The Development of Capitalist Agriculture in Pakistan

Table of Contents

Introduction

A note on statistics

Agriculture during the Pre-Colonial Era

Agriculture during the Colonial Era

From Independence to Green Revolution

Green Revolution

Results of the Green Revolution

The Popular Land Reform of 1972

Land Reform of 1977

The Growth of Capitalism in Agriculture

The Differentiation of the Peasantry

Conclusion

 

Introduction

Marx demonstrated how the process of development of capitalism in agriculture results in a ‘structural transformation’ such that, on the one hand, the peasantry is dissolved into an urban based economy, and on the other, a rural based capitalist agriculture replaces peasant production.  In his famous book The Development of Capitalism in Russia, V.I. Lenin developed these ideas in the concrete conditions of Russia and demonstrated in detail the process whereby increasing commercialisation of agriculture led to the differentiation of the peasantry.  

On the other hand, thinkers such as Chayanov challenge this Marxian proposition and argue that an independent peasant economy would/should continue to hold out against the development of capitalism in agriculture.  Since then, an entire field of inquiry by the name of Peasant Studies or Peasantology has sprung up around this central point of contention.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse certain aspects of the structure, form, and development of capitalist agriculture in relation to state policy in Pakistan in order to test Marx and Lenin’s view regarding the differentiation of the peasantry owing to capitalist relations in agriculture.  The paper will not attempt to study all aspects of the birth of capitalist relations in agriculture for such a work would require extensive research. For example, this paper will not be looking at important issues such as pricing policy, taxation of agriculture, the impact of the structural adjustment program and so on.  The limited goals of this paper are to first, analyse the birth of capitalism in agriculture during the colonial era, and second, study its further development as a result of the green revolution.  In doing so, this paper will try and prove that the spread of capitalist agriculture has resulted in the destruction of the middle-peasant on the one hand, and tenant based farming on the other.  These two factors underscore the growing differentiation of the peasantry and the transformation of relations of production in agriculture.  In conclusion, the paper will prove how Marx and Lenin’s view regarding the differentiation of the peasantry continues to be correct in the case of Pakistan.

A note on the use of statistics

The first and immediate problem that confronts all analysts with respect to a study of Pakistan is the simple fact that “Pakistan” has been physically redefined several times this century.  The provinces of Punjab and Sindh were divided into Pakistan and India in 1947.  Twenty five years later fifty five percent of Pakistan succeeded from the minority and created Bangladesh in 1971.  The upheaval caused by changing geographic boundaries and population movements renders simple statistical trajectories problematic.  This paper tries to get around this inherent problem by limiting the scope of my study to Pakistan (West Pakistan) as it has come to be defined today.  Where possible and not overly burdensome, I have included regional statistics about Punjab and Sindh which constitute the main agricultural provinces of Pakistan.

Second, the quality and reliability of statistics leaves much to be desired.  For example, the 1960 agricultural census indicates a sudden and very large drop in land concentration.  This large drop is unaccounted for by the land reform of 1959 according to the figures supplied by the government.  Mahmood Hasan Khan argued that many large landlords utilised loopholes in the law such as transferring property to dependants on paper to evade land reform.  Furthermore, there is a lack of continuity in statistical techniques.  For example, the agricultural censuses before independence do not follow the same divisions of land-size as the agricultural censuses after independence. 

Third, the statistical information provided does not conform strictly to the tasks of our analysis.  Ideally speaking, one would like more information not only about land holding size but also about the relations of production and exchange.  Therefore, the strictly Marxian concept of class, that is, a group with a historically specific relation to the means of production, cannot be applied. 

Despite these significant drawbacks, there is a case to be made for working with these statistics.  First, there are simply no alternative sources to the government agricultural censuses. Second, certain simple approximating techniques can help us get around difficulties created by changes in divisions of land-size.  Third, since the purpose of this paper is not to ascertain exact magnitudes but outline general tendencies these government censuses are more than adequate.

Agriculture during the Pre-Colonial Era

The agrarian economy of pre-colonial India was feudal and linked to the Mughal dynasty.  The feudal ruling class comprised about 8,000 Mansabdars (nobles) who were responsible for tax collection and the upkeep of the peasant army of the Mughal empire.  The area of influence of each Mansabdar was called a Jagir, and in that area of influence he was known as a Jagirdar.  The land, however, belonged to the Badshah (emperor) and Jagirdars could be moved from one part of India to another. Below the Mansabdars, the Zamindars (landlord) were responsible for tax collection and most agricultural matters.  They were also at the centre of religious ceremonies such as marriages, births, deaths and formed the cultural economic and political nexus of power in the village.  According to Hamza Alavi, the economic structure of this form of feudalism was composed of five main features (Alavi, 29). 

1.     Unfree labour – Peasants were tied to the land.

2.     Extra-economic coercion – Unlike capitalism, extra-economic coercion was used to extract surplus

3.     Fusion of economic and political power at the point of production and localised structure of power

4.     Self-sufficient economy of the village – there was little commodity production for the purpose of exchange

5.     Simple reproduction – surplus was not accumulated in order to increase production

Agriculture during the Colonial Era

By the turn of the 18^th century, according to Barrington Moore, these social relations resulted in stagnation of social development and consequently the Mughal empire began to disintegrate (Moore, 1966).  After a famous battle at Pallasey in 1757, the British emerged as the strongest force in India and gradually colonised the whole of the sub-continent.  British colonialism introduced three fundamental changes in the social relations of production that propelled India towards the road of capitalist agriculture.

1)    Money-Taxes – The British replaced taxes in kind with money taxes and created a colonial bureaucracy for tax collection.

2)    Cash-Cropping – The pressure to pay money-taxes redirected agricultural production towards cash-crops.  Commodity production emerged in agriculture.

3)    Land became Private-Property – In 1793 the British instituted the Permanent Settlement Act in Bengal and gave land-titles to pro-British jagirdars and zamindars.  This act initiated the conversion of land to private property.

The British reached what is today Pakistan a century after the colonisation of Bengal and in 1843 and 1858 Sindh and Punjab were respectively colonised.  At this period, Britain was entering the age of steel-hull shipping and international trade was rapidly advancing throughout the world.  In accordance with the needs of the British economy, agriculture in Sindh and Punjab was redirected towards cash-cropping and export.

According to Vyacheslav Belokrenitsky the British introduced money taxes, cash-crops, and private-property in the early 1860s in Punjab and Sindh.  Within a few years courts of Civil-Justice were introduced to ensure alienation of land in case of non-payment of debts or taxes.  In the decade from 1860-70 a land market began to emerge.  By 1880s the region fully specialised in the export of wheat and cotton (Belokrenitsky, 1991).  For example, the export of cotton from Sindh went from nothing to over 4,000 tons by 1873.  In Punjab cotton production increased seven folds in a single decade and thirty times more wheat was exported by the 1880s in comparison to the 1860s (ibid, p.37).

However, this increase in the export of cash-crops was not accompanied by a similar increase in the productivity of labour.  On the contrary, landlords & peasants were compelled to adopt cash-crops in order to pay money-taxes.  Failure to pay taxes or debts resulted in alienation from the land via the Courts of Civil Justice.  In other words, the new social relations compelled landlords and peasants to export a larger proportion of surplus.  As a result, landlords & peasants sought relief through the sale or mortgaging of land to escape the cycle of taxes and debt.  Land was bought up or mortgaged to usurers, tradesmen, and merchants who belonged mostly to urban and non-agrarian Hindu castes.  By 1890 approximately 42 percent land in Sindh was in the possession of usurers and by 1900 a landless agricultural proletariat emerged in what is today Pakistan (ibid, p. 42).

The increasing bankruptcy of agrarian castes undermined the social base of support of British colonialism.  In order to protect the agrarian castes they instituted a series of reforms in the 1870s to ease the burden on the peasantry.  For example, according to a revised land-taxation code introduced in 1870 only cultivated areas (and not fallow land) were subject to tax in Sindh.  In Punjab the British went a step further and introduced the Land Alienation Act of 1900-01.  This Act prohibited the sale of land to non-agrarian castes and only permitted land transfers within the related agricultural caste group in each district.  Similarly, in 1912 the British gave full proprietary rights in Punjab.

At the same time the British took steps to increase agricultural productivity.  From 1885 canal irrigation, especially in Punjab, was improved.  By 1900 approximately more than half the irrigated area was irrigated by canals and by 1920 nearly 80 percent of the irrigated area was irrigated by canals (ibid, p. 134).  This represented a seven fold increase in the area irrigated by canals.

These measures helped to consolidate British colonialism and also increased agricultural productivity and output.  However, the pauperisation of the peasantry, which was a result of the growing capitalist relations in agriculture, could not be rolled back.  In 1924 and 1939 the British administration conducted an agricultural census in Punjab and Sindh.  Table 1 below shows the increasing concentration of land.

Table 1: Structure of Land Ownership in Punjab 1924 - 1939 (%)

Source: Belokrenitsky, Vyacheslav, Capitalism in Pakistan: A History of Socioeconomic Development, Patriot Publishers, New Delhi, 1991, p. 99.

According to Mao Tse-Tung’s Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, the relationship of a social group to the means of production and to other social groups determines class—poor, middle, rich peasant, and large landlord) (Mao Tse-Tung, 1999).  However, let us assume that these categories can be approximated to land size.  This simplifying assumption obscures the relations between individuals in the process of production.  For example, a land-owner of 15 acres may be engaged in commercial farming or in family farming.  Nonetheless, this assumption helps to simplify the information in order to demonstrate the general trends in land-ownership.  Therefore, let us assume that those 10 acres of land are poor peasants, those between 10 and 50 acres of land are middle peasants, and those above 50 acres of land are rich peasants and large landlords.

Table 1 demonstrates that between 1924 and 1939 fewer and fewer rich peasants and large landlords controlled more and more area.  During the same period both the area and the number of middle peasants (10 to 50 acres) decreased.  It is probable that these middle peasants were pushed into the category of small peasants.  This is circumstantially confirmed by the marked increase of  very small peasants (below 5 acres).

Figure 1 below, constructed from the information in Table 1, helps to visualise this process.  It can be seen that the percentage of land under the influence of large landlords and rich peasants is growing and the percentage of land under the influence of middle peasants is decreasing.  The percentage of land under the influence of small peasants is stable.  It is reasonable to conclude that the capitalist relations of production in agriculture set in motion by British colonialism resulted in class polarisation and the growing differentiation of the peasantry during the colonial era.

Figure 1: Land Distribution 1924 to 1939 (%)

Hamza Alavi concludes from the impact of colonialism that, 

…what we have in colonised India, therefore, is a capitalist mode of production, but a capitalist mode of production that has a specifically colonial structure.  One thing is clear.  The feudal mode of production was dissolved and there is no basis on which we can justify designation of relations of production in agriculture that resulted from the colonial transformation, any more as feudal.[1]

Even if one were to disagree with Alavi on the characterisation of the relations of production in colonial India as capitalism with a colonial structure, it is generally accepted that British colonialism catalysed the development of capitalist relations of production in agriculture and that these new relations increased class polarisation.

In fact, Aisha Jalal argues that it was precisely the growing polarisation that fuelled Hindu Muslim tensions in Punjab in the 1940s.  On the one hand, the predominantly Muslim landowners feared the power of traders, merchants and moneylenders who were largely Hindus.  On the other hand, they feared a land reform after independence by the Congress Party.  Therefore, in Punjab and Sindh landlords joined the Muslim League in order to safeguard their class interests (Jalal, 1985) .  By 1942 very large landlords comprised 163 of the 503 Muslim League parliamentary members and by 1947 fifty percent of the Central Council of the Muslim League comprised of very large landowners from Punjab and 60 percent from Sindh (Khan, p. 147).  The demand for Pakistan, in part, was their demand to safeguard their class interests.

From Independence to Green Revolution

In the decade following the creation of Pakistan, the political power of the very large landlords increased.  For example, very large landlords won 80 percent of the seats in the 1951 provincial election in Punjab and 90 percent of the seats in the 1953 provincial election in Sindh.

At the same time, the economic power of large landlords also increased substantially.  Table 3 shows that in 1950 approximately 6,000 owners (who constituted a tiny 0.1 percent) owned 15 percent of all land in Pakistan.  At the same time, the poorest 64.4 percent of the population owned another 15 percent approximately of all land in Pakistan.  In other words, the richest 0.1 percent landlords had as much economic power than the poorest 64.4 percent.  The richest 1 percent owned nearly a third of the land in Pakistan.  In Punjab fewer than 2,000 owners owned approximately 10 percent of the land and in Sindh a mere 3,000 people owned nearly 30 percent of the land.  The richest 8 percent owned 54 percent of all land in Sindh.

Table 2: Distribution of Land Ownership 1950-55 (%)

Source: Khan, Mahmood Hasan, Underdevelopment and Agrarian Structure in Pakistan, Westview Press, Boulder, 1981, p.68

Figure 2 shows that Sindh, especially, was dominated by very large landlords.  In relation, Punjab experienced more equitable land holding patterns.

Figure 2: Land distribution by percentage area in the 1950s

However, despite the dominance of large landowners in the economy and in politics, during the first decade of Pakistan’s economic development an integrated policy framework for agriculture was not set in motion.  A strong urban-bias prevailed in policy makers and government policy heavily favoured the urban industrial sector.  Consequently, agriculture was left to develop spontaneously and grew at a slow annual rate of 1.43 percent between 1949 and 1958.  During the same period, population grew at approximately twice the rate (3 percent).  In other words, per capita food production fell.  By the end of the decade a food deficit and lack of raw materials for industrial production convinced the government to reassess agricultural policy and launch land reform. 

Land Reform of 1959

Economists argued that high concentration of land dampened market incentives for agricultural growth. In 1959 the government declared a ceiling of 500 acres for irrigated land and 1,000 acres for non-irrigated land and land was compensated with interest bearing government bonds.   Table 3 shows the progress of the 1959 land reform.

Table 3: Progress of 1959 Land Reforms up to 30 June 1980 Under MLR 64

Source: Ahmed, Viqar; Amjad, Rashid (1984) The Management of Pakistan’s Economy 1947-1982 Oxford University Press. 

Mahmood Hasan Khan analysis the official statistics and shows that out of 5,064 declarants, only 763 (15 percent) were affected by the ceiling.  Furthermore, from the land of those affected by the ceiling, only 35 percent was resumed.  Most, landlords were able to side-step the land reforms and retain their holdings through numerous provisions and loops holes in the law.  For example, many landlords simply transferred land to dependants on paper.  Furthermore, the landlords handed over the worst quality land at their disposal. For example, approximately 57 percent of the land handed over was uncultivated land and the price was set so high that resumed land was later auctioned back to military officials and rich farmers.  The result was that even after a decade of the reform only about 20 percent of the resumed land was sold to landless workers.  Therefore, the 1959 land reform did not undermine but underscored the power of the large landlords in Pakistan (Khan 1981).

Green Revolution

A deeper change in relations of production of agriculture began with the process known as the green revolution.  In Pakistan the green revolution was executed in much the same way as in other third world countries.  The component parts of the green revolution consisted of increasing the use of tubewells, tractors, high yield variety seeds, pesticides & fertiliser.  The introduction of this new technology into Pakistan produced a qualitative leap in the relations of production in agriculture.  The effects of these economic changes also reverberated in the sphere of politics.  Therefore, it is worth our while to briefly study the technological package of the green revolution.

Tubewells: Before the green revolution the canal system laid by the British was the principle means of irrigation.  Table 4 and Figure 3 below show that in 1950 canals provided 81 percent of all irrigation.  At the time tubewells were insignificant.  The green revolution introduced tubewells on a mass level into the landscape of the countryside.  By 1992-93 one quarter of all irrigated land was irrigated with tubewells.  The number of tubewells simply mushroomed from a few hundred in 1960, to 76,000 in 1968, and 156,00 in 1975. 

Table 4: Irrigated Area by Sources

Source: Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Economic Survey, 1994-95, 1995, p. 58.

Figure 3: Irrigated Area by Source

Tractors: Tractors were introduced simultaneously with tubewells.  In 1960 there were 1,665 tractors, by 1968 there were 18,909 tractors, and by 1984 there were 187,255 tractors.  Akbar Zaidi estimates that in the last 18 years the number of tractors has at least doubled (Zaidi, 25) .  In accordance with the recommendations of the World Bank, most of these tractors were very large tractors.  For example, 84 percent of tractors were above 35 horse power (Gotsh, 1982).

