Idea Of Government
Government in Kamala Markandaya’s, "Nectar in a
Sieve"
One might think of government as a bunch
of sly politicians running the country from
a little office in the White
House. Or perhaps he or she pictures a mighty king
sitting on the throne of
his country, telling his loyal subjects and servants
what to do. Even though
both of these are very common descriptions of
government, neither of them fit
the governmental system in the small village of
Gopalpur in South India.
The book, Nectar in a Sieve, by Kamala Markandaya
describes such a village,
as well as the governmental system within it. The
characters in the book are
used to a government that is quite different from
those in the United States
or Western Europe. In Gopalpur, the rich rule society
while the poor are left
to fend for themselves. And, in addition, the rich do
not care about the
well-being of the poor villagers. There is no set
governmental system; it is
simply understood that the rich hold all the
authority. The rich posses the
money, and therefore, the power to make the rules
by which everyone else must
follow. The structure of the village was this: the
rich owned all the land.
They would hire tenants to farm the land for them,
since they owned such vast
amounts that they could not work it themselves.
However, there were so
many tenants hired, that the owner could not keep track
of them all. So he
hired overseers to manage the village. Each of these
overseers were assigned
their own districts, which they would manage for the
owner of the land in
return for a small percentage of the rent. And this system
was accepted as
government in the eyes of the villagers. It was just the way
things were. In
her book, Markandaya tells the story of one of these tenant
farmers, Nathan.
His wife was called Rukmani, the main character of this novel,
and the two of
them lived with their family in a small mud hut Nathan had
constructed for
them when they were wed. The mud hut was not at all extravagant,
they did not
wear nice clothes, and they had only the basics to eat, for they
could not
afford any more on the salary they were getting from the owner of the
land.
But Nathan and his wife were very content. Rukmani describes the system
of
land ownership as this: "In all the years of our tenancy we never saw
the
Zemindar who owned our land. Sivaji acted for him, and being a
kindly, humane
man we counted ourselves lucky. Unlike some, he did not
extract payment in kind
to the last grain; he allowed us to keep the
gleanings; he did not demand from
us bribes of food or money; nor did he
claim for himself the dung from the
fields, which he might easily have done."
(35) Sivaji was the overseer of
Rukmani’s district. As stated, there were
many overseers who did not care
about the condition of the tenants. They
would take every last penny even if it
meant starvation for the tenant’s
family. Fortunately, Sivaji was different.
He too had a family, and cared
about the well-being of the other families in his
district. One year,
however, the harvest had not been as good as expected. There
had not been
enough crops to sell in order to pay the rent, and Nathan and his
family were
barely surviving. Sivaji came to collect the rent money. "There
is nothing
this year," Nathan said to him. "Not even gleanings, for
the grain was but
little advanced." "You have had the land,"
Sivaji said, "for which you
have contracted to pay: so much money, so much
rice. These are just dues, I
must have them. Would you have me return
empty-handed?" "What would you have
me do? The last harvest was
meager; we have nothing saved." Sivaji looked
away, "I do not know. It
is your concern. I must do as I am bid." (77) The
family obviously did not
have enough money, so Nathan and Rukmani gathered up
whatever valuable
possessions they could find and sold them to the highest
bidder. They sold pots,
a trunk, shirts that belonged to their sons, food,
and the saris Rukmani had
worn to her and her daughter’s weddings. Nathan
even had to sell the seed for
the next year’s crop in hopes that they would
eventually be able to buy more.
"Rather these should go," said Nathan, "than
that the land should
be taken from us. We can do without these, but if the
land is gone, our
livelihood is gone." (78) Because Sivaji answered to a
higher authority --
the wealthy land owner -- he collected all of the
family’s money, plus their
earnings from the items that had been sold. The
family was left with nothing.
Yet, they understood that Sivaji had a
family of his own, and that he was only
doing his job, so they did not hold a
grudge. But times were still hard and they
still had no food. Later on in the
novel, Sivaji came to Nathan and Rukmani and
announced that they were going
to have to move. The owner was selling the land
to the village tannery, and
could no longer employ the tenants. The deal was
done, the papers were
signed, and Nathan and Rukmani had two weeks to leave.
This was the
"government" structure of the village. The rich owned the
land and prospered
from it, while the poor simply struggled to survive. The
tannery was another
part of the governmental system in the village. It also
represented power,
except this time, the power originated from outside the
village. The tannery
was new to the village and it naturally received much
interest from the
people living there. It was run by the white men, who were
also newcomers,
but who seemed to control the village based on the fact that
they were
wealthier than the commoners. Rukmani states: "Somehow I had
always felt that
the tannery would eventually be our undoing. It had changed the
face of our
village beyond recognition and altered the lives of its inhabitants
in a
myriad of ways. And because it grew and flourished it got the power
that
money brings, so that attempt to withstand it was like trying to stop
the onward
rush of the great juggernaut." (136) But the tannery provided work
for the
men of the village. It put clothes on their backs and food on the
table. On the
other hand, it created tension. The village was traditionally a
farming
community, and the tannery provided another option as far as the type
of work
the men in the village did. Now, sons did not necessarily have to
farm the land
as their fathers did. They could work at the tannery for better
wages and more
attractive conditions. And Nathan and Rukmani’s two eldest
sons, Arjun and
Thambi, did just this. The tannery provided good work.
But soon, the men working
there -- including Arjun and Thambi -- decided they
wanted to be paid more. When
the tannery officials heard that the workers
were demanding higher wages, they
failed to meet their requests. In fact, the
men were punished by not being
allowed time to eat. And later, when the men
went on strike, they were quickly
replaced by others who were willing to work
for the lower wage. The officials at
the tannery did not care about the
welfare of its workers, just that the work
was getting done. It didn’t matter
who was doing it. Rukmani seemed to
understand this better than her sons did.
She knew that the tannery officials
were the authority in this case, and even
questioned Arjun and Thambi: "How
can you force them [to pay you higher
wages]... Are they not the masters? For
every one of you who is out, there
are three waiting to step in your
place." (69) She knew her sons did not
stand a chance against the power of
the tannery officials. Yet, she could not
make them understand. One morning,
Raja -- Rukmani’s son, who also worked
at the tannery -- left for work, but he
did not return as usual. "At dusk
they [the tannery officials] brought his
body home slung between two men, one
at the head and one at the feet... They
laid him on the ground. They bowed
their heads and shuffled their feet and spoke
in low voices and then they
went away." (93) They said Raja had been caught
stealing from the tannery,
and when the watchmen tried to stop him -- using some
physical force -- he
fell immediately to the ground, dead. They said he was
weak, probably from
lack of proper nutrition. "They merely tapped him with
a lathi, as he was
trying to escape, and he fell. He must have been weak or
something." (95)
Three days after Raja’s death, two officials came to
Rukmani’s home. They
made it clear that the watchmen were not to be held
responsible for Raja’s
death; that they were only doing their job. Rukmani
understood this. The
officials had come to make sure that Rukmani and her
husband did not cause
trouble for the tannery. They didn’t want her to
interfere in any way with
the power of the tannery or its officials as a result
of her son’s death.
"Now we do not any trouble from you, you understand.
The lad was caught
stealing -- maybe as you say, for the first time and in a
moment of weakness
-- still, he was caught, and for the consequences that
followed, no one was
to blame except for himself. He should not have struggled.
In these
circumstances you naturally have no claim on us." (95) But Rukmani
did not
know why they would have thought she had a claim on them in the first
place.
She did not want compensation. Nothing could compensate for the life of
her
son. Nevertheless, the official went on: "The point is, that no
fault
attaches to us. Absolutely none. Of course... it is your loss. But
not,
remember, our responsibility. Perhaps... you may be the better off...
You have
many mouths to feed..." (96) The officials obviously did not care
about
Rukmani, her family, Raja, or anyone else who worked at the
tannery. The only
thing that concerned them is that they would not be held
responsible for this
death. They wanted to stay in business for as long as
possible. And why not?
They made a good living. The poor village men
worked for next to nothing, while
the officials lived a life of luxury and
watched their profits increase. The
rich ruled the poor. That is evident
here. "Gopalpur: A South Indian
Village", an ethnography by Alan R.
Beals, actually describes life in a
village such as the one mentioned in the
novel by Markandaya. The ethnography
does not go into much detail about the
governmental structure of the village,
but it does provide some information
on how the land ownership is divided. It
states that "landlords are the
educated men of their villages, the
innovators who introduce new agricultural
techniques, the protectors who alone
are capable of dealing with police
officials and settling conflicts." (82)
It also goes on to say that not
all landlords follow this traditional structure
of society. For example, they
might be dishonest or they may not be adequately
educated, but even when
these roles are not sufficiently met, the land owners
still receive the usual
attention and the respect from the villagers. They have
the money, which
gives them the power, which commands the respect. It is
interesting that
there is no police system mentioned in the novel. However, the
characters
usually handled disputes among themselves. And, like in the case
of
Raja’s death, disputes were settled by the white men, officials, or
rich land
owners -- the more powerful disputee -- often in their own favor.
This also
coincides with the ideas in the ethnography. The ethnography
describes how
government officials are now thinking about restructuring the
social system of
Gopalpur: "The position of the Gaudas [prosperous land
owners] has been
attacked by developing new sources of credit to give
financial assistance to
farmers and laborers. The democratic election of
village officials, and the
division of large land holdings, long threats, are
soon to become law. These
measures, which are designed in the long run to
eliminate the class of
landlords, fall short of replacing them." (82) The
novel does not mention
anything about government officials or the making of
laws, or even laws
themselves, for that matter. The only officials it
recognizes are those of the
tannery, which could be viewed, in a sense, as
government officials. In
addition, "although the people in Gopalpur would be
delighted at an
opportunity to divide their Gauda’s property among
themselves, the prospect of
there being no Gauda whatsoever fills the people
with dismay." (82) Change
is not easy for anyone. And even though the
destruction of the landowner system
would be beneficial to society, people
would not know what to do afterwards. The
village people in Gopalpur have
been farming this way all their life, and such a
drastic change would affect
them greatly. This can perhaps be understood by
looking back at Markandaya’s
novel. When Nathan and Rukmani’s land was sold
to the tannery, they had
nowhere to turn. They had been farming all their lives,
and now that the land
was no longer theirs, they had to find some other way to
survive. And that
would certainly not be easy. Rukmani said: "Where there
was land, there was
hope. Nothing now, nothing whatever. My being was full of
the husks of
despair, dry, lifeless. I went into the hut and looked around me...
This
hut with all its memories was to be taken from us, for it stood on a
land
that belonged to another. And the land itself by which we lived. It is a
cruel
thing, I thought. They do not know what they do to us." (137)
The
ethnography proposes that the land be taken away from the rich Gaudas in
order
to better distribute the wealth. But without the land, the villagers
would not
know how to survive. This is clearly illustrated in Markandaya’s
novel.
Perhaps history can learn a lesson from fiction in this case. The
governmental
structure in Gopalpur is this: The rich landowners and white men
have the power
and the money to govern the village, while the poor commoners
-- such as
Rukmani’s family -- must suffer the hardships of life, and
oppression from the
landowners. This is evident in Kamala Markandaya’s novel,
Nectar in a Sieve,
and the ethnography by Alan R. Beals, Gopalpur: A South
Indian Village. The rich
do not care about the well-being of their poorer
tenants or workers. They are
concerned only with how much work the villagers
are able to do; and how much
they are going to profit from their labors. The
picture is not a pretty one, yet
without this structure, the villagers would
not know what to do with themselves.
They have lived this way all their
lives, and change is a hard thing. The
governmental structure they have now
is familiar to them; traditional. Anything
else would cause trouble.