At the very end of the village path stand a number of houses of poor villagers, most of whom belong to the opposition. Many of the most pointed criticisms and opinions I heard were expressed by Pak Yah, a landless laborer, when he was talking with his equally poor brother-in-law, Mat “halus,” and his friend Dullah. They and the other friends and relatives who occasionally joined them on the rough benches below Pak Yah’s house could always be counted on for a perspective that broke sharply with that coming from the UMNO stalwarts at Basir’s store or with that held by wealthy members (for example, Haji Kadir) of their own party.
In its pattern of settlement, its economy, its size, and its history, Sedaka is fairly typical of the rice-farming villages on the Kedah plain. But so are hundreds of other villages, and the choice of this particular village as a place to settle and conduct research merits a brief explanation. The first requirement I had was a village more or less exclusively devoted to rice cultivation. Sedaka fits this particular perfectly. Only two heads of household are salaried; one is a truck driver for the Farmers’ Association, and the other examines paddy for moisture content at the local government purchasing complex. Both also farm in their spare time. There is in fact not a single household in the village that does not now or, in the case of aged couples, did not once grow rice. The advantage of rice monoculture is not only that it is representative of most villages in Muda but also that the task of determining incomes and economic stratification is relatively straightforward. Villages on the fringes of the irrigation scheme, by contrast, have far more mixed economies, which may include fishing, rubber smallholding, and estate work. A paddy-farming community, on the other hand, is rather like a fishing village with only two catches a year.
Another requirement was by far the most restrictive: that the village be one that had been studied before 1971, when double-cropping was introduced, so that it would be possible to establish at least the basic changes in the local economy. Only three or four villages satisfied this condition. The first one I visited was Sedaka. Not only was the village headman, Haji Jaafar, hospitable to the idea of a strange family settling in his midst but it seemed possible, after a brief talk, that a part of Haji Kadir’s large house might be rented out now that his own children had grown and left home. The ease with which such basic questions were resolved, together with the euphoria contributed by a remarkable sunset and the knowledge that the imposing beauty of Gunung Jerai (Kedah Peak) would always be visible to the south, were enough to settle the matter on the spot.5
RICH AND POOR
[Page 91]
Glaring inequalities were an integral feature of economic life in Sedaka before double-cropping. They remain so today. They are apparent from the most casual visual evidence of clothing, housing, food, furniture, kitchen or farm equipment, radios and, in a few cases now, television sets. They are, on closer inspection, produced and maintained by equally glaring disparities in the distribution of land ownership, of farm size, and hence of income.
Incomes in Sedaka were highly skewed in 1978–79. Despite the fact that there are no comparable figures for 1967, what we do know about land and farm-size distribution then suggests inequalities of a similar magnitude at the very least. The present situation can be seen from table 4.1, which reports net income for each household in the village, together with rice land owned and operated and the dominant occupation of the head of household. Families are ranked from poorest to richest on the basis of income per capita in the household. Readers may find it helpful to refer to this listing when they wish to identify the income, tenure status, major source of household income, party affiliation, and so forth of families who will appear and reappear throughout the text.
Using the standard government procedures to calculate per capita income—by which children and adults are counted equally—a total of forty households, or 54 percent, of village families would fall below the official poverty-line income of $572 per capita per year. A less stringent formula, employed in table 4.1, which counts infants below age six as only one-third of an adult equivalent and children aged six through twelve as two-thirds, places twenty-two households, or 30 percent, of Sedaka’s families below the poverty line. It is for these twentytwo families and the eight or ten families who have incomes just above the poverty line that the problems of food and daily necessities take their most severe form. For these families, an illness of a working adult, a poor yield, a decline in harvest work, an increase in rents, or the withdrawal of a tenancy can easily spell disaster. Their income contrasts starkly with that of the best-off twentytwo families in the village. The poorest twenty-two households have an average net annual income of M$2,291 while the richest twenty-two households earn an average of M$6,044. The contrast is more pronounced if we consider per capita [Page 92] annual income within the household; here the richest twenty-two families receive nearly four times M$ 1,867, the per capita income of poor households (M$475).
TABLE 4.1 • Village Data by Households—Identified by Household Head and Ranked from Poorest to Richest according to Per Capita Annual Net Income
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[Page 94]
[Page 95]
The disparity in incomes is reflected, as one would expect, in the disparity of secure control over the key factor of production: land. Between them, the twenty-two poorest families in Sedaka own only 22.5 relong of land—an average of barely 1 relong (1 relong =.71 acres). Keeping in mind that the standard for a poverty-line income from paddy farming alone is a minimum of 4 relong, the poorest households own scarcely one-quarter of the land required to provide for their essential needs. The wealthiest twenty-two households, on the other hand, own a total of more than 142 relong, giving them an average owned holding of nearly 6.5 relong. The disparity in farm size, which includes land rented in, at the two poles of the village hierarchy is actually slightly less skewed only because the land owned by many richer families makes it unnecessary for them to rent in additional paddy acreage. Nevertheless, the poorest twenty-two families are able to rent in only enough land to give them an average farm size of less than two relong (1.89) while the richest families have an average farm size of 7.25 relong. Put another way, relatively well-to-do households actually manage to rent in almost as much additional paddy land as poor families, although they need it far less.