High Yield Variety (HYV): The yield per hectare increased rapidly in Pakistan owing to the introduction of new High Yield Variety seeds for wheat and rice.  Wheat yield increased from 776 kg/hectare in 1950 to 1,950 by 1990.  Rice yield increased from 878 kg/hectare in 1950 to 1,622 by 1990 (Cownie et.al., 1982).  The increased yields had a significant impact on agricultural growth.

Pesticides, & Fertiliser: HYV seeds respond rapidly to water and fertiliser.  Therefore, chemical fertilisers and pesticides were increasingly introduced in agriculture during the green revolution.  Multi-national pesticide and fertiliser companies were set up during this period to feed the growing market. 

Results of the Green Revolution

First, the green revolution produced unprecedented growth in agriculture in Pakistan.  The rapid advance in agricultural supplied the industrial sector with cheaper raw materials and labour-power.  Figure 4 illustrates the growth rates from 1959 to 1995.  The figure shows a steady increase in agricultural output that peak in 1985.  The marginal benefits of the technology package introduced during the green revolution were used up by the mid 1980s.  Nonetheless, this technology package was responsible for 25 years of impressive output growth.

Figure 4: Growth Rates in Agriculture

Second, the green revolution also brought about a revolution in the relations of production in agriculture.  Mechanisation of agriculture, tubewells, tractors, thresher machines, diesel motors, a network of roads and railway lines, transport created new fields of occupation in the village and transformed traditional agriculture.  The introduction of machinery accelerated the decline of traditional feudal and peasant farming. 

Third, the green revolution created increasing regional disparity.  For example, most tubewells were set up mainly in Punjab.  It was argued that ground water in Sindh was saline and the ground was too hard and stony in Baluchistan and NWFP.  Therefore, approximately 91 percent of all 76,000 tubewells in 1968 were set up in the Punjab (Khan, 1981).  Even within the Punjab only a few districts received the bulk of investment. Faislabad, Sahiwal, and Multan grew at the astounding rate of 8.9 percent from 1959 to 1964 owing to the far greater capital flowing into these areas (Gotsch 1981).  Most tractors also went to a handful of districts in the Punjab.  For example, Carl Gotsch’s study reported that 58 percent of all tractors in the country in 1970 were in the three districts of Lahore, Multan, and Bahawalpur (Gotsch, p. 65).  This pattern of regional disparity and imbalance created the basis for increasing national and regional conflict. 

Fourth, the growth of capitalist agriculture resulted in the increasing differentiation of the peasantry.  For example, tubewells were not economical in an area less than 25 acres.  In other words, tubewells were not ‘scale neutral’.  Approximately 75 percent of tubewells were put up by farmers owning over 25 acres of land and only 4 percent tubewells were put up by farmers owning fewer than 13 acres of land (Sanderatne, p. 307).  Carl Gotsch’s study also indicates that 75 percent of all tractors were in the hands of those who also owned tubewells (Gotsch, p.65).  Further, Moazam Mahmood shows that rich peasants and landlords had the cultural and financial collateral to negotiate for credit and take advantage of this new technology package (Mahmood, p. 191).  In other words, rich peasants and large landlords were the overwhelming beneficiaries of the green revolution.

Owing to the growing regional and class disparity resulting from the green revolution, regional nationalism and class conflict became the central focus of politics in Pakistan in the 1970s. A spontaneous popular upsurge led to the first democratic election in the country in 1970.  However, the new democratic framework was unable to resolve the pressing demands of the Bengali nationalist movement.  In 1971 Bangladesh was created and the social-democratic Pakistan Peoples Party came to power in West Pakistan.

The Popular Land Reform of 1972

In 1972 the Pakistan People Party declared a ceiling of 150 acres irrigated and 300 acres unirrigated land.  Two features distinguished this land reform from the previous land reform.  First, compensation was not given to the affected landlords.  Second, this land was distributed free to landless peasants.  These reforms were undertaken amidