THE RESOURCE FLOW
A. Kinship
Kinship, under certain circumstances in Dhankura, deter- mines the flow of the following resources: land transactions, agricultural employment, credit, and public resources. Kinship regulates most sales and purchases of land in Dhankura. This regulation has both legal backing (Islamic preemption laws) and social sanction (kinship norms). One is, by the preemption laws, forbidden to sell inherited land outside the kinship group so long as some kin can offer the market price. Such a legal provision would be difficult to enforce without social reinforcement. In Dhankura, the social reinforcement operates. The preemption laws are evoked with sale both of the land internal to the village and of land in the outside block common to other villages. There is a marked trend of sale by poorer kin to richer kin. Moreover the quality of Dhankura land is low and the price high1, so there is little
1 For the discussion of price of land in Dhankura, see Chapter One Part II.
purchase of Dhankura land by outsiders. So kin, not outsiders, are buying up land that is sold.
Kinship norms argue against the sale of land generally. Given an option, a landholder would prefer not to sell land especially that belonging to his father or kin. Indeed, rather than sell kin's land some mortgage it out with the hope of redeeming it. However, most who mortgage out their land cannot redeem it. Foreclosure and sale at a price far below market price follow. An exception to this process is Hafizuddin (a medium farmer) who has mortgaged out 1.33 acres of his own land to buy the land of a kin in order to prevent the sale to non-kin. Hafizuddin remains confident of redeeming his own land, as he derives a substantial supplementary income (Tk. 4000 per annum) from the cultivation and sale of lemons. Others forced to mortgage out their land, sharecrop it back in.
Ownership and operation of land in Khaliajhury is directly regulated by kins. For certain historical reasons1, ancestors of the Furia, Bepari and Munshi kin groups acquired land in Khaliajhury.
It is their direct descendents and kin who own the most land there still. And those who own Khaliajhury land from Dhankura chose to operate this land through kins resident in Khaliajhury.
Kinship dominates labour transactions as well as land transactions. Three mediating factors regulate labour. Status, operates to determine how much paid and unpaid labour is provided by each land-holding category2. Kinship and faction operate to determine who gets hired as paid labour.
Kinship is the first consideration in the hiring of daily agricultural labour. The non-political cultivator normally hires kin.
What he wants is a steady supply of labour for peak periods, and because in Dhankura residences cluster along kinship lines, kins provide the most steady supply of labour. If the kin pool of labour
1 Describde in the chapter on Ownership of Land in Part II.
2 See the discussion below and section on Selection of Labour in chapter 2, Part II.
is sufficient, he might consider the skill of his kin. If the kin pool of labour is insufficient he might hire neighbours. The political cultivator favours “political” supporters.
Whenever possible, he will hire kin who give him factional support. Next he will turn to factional supporters from other kinship groups. Only when such "factional" labour is not available will he turn to less-actively-loyal kin or neighbours. Faction, however, is the first consideration in the hiring of permanent labourers in Dhankura1. But most labour in Dhankura is hired on kinship lines with factional emphasis. We have estimated that roughly Tk.
24,000 out of Tk. 35,000 for paid labour flow along kinship lines emphasizing faction.
Non-institutional sources of loans often flow along kinship lines. Kins with some savings are expected to provide loans to poorer kins. Even institutional loans, which can be regulated by a kin or faction leader, flow often along kin lines. These include the BADC and jute loans extended through the Project Managers of the irrigation schemes and the jute extension committee members respectively, but not the ADB loans which are regulated by the UP Chairman.
Under most circumstances the flow of public resources into Dhankura is regulated heavily by factions. Factions provide the most immediate link to the UP, where the allocation of public resources is made. So public resources flow along factional lines with kinship emphasis. An exception, almost by default, is the benefit from the various irrigation schemes. One or another kin or faction leader, who lobbied for these schemes, is generally appointed project manager once the scheme is introduced. The block of land covered by the, scheme centres around his land and, therefore, covers the land of many of his kin-neighbours.
