Weapons of the Weak- Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance

by James C Scott

  The principal beneficiaries of this largesse in Sedaka are the eighteen village members (sixteen families) listed in table 4.10. They stand out in several respects from the village as a whole. All but two are from among the richest half of the households in Sedaka. Twelve are from the richest twenty families. They farm an average of 8.3 relong apiece, far above the village mean, and, taken collectively, a total of 139.5 relong, or fully 43 percent of the total paddy land cultivated by villagers. Politically, all but two are members of the local branch of the ruling party.51 In fact, all but three of the UMNO households among the richest twenty families have joined the Persatuan Peladang.52 None of the seven [Page 127] [Page 128] PAS families has joined.53 What we have here, then, is a Farmers’ Association membership almost exclusively confined to the class of wealthy cultivators affiliated with the dominant party. So close is this linkage that the four elected leaders of the local unit of the Farmers’ Association (Daud bin Haji Jaafar, son of #70, Basir, #64, Amin, #72, and Fadzil, #42) are precisely those who form the small cabal which, in practice, controls village politics. As for the poor of Sedaka, no matter which party they belong to, they are conspicuous by their almost complete absence from the Farmers’ Association; only two have ventured to join.54

  TABLE 4.10 • Village Members of Farmers’ Association, with Shares Owned, Land Claimed for Loan Purposes, Land Actually Farmed, Political Affiliation, and Income Rank, June 1979

  This small elite has profited substantially from its control over the Farmers’ Association. In the matter of crop and production loans, the profiteering is most blatant. With four exceptions, the members of the Farmers’ Association take loans for considerably more land than they actually farm (see table 4.10). They thus assure themselves an additional loan at subsidized rates and a surplus of fertilizer they can sell at a profit to nonmembers.55 The salaried staff of MADA in Kepala Batas, where this petty but systematic loan fraud takes place, are well aware of what is happening. Their complicity in registering inflated acreage represents their effort to keep their present membership and to avoid antagonizing the rural leadership of the ruling party. Thus Daud bin Haji Jaafar, son of the village headman (#70), registers 30 relong and receives M$900 in cash when in fact he is entitled only to register 7 relong and borrow M$210; Basir (#64), shopkeeper and Sedaka’s political kingpin, farms only 7 relong but takes loans for 20 relong, thus availing himself of working capital at subsidized interest rates.

  It is only by the most charitable definition that these production credits could in fact be termed “loans.” By June 1979 six of the eighteen members had, in effect, transformed these loans into outright grants by the simple expedient of not repaying them (the “ineligibles” of table 4.10). At least four others do not appear on the list of members, because they defaulted on their loans some time ago and no longer bother to pay dues. Of the remaining twelve members in more or less good standing in mid-1979, at least two-Basir (#64) and Ghani Lebai Mat (#54)-defaulted in the following season and became ineligible for further loans. Basir owes the Farmers’ Association nearly M$2,000.

  [Page 129]

  The Agricultural Officer who leads the local branch estimates that less than half the membership still qualifies for production credit. Delinquency has grown despite the easing of repayment schedules following the drought in 1978, which hurt even well-to-do cultivators. The reasons for default, however, have nothing to do with the capacity of the membership to pay. As a group, they come from that wealthy strata of the village that can most easily borrow from Chinese shopkeepers or, more likely, finance production costs from their own ample savings. Thus the sanction of being denied further credit from MADA is only a minor inconvenience for them, an inconvenience that is, moreover, far outweighed by the attraction of simply appropriating as much as M$2,000 in a de facto grant. They know, with a political wisdom born of experience, that they will not be prosecuted, and they lightheartedly ignore the letters they periodically receive demanding repayment. As the local Agricultural Officer laments, “It’s because politics is mixed in; if we take action, the courts will press hard [for repayment] and the political party wants the votes of the people.”56 The logic is impeccable but incomplete. Prosecuting for debt collection would not alienate the UMNO rank and file. It would, however, alienate precisely that class of large farmers who form the rural leadership of UMNO in the village.57 A headlong pursuit of debtors would probably be the coup de grace for the institution itself.

