Decline of Cultivators and Growth of Agricultural Labourers in India from 2001 to 2011

Abstract

According to Census data, the proportion of working to the total population in India grew from 39.1 per cent in 2001 to 39.8 per cent in 2011. The working population comprises four categories: cultivators (C.L.),¹ agricultural labourers (A.L.),² household industry workers (H.H.) ³ and other workers (O.W.).⁴

The decade of 2001–11 has seen a decline in the number of cultivators and high increase in the number of agricultural labourers. This is disturbing the development for India. For the first time since independence, agricultural labourers have outnumbered cultivators. There are many reasons for this development such as decreasing average size of operational holdings, farming becoming infeasible, increasing agricultural wages, rampant selling of agricultural land and shift of employment from the agricultural to non-agricultural sector (Figure 3). The decade of 2001–11 also witnessed three drought years. This article explains these reasons in detail. Cultivators are decreasing and such decline in agriculture is replaced by increase in agricultural labourers. There has been a definite marginalization of agrarian interest in the national policy and reforms are certainly needed. This article tries to study the pattern of growth of cultivators and agricultural labourers for the states having population of more than 25 million as per Census 2011. There is a marginal increase in the number of household industry workers but high increase in the number of other workers.