The solidarity of the kinship groups depends upon the intensity of the fight for resources and the leader's ability and willingness to give proper guidance to his kins in this fight. The leader of a
1 See the discussion on faction below.
kinship group is expected to: give legal counsel and defense provide social support and security; be shrewd, educated and relatively rich; and/or gain command over and distribute resources. A combination of all these attributes and circumstances will guarantee the tenureship of a kin leader.
Command over resources is the single attribute which can also guarantee tenureship. Other attributes are not a guarantee against challenge.
Factional loyalty through patronage (e.g. employment or public resources) and marriage can cut acrose kinship lines. This operates most often in a deliberate attempt by one faction leader to erode the kinship support base of a rival faction leader. Under strong, influential leadership, kinship groups remain united and enter (as a group) factional politics: the advantage to the group being the leader's control over resources. Under weak leaders (no longer able to command economic, social, or legal benefits for the group), challenges to the leadership surface and the kins are dis- united. Members of weak kinship groups try to maximise other links for economic gain: faction, patron, or neighbourhood.
The differences in the strength and cohesion of different kinship groups in Dhankura can be summarized. The two kinship groups Behala and Furia, of the two faction leaders Shafiqur and Kashem Ali respectively, give complete support to their kin-faction leaders. Another kinship group, Muda, is divided as the two co- leaders support the rival faction leaders. The reason for their divided loyalties is resource based: the one co-leader is a sharecropper of Shafiqur, add the other co-leader receives labour patronage from Kashem Ali. Two other groups, Bepari and Munshi, remain fairly neutral in factional politics as the kin leaders themselves are neutral figures in the village. Interestingly, Munshi group has the most educated members and four policemen where-as Bepari kins have the most women engaged in food-for- work. A position of neutrality does not, apparently, correlate with economic position. One comparatively poor kinship group, Paramanik, linked to Furia through marriage seeks economic and social security from the Furia group. The group with the least dependable clients and most shifting loyalties is Mal. Zafar Ali,
supported by most of Mal, is behind Kashem Ali. However, a sub- group led by Kamal, Zafar Ali's brother, support Shafiqur. And Mannan, with Shafiqur's patronage, is challenging Zafar Ali's leadership and has opened a rival permanent shop to Zafar Ali's in the Dhankura bazaar. Zafar Ali is known to default on benefits due to/promised to not only his kin but his next of kin, his brothers.
Despite diversification and cross-factional divisions, kinship loyalties have remained strong in Dhankura? But why is this so?
Or we can ask this question the other way around. When is it that kinship ties break down, and why haven't they so broken down in Dhankura ? Kinship ties do not break down simply when kinship ideology breaks down or kin norms no longer operate. It is not sufficient to say that in some societies kinship ideology breaks down or kin norms no longer operate. There has to be some explanation as to why kinship ideology breaks down. Kinship ties begin to break down when other ties, essentially economic ties, become strong. Then as kinship ties break down the ideology and norms may begin to wear thin. As diversified avenues of income become increasingly significant to a community, traditional avenues may become less significant. If a landless labourer goes in successfully for small trade, he will be less dependent on a kin- patron for labour opportunities. If the sons of a marginal farmer have all received external employment, the marginal farmer may no longer require the sharecropping patronage of his richer kin. If a small farmer goes into business, he will rely more heavily on the business patron who gives him goods on credit than on kin who give him small amounts of credit and some seasonal employment.
So far in Dhankura not enough resources flow through other avenues to challenge those resources that flow through kinship channels. Employment from the land, for example, is still a major resource to Dhankura, and labour returns flow along kinship lines.
Trade and employment returns are only half of the land-labour returns. Public resources and institutional loans to Dhankura are not yet very significant. So kinship loyalties have remained strong and kinship clustering prevails in the residential pattern of Dhankura.
Kinship units then, by virtue of their residential and economic solidarity, become the basic political units in Dhankura. Factions develop around the core of a major kinship group. Smaller, weaker kinship groups align with the larger kinship groups in an effort to derive some economic gain. The resources which flow through the faction further strengthen this kin-based faction alliance.