  The partisan and class character of the Farmers’ Association has never been in serious doubt. From the beginning, it has been run for and by that class of large cultivators and landowners affiliated to the ruling party. This acknowledged fact was, in itself, not much more than a minor irritant in village politics and class relations-the grating evidence that a small oligarchy enjoyed privileged access to credit from the Persatuan Peladang. In mid-1978, however, the partisan character of MADA and the Farmers’ Association became more visibly and acrimoniously manifest in the course of administering a drought relief program. The drought, to the rare good fortune of many cultivators, coincided with the general election campaign in 1978, thus allowing the ruling party to kill two birds with one stone through its patronage. MADA, with its offices scattered throughout the rice plain, a professional administrative staff, and strong ties to UMNO, seemed the logical vehicle to distribute relief on a large scale. The results bore the distinctive marks of MADA’s political and class character.

  The drought relief was designed as a labor-intensive public works program. In practice, the wages were more intensive than the labor; many villagers received as much as M$80 for two days of canal clearing in a region where the typical [Page 130] wage for a day’s labor was no more than M$10. The recruitment of laborers was preceded, in Sedaka, by a household-by-household survey conducted by Farmers’ Association clerks inquiring about family size, income, and cultivated acreage, from which an index of eligibility was constructed based on need. Actual recruitment and supervision of work was handled by the elected head of the small agricultural unit (Ketua yunit), who was, in this case, an UMNO stalwart, Mat Tamin, from the adjoining village of Sungai Tongkang. Once the work was under way, the nearby MADA office was besieged by a storm of complaints as it became clear that the partisan affiliation of the needy mattered a great deal. Thus, for example, poor villagers known to favor PAS were lucky if they got to work once, while poor villagers linked to UMNO were hired an average of twice.58 Complaints were not confined to PAS members alone as even small farmers favoring UMNO observed that wealthy members of their own party were taking full advantage of the opportunity to make easy money. The two sons of Haji Salim, an exceptionally wealthy farmer with 40 relong, lorries, and tractors, living just outside Sedaka, were each hired twice. Likewise, the son of the richest UMNO landowner in the village, Lebai Pendek (#73), was hired twice, while his other brother got the contract to build a chicken coop for the Farmers’ Association as part of its relief program-netting him over M$500. Many PAS members applying for work were told that no more forms were available. In the scramble for jobs, charges flew thick and fast: the heads of work gangs were charged with listing fictitious workers and pocketing their pay, with extorting commissions from those they did hire, and with favoring their relatives and political allies. Villagers claimed that the unit chiefs who hired workers made anywhere from two to three thousand dollars each from the drought relief program. The residue of bitterness left by this manipulation of drought aid was largely responsible for the overwhelming defeat of Mat Tamin by Farmers’ Association members of his own party when he stood for reelection a few months later. The younger brother of Basir, who lives near the village and serves as an Information Officer in the government, went so far as to claim that the scandals in administering drought relief were directly responsible for the poor UMNO showing in many Muda constituencies in the subsequent general election.

  The Ruling Party in Sedaka

  To speak of the membership of the Farmers’ Asso
ciation in Sedaka is to speak in the same breath of both the local leadership of UMNO and the “officials” of what passes as village government. Thus, thirteen of the eighteen current members of the Persatuan Peladang are now, or have been, elected by the local UMNO [Page 131] branch to the Village Development Committee (awatankuasa Kemajuan Kampung, JKK).59

  With the exception of only three families who may be described as “fencesitters,” the political affiliation of each family is common knowledge.60 Fortythree families (58 percent) in the village are in the UMNO camp, while twentyeight (38 percent) are with PAS. This count, however, masks a wide variation in how open and active this membership is. Beyond a small core of militants in each party, drawn in UMNO’s case from among the most substantial villagers, there lies a rank-and-file membership whose affiliation is largely passive. Quite a few villagers, in fact, describe themselves openly as Pak Turut (followers) only, who have affiliated with UMNO to “be on the side of the majority” (sebelah banyak) and to qualify for petty patronage.

  The benefits available to UMNO members are substantial. For wealthy villagers membership may mean the opportunity to receive a taxi license, a small business loan, a permit to operate a small rice mill or a lorry, or a local government job. At the district UMNO annual meeting in early 1979, a prominent party leader from Guar Cempedak openly complained about those who joined the fold simply to apply for a taxi license and then promptly ceased paying dues or attending meetings once it was granted. For rank-and-file members the benefits are more modest but no less vital. The dream of many young men to be accepted as a settler on a government land scheme is one likely to be realized only by those who have cast their lot with UMNO, as political criteria are openly used in the selection process. A number of small grants-in-aid to cover the cost of school uniforms and exercise books are available to poor village families from the principal of the nearby primary school. These grants are awarded on the basis of a list provided by the local UMNO leader, Basir, on which the names of children from poor PAS families rarely figure at all. Such patronage is, of course, supplemented by the distribution of loans and jobs conferred by the Farmers’ Association, which works through the same interlocking village directorate.

  By far the largest and most contentious distribution of patronage, however, occurred in late 1979, when the village was selected as a recipient of over M$20,000 in funds for a “village improvement scheme” (Rancangan Pemulihan Kampung, RPK). As with the drought relief scheme, a census was conducted of each village household to determine its income and needs, after which grants were made to families for such things as lumber, zinc roofing material, cement, septic tanks, and toilets. We shall examine this episode in some detail later, but it is worth noting here that the funds were distributed in a wholly partisan manner by the small “gang of four” who informally control UMNO and the Village Development Committee: Basir, Daud bin Haji Jaafar (son of the headman), [Page 132] Karim, and Fadzil. This was so true that by early 1980 it became possible to identify the political affiliation of virtually each household in the village in the course of a casual stroll down the path; no elaborate interviews were necessary. Houses with new roofs, new lumber in the walls, and/or a new outhouse were UMNO households and the remainder were PAS households.

  The sociology of village UMNO is therefore a reasonably straightforward affair. It is dominated by a few well-off families who have taken full advantage of the benefits of their role-benefits that come almost entirely from government patronage of one kind or another. Much of the UMNO rank and file consists of families who are closely related to members of this petty oligarchy and/or who are often hired by them. Thus, ten of the sixteen poorest UMNO households have strong ties of blood, marriage, or employment to wealthier UMNO households which, while they may not explain party loyalty, at least serve to solidify it.61 Village UMNO is only the ultimate link in a vast chain of kinship and patronage that extends on to the mukim, the district, and the state. Outside the village, the importance of kinship diminishes while the role of patronage is paramount. UMNO leaders at the district level are drawn disproportionately from among government clerks, schoolteachers, and wealthy farmers with business interests that depend on state loans or contracts. While the stakes are naturally greater at the apex of the party edifice than at the base, the cement that keeps the structure intact at each level is recognizably similar.

  Despite the palpable advantages of UMNO membership, there are still many PAS members in the village, although, as an institution, the opposition can hardly be said to be thriving. A decade ago PAS members were a majority in Sedaka. Since then, however, the village headman, Haji Jaafar, and a few strategically placed families have switched sides, and the bulk of the new households moving in have joined UMNO. The drift toward the ruling party was brusquely reinforced following the 1978 general elections, when the Kedah state government conducted a purge of all village development committees (JKKs) to ensure that their membership was exclusively from UMNO. In some villages that were PAS-dominated, this entailed either abolishing the JKK or, more likely, appointing the one or two UMNO families in the hamlet to the JKK. In Sedaka it entailed throwing out the two members of PAS who had been elected to the JKK and who until then had helped preserve a facade of local nonpartisanship. Since then, PAS has led a shadowy local existence. With the exception of a death benefit society (Khairat Kematian), which pays funeral costs for many party [Page 133] members in return for a small annual premium, PAS in Sedaka has become largely an affair of demoralized grumbling, social avoidance, and character assassination. Open confrontation is rare, although a few shun Basir and boycott his store. PAS members now have their own joke about the JKK. They call it jangan kacau kerja kami which, freely translated, means “don’t stick your nose into our business.”62

  With all the material incentives favoring membership in UMNO, it is the more surprising that such a large minority of Sedaka’s households should have so far resisted such blandishments. (See table 4.11)

  TABLE 4.11 • Political Affiliation of Households in Sedaka by Income Level, in Percentages

  The resistance is particularly marked among the poorest strata of the village, who are more than twice as likely to belong to the opposition as are their wealthier neighbors. That a majority of the village should have affiliated with UMNO requires little explanation, given the manifest advantages. Why a majority of the poorer villagers (and a minority of the rich) have chosen, against their material interests, to remain in the PAS camp, however, does require analysis. There appear to be several reasons. One is that the pattern of village partisanship has its roots in older, family-based factions that existed well before the formation of political parties. Thus, Haji Kadir, the richest man in the village, with his father and his two brothers in tow have constituted something of a minority faction in village politics for at least thirty years. But since all four of these households are quite well-to-do, it only helps to explain what might be termed the “leading” PAS faction and not the appeal of PAS to most of Sedaka’s poor. For that explanation we must rely on a combination of family ties, special material interests, UMNO strategy, and, not least, the moral appeal of the opposition. Family ties are influential in at least four or five cases of sons whose fathers (often not residents) have been open and vociferous PAS supporters. [Page 134] But one finds nothing like the UMNO pattern. For in only seven of the twenty poorest PAS households can one find links of kinship or employment that might plausibly explain membership in the opposition. What is more striking is that there are at least five poorer PAS members whose partisan affiliation is, as it were, not compatible with their apparent economic interests-that is, PAS members who depend upon UMNO members for much of their wage labor.

  Second, with the exception of the very poorest, many PAS supporters have long been dues-paying members of a PAS death benefit society. Were they to leave PAS, they would automatically forfeit the right to funeral costs, in which they have already made a substantial investment. In fact, the success w
ith which PAS has tied this traditional form of social insurance to party membership has prompted recent efforts by UMNO to copy the formula.

  Third, UMNO village strategy has not strongly encouraged substantial defections from PAS. The leadership of Sedaka’s leading party has, it appears, adopted what game theorists have aptly called a “minimal winning coalition” policy. That is, having succeeded in controlling the village, they are not anxious to so enlarge their majority that the material advantages of UMNO membership would be further diluted and dispersed.

  Fourth, while little is to be gained materially from aligning with the opposition, PAS has considerable moral appeal. This appeal stems only in small part from its claim to be more faithful to the tenets of Islam. PAS members, in this respect, are no more outwardly observant or orthodox as a group than members of the ruling party in Sedaka. What is involved, rather, seems to be a fusion of class issues, ethnic and religious sentiment, and a populist opposition to government policy and the inequalities it has fostered. Such a fusion is not surprising in view of the fact that PAS is the only open, institutional vehicle of opposition that is tolerated-if only barely-within the Malay community.63 When poor PAS members talk about UMNO locally, they do not mean its rank and file, many of whom are as poor as they, but rather the wealthy families in Sedaka who run it and the coalition of government employees and rich landowners and businessmen with connections above them who control UMNO in the district. UMNO is, for them, nearly synonymous with “the haves” (gologan berada) and with “the government.” Despite PAS’s failure to win power in Kedah, it appeals to many poor farmers because it is “a religiously informed popular movement for the defense of peasant interests.”64 Members of PAS in Sedaka emphasize that it represents only one race and one religion, while UMNO, with its coalition partners, cannot just defend Malays and their religion. Issues of race and religion [Page 135] are understood by most poor PAS members in a way that fuses them to issues of class relations and the needs of a smallholding peasantry that justifiably feels threatened. Thus, as we shall see, notions about exploitation, about rights to employment, land, and charity-all vital material issues-find expression through what are experienced as the norms of the Malay community and the requirements of Islam for pious conduct. To say that UMNO defends the welloff and has done little or nothing to help the poorer farmers is at the same time to say that it has violated both Malay and Islamic values.65