In fact, the figures on land ownership, seen from a slightly different perspective, reveal far more glaring inequities. If we disregard for a moment the income figures in table 4.1 and simply count the households that own no paddy land whatever, thirty families (41 percent) fall in this category.6 Thus nearly half the village lacks legal control over the major productive asset in rice farming. If we take the half (thirty-seven families) of Sedaka’s households who own the least land, we find that they own a mere 7 relong between them. As the total rice land owned by all villagers is 235.5 relong, we have a situation in which half the village owns less than 3 percent of locally owned paddy land. The ten biggest village landowners, by contrast, represent only 14 percent of the households but own outright 133.75 relong, or 47 percent of the rice land owned by villagers.
It is possible to compare the land ownership pattern in 1979 with the situation in 1967 and thereby assess the impact of double-cropping and new technology. There is essentially no change over the past thirteen years, that is, no change in a distribution of land ownership that was, at the outset, extremely skewed. Once account is taken of the increase in the village population from fifty-six to seventy-four households, even the marginal improvement in the proportion of land owned by land-poor households proves to be misleading. Thus, by 1979 the land-poor half of the village was comprised of nine more families than in [Page 96] 1967, and among them they owned a negligible 3 percent of the rice land. There are today more families (thirty) owning no paddy land in Sedaka than there were in 1967 (twenty-seven), despite the fact that the proportion of landless households has declined somewhat.
The relation between land ownership and income in this one-crop eco
nomy is obvious. Only four of the richest twenty-two families own no land. In all four cases the anomaly is accounted for by various combinations of small family size and outside wages and above all by the renting in of paddy land averaging more than 8 relong per household. For that half of the village with the lowest incomes, conversely, land ownership is conspicuous by its absence. Roughly 60 percent of these poor villagers own no land at all and only three families own more than 2 relong.
The distribution of ownership within the village in paddy land is unlikely to shift markedly in the near future. Higher and steadier yields, when coupled with the traditional Malay reluctance to part with land, has served to slow dramatically the process of land concentration through indebtedness. In the three decades before 1970, Haji Kadir (#74), now the largest landowner in the village, managed to purchase 25 relong in eight separate transactions from smallholders with insurmountable debts. Although he remains as avid for land as in the past, he has not added anything to his holdings since the beginning of double-cropping. Not only are the small landowners whose land he might covet less likely to find themselves in such dire straits, but the market for rental land is now so buoyant that a hard-pressed smallholder can clear his debts more easily by renting his land out for several seasons at a time (pajak) and retain title.
By the same token, the marked increase in paddy-land prices has also eliminated [Page 97] the possibility of upward mobility for all but the richest. Such upward mobility through land purchase was certainly not common, even before doublecropping, but five villagers who now own from 3 to 7 relong had managed to buy at least a portion of that land. Since 1970 not a single smallholder in this category has added to his holdings. And if this category is effectively barred from purchasing land, it follows that those with less than 3 relong of their own, which is to say most of the village households, do not even contemplate the possibility.
TABLE 4.2 • Distribution of Ownership of Paddy Land in Sedaka, 1967–1979
1967 1979
Total No. of Village Households 56 74
Land-poor
Percentage of total villager-owned paddy land held by land-poor half of village
1% 3%
—total area (relong)
1.25 7.00
—average owned per household (relong)
.04 .19
—no. of households
28 37
Land-rich
Percentage of total villager-owned paddy land held by top 14% of village landowners
54% 57%
—total area (relong)
114.50 133.75
—average owned per household (relong)
14.3 13.3
—no. of households
8 10
Total paddy land owned by villagers (relong) 210.25 235.5
Since double-cropping began, only nine villagers have either bought or sold land. The pattern of these transactions reveals not only the diminished pace of land concentration but the fact that the process, if slowed, still moves in the same direction. The buyers are without exception well-to-do, and the sellers are predominantly poor. Four villagers have, since 1970, bought a total of 19.25 relong, much of it located outside the village. Daud, the son of the village headman, Haji Jaafar (#70), has with his father’s help purchased 8 relong, including 3 relong from a villager. Nor (#68) has bought 8.25 relong with the help of his father (an outsider who already owns over 50 relong), all of it land at some distance from the village. Amin (#73) has from his own savings purchased 2.5 relong of local land from a wealthy landowning Haji in a neighboring village. Taken collectively, these three households illustrate which class in the village is still able to add to its holdings; they represent three of the six richest households in Sedaka. The one exception, Fadzil (#42), who bought 2.5 relong from another villager, is the exception that proves the rule. While he is not among the wealthiest ten villagers, he does own 8 relong, and his currently modest income is simply a reflection of the fact that he had to lease out much of his land to raise the capital for this purchase.
Five villagers have sold land. The two largest sales, for 5 and 10 relong respectively, were made by villagers who were admitted to government settlement schemes and were liquidating their local holdings.7 All but 2.5 relong of this land was sold to wealthy outsiders for premium prices. A third sale, of 3 relong, illustrates the circumstances under which poor families may still have to part with their land. Mat “Halus” ‘s wife (#6) was co-heir, along with at least eight other brothers and sisters, of 3 relong. The heirs could not agree on a mutual division of paddy fields and after a year decided to sell the land and divide the proceeds. The land passed to Daud, son of Haji Jaafar, that is, from one of the poorest households to one of the richest. The two remaining sales were made by two poor widowed sisters, Hasnah (#15) and Salmah (#20), each of whom sold half a relong to a much wealthier brother living in a nearby village. Both sales were made under rather exceptional circumstances; normally neither sister would [Page 98] have considered selling.8 In all five cases, the paddy land sold has passed into the hands of the well-to-do or rich. Two of the sellers were well-off themselves, and their selling could reasonably be seen as investment decisions. For the others, however, the sales were a further step toward landlessness.
The inequities described in a pattern of land ownership can occasionally be mitigated by the actual pattern of tenure. That is, if those with the largest holdings rent out much of their paddy land to poorer farmers, the actual distribution of farm size may be more equitable than ownership statistics would imply. In the case of Sedaka, the actual distribution of cultivated acreage, though it is more equitable than ownership, is nevertheless highly skewed. The ten largest farms, for example, which constitute no more than 14 percent of village households, cultivate a total of 115.5 relong, or 36 percent of the total paddy land cultivated by villagers. The average size of their farms is 11.6 relong (8.2 acres). The half of the village (thirty-seven families) with the smallest farm sizes, by contrast, cultivates only 58.75 relong, or a mere 18 percent of the paddy land worked by villagers.9 Their average farm size is only 1.6 relong, or slightly more than 1 acre. Here we have a replication of the general situation in the Muda region: much of the village’s farm population does not have access to the productive resources that would allow them to achieve a reliable subsistence. While their small plots may provide many of them with their daily rice, they could not make ends meet without the cash they earn as wage laborers in the paddy fields or elsewhere.
As with the figures on land ownership, it is possible to contrast the distribution of farm size in 1979 with the situation in 1967, using Horii’s data for the earlier period (table 4.3). The relative stability of the percentage distributions masks far more dramatic changes. The small farmers in Sedaka have quite literally lost ground. Their share of the total land farmed has diminished from nearly one-quarter to less than one-fifth; the total acreage they farm has declined by [Page 99] nearly one-third. Coupled with the growth in the population of the village, this has cut the average farm size for this hard-pressed sector of the village from 3 relong before double-cropping to only 1.6 relong in 1979. This change alone has been sufficient to more than negate the additional income that doublecropping could have provided.10 It would appear from the figures that largescale farmers have lost considerable ground as well, especially in terms of average farm size. Much of this loss, however, can be traced to a single farmer, Kamil (#55), who in 1967 rented in an amazing 38 relong, most of which has since been reclaimed by the outside landowner and distributed to his heirs.
TABLE 4.3 • Distribution of Paddy Farm Size in Sedaka, 1967–1979
1967 1979
Total No. of Village Households 56 74
Small Farms*
Percentage of total villager-farmed paddy land cultivated by that half of village with smallest farm sizes
24% 18%
—total area (relong)
85.0 58.75
—average farm size per househol
d (relong)
3.0 1.6
—no. of households
28 37
Large Farms
Percentage of total villager-farmed paddy land cultivated by that 14% of village with largest farm size
40% 36%
—total area (relong)
142.5 175.5
—average farm size per household (relong)
17.8 11.6
—no. of households
8 10
Total paddy land cultivated by villagers (relong) 357.75 323.25
*Includes, for 1979, 10 families with no farmland. See n. 9.
The reasons for this basic structural change, which threatens the livelihood of the poorest villagers, are important and complex enough to merit extended analysis later; a few reasons have already been mentioned in the preceding chapter. Here it is sufficient to note that demography has played a role. Many rather poor families who have moved into the village have either no land to farm or, more typically, only a relong or two. The process of inheritance has also meant that [Page 100] many married sons and daughters are now farming several small plots their parents once operated as a single farm. Finally, the lure of higher profits has prompted landlords, especially outside landlords, to dismiss tenants in order to farm themselves or to rent out a single large plot on long term leasehold (pajak). Some of this is evident from the decline in total paddy land cultivated by villagers between 1967 and 1979.
VILLAGE COMPOSITION
Sedaka was not, in 1979, quite the same village it was in 1967. Some households had broken up or moved out. Still more households had established themselves. The total number of households had grown by 25 percent (from fifty-six to seventy), and the total village population had grown at roughly the same pace.11 Simply by looking at such changes in detail we can learn a good deal not only about mobility in Malay society but also about how that mobility is linked to the vital issues of land, income, and kinship.
Weapons of the Weak- Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance Page 16
