So far the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its implementation, however tardy, in the Indian rural setting has been discussed in terms of wage and work availability.

Various agencies have doled out statistics of the number of people who have benefited and the amount of money flowing into the hands of the rural poor. Even the team that put this act in place may not have fully realised its effect on India’s rural poor, and its social, cultural and political impact.
For example, the latest National Sample Survey Organisation data has shown a drastic reduction in poverty levels of many states and that must be seen in the backdrop of implementation of this programme. The reduction in the number of poor people in Andhra Pradesh within just two years was drastic — from 176 lakh to 80 lakh. The impact of this programme on health and empowerment is very much visible across the rural landscape of Andhra Pradesh. The socio-cultural impact of the programme is more significant than the physical impact, and it cannot be measured in numbers. It has to be seen and sensed.
The Indian caste system and hierarchical relations, underpinned by the practice of untouchability, have historically endorsed barbaric human relationships in our villages. Feudal casteism coupled with superstitions have been used for centuries to control the labour, i.e. the poor.
The poor — men, women and children — were treated as virtual slaves of the landlords. Doing whatever work was assigned, taking whatever wage — both in kind and coin — given by the landlord was the only option. The dalit population in particular was vulnerable to exploitation, and their women were under the grip of landlords.
This system did not even give the option of school to children belonging to the SC, ST and OBC castes, leave alone thinking of compulsory education. Even after we abolished child labour, insufficient work days in the fields and a “feudal wage system” continued in our villages. This forced poor families to pull their children out of school and make them work as labourers, often at the command of the landlords during peak work season, and sometimes out of their own necessity. The so-called Land Reforms Act hardly changed this relationship.
But the MGNREGA has changed the situation considerably. For the first time in history the state has asked rural people to take up agrarian developmental work — digging or repairing tanks, canals, laying roads or soil bunds on their own agricultural lands — and it pays wage through a bank. This dignified assured income, at least for 100 days per annum, undercutting all feudal-caste cultural relations, has encouraged parents in villages to send their children to school, resulting in considerable reduction of school dropout rates in rural areas.
There is a qualitative difference between earning wage and earning dignified, unconditional wage. Dignified wage for work, hitherto unknown in Indian villages, has, thus, energised the spirit of the rural poor. Though it requires them to learn the nitty-gritty of the banking system, the very act of interacting with a bank has changed their lives. This mode of earning wage abolishes feudal indignities that were, till now, interwoven with rural poverty. The Indian state did not know how to work for abolition of these indignities. The MGNREGA has initiated this process.
The labouring lower castes, by acquiring relative economic autonomy, are slowly becoming free voters. When they were dependent on the landlord wage system alone, they could not even exercise their right to vote.
Though the pro-landlord economists call the Indian landlords “farmers”, the Indian landed gentry has not yet become capitalist cultivators or farmers leaving their caste-feudal cultural heritage behind. In fact, the landlord class, which was earlier living as a “drink and enjoy” class, has been forced to soil their hands as the former bonded labour is now employed elsewhere. Slowly but surely, MGNREGA is injecting some amount of dignity of labour among the lazy, upper-caste landed gentry. No wonder, the landlord lobby is very unhappy with MGNREGA. They are not used to labour not being available at their beck and call. They, therefore, talk of the labour class becoming lazy and greedy because of this programme. This is absurd.
Fact is that MGNREGA has empowered the rural poor. It has, for example, changed the condition of women. For centuries, a poor woman’s sexuality was under the control of the landlord because of lack of employment opportunities. They had no choice but to work in the fields of the landlords.
Untouchability, of course, did not extend to dalit women, who have always been vulnerable to sexual exploitation by the landlords. Dalit and other lower-caste women would silently surrender to their landlords’ whims and fancies.
Culturally, poor rural women hate the landlords. But because they need to feed their children they silently suffer sexual abuse. Once the state steps in with an alternative dignified wage-earning mechanism like MGNREGA, the dalit/tribal/OBC women are bound to challenge the landlords more and more. The alternative wage under MGNREGA has emboldened the women. Now the poorest of poor woman is not surrendering. They are resisting and in case of rape they are reporting.
Finally, it is important to understand the role an assured, dignified wage plays in a family. MGNREGA has brought a sense of happiness into the lives of the rural poor and herein lies the essence of change in India. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader Narendra Modi have been attacking this programme as uneconomical. Though Mr Modi is being supported by a large section of monopoly capitalists, large number of landlords are also with that party. They are opposing this programme in various ways. But no one is suggesting an alternative to this programme. They probably don’t want one.

The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad