised. It was therefore in the landlord’s interest to convert feudal tenures into leaseholds, and this required capital.

                                                                          In England upon the former manors, farmers (the original meaning of the term was leaseholder or rent payer), who held land under long-term leases, gradually replaced copyholders, or tenants subject only to feudal dues. These farmers constituted the free English yeomanry, and their appearance marks the demiseof the last vestiges of medieval serfdom. In the Low Countries, urban investors bought up the valuable lands near towns and converted them into leaseholds, which were leased for high rents over long terms. The heavy infusions of urban capital into Low Country agriculture helped make it technically the most advanced in Europe, a model for improving landlords elsewhere. In central and southern France and in central Italy, urban investment in the land was closely linked to a special type of sharecropping lease, called the métayage in France and the mezzadria in Italy. The landlord (typically a wealthy townsman) purchased plots, consolidated them into a farm, built a house upon it, and rented it. Often, he also provided the implements needed to work the land, livestock, and fertilizer. The tenant gave as rent half of the harvest. The spread of this type of sharecropping in the vicinity of towns had begun in the late Middle Ages and was carried vigorously forward in the 16th century. Nonetheless, the older forms of feudal tenure, and even some personal charges, also persisted, especially in Europe’s remote and poorer regions. The early modern countryside presents an infinitely complex mixture of old and new ways of holding and working the land.

                                                           Second, the high price of wheat did not everywhere make cereal cultivation the most remunerative use of the land. The price of wool continued to be buoyant, and this, linked with the availability of cheap wheat from the east, sustained the conversion of plowland into pastures that also had begun in the late Middle Ages. In England this movement is called “enclosure.” In the typical medieval village, peasants held the cultivated soil in unfenced strips, and they also enjoyed the right of grazing a set number of animals upon the village commons. Enclosure meant both the consolidating of the strips into fenced fields and the division of the commons among the individual villagers. As poorer villagers often received plots too small to work, they often had little choice but to sell their share to their richer neighbours and leave the village. In 16th-century England, enclosure almost always meant the conversion of plowland and commons into fenced meadows or pastures. To many outspoken observers, clergy and humanists in particular, enclosures were destroying villages, uprooting the rural population, and multiplying beggars on the road and paupers in the towns. Sheep were devouring the people—“Where there have been many householders and inhabitants,” the English bishop Hugh Latimer lamented, “there is now but a shepherd and his dog.” In light of recent research, these 16th-century enclosures were far less extensive than such strictures imply. Nonetheless, enclosures are an example of the power of capital to transform the rhythms of everyday life; at the least, they were an omen of things to come.

                                                                         In Spain, sheep and people also entered into destructive competition. Since the 13th century, sheepherding had fallen under the control of a guild known as the Mesta; the guild was in turn dominated by a few grandees. The Mesta practiced transhumance (alternation of winter and spring pastures); the flocks themselves moved seasonally along great trailways called cañadas. The government, which collected a tax on exported wool, was anxious to raise output and favoured the Mesta with many privileges. Cultivators along the cañadas were forbidden to fence their fields, lest the barriers impede the migrating sheep. Moreover, the government imposed ceiling prices on wheat in 1539. Damage from the flocks and the low price of wheat eventually crippled cereal cultivation, provoked widespread desertion of the countryside and overall population decline, and was a significant factor in Spain’s 17th-century decline. High cereal prices primarily benefited not the peasants but the landlords. The landlords in turn spent their increased revenues on the amenities and luxuries supplied by towns. In spite of high food costs, town economies fared well.

CONCLUSION

                                After  going  through  some  of  the  debates,  I  can  conclude  that  the  Early  Medieval  Indian  Feudalism  was  characterized  by  a  class  of  landlords  and  by  a  class  of  subject  peasantry,  both  living  in  a  predominantly  agrarian  economy  marked  by  a  decline  in  trade  and  urbanism  and  by  a  drastic  reduction  in  metal  currency.  Most  of  the  power  structures  within  the  state  did  not  have  to  pay  taxes.   Indian  kings  made  land  grants  to  get  taxes  (surplus)  collected.  In  their  turn  the  grantees  collected  rents  from  their  tenant  peasants  who  could  be  evicted  and  even  subjected  to  forced  labour.  In  this  context,  the  concept  of  class  may  be  reconsidered.  The  position  may  be  located  in  the  overall  system  of  production.  Class  is  best  seen  in  the  context  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  the  surplus,  which  was  eventually  given  a  lasting  basis  by  the  unequal  distribution  of  the  means  of  production  and  strengthened  by  ideological,  ritualistic  and  judicial  factors.  The  social  structure  is  identified  by  the  nature  of  the  class  which  dominates  it.  Ecological  factors  influence  the  development  of  material  culture  but  do  not  determine  the  form  and  nature  of  the  social  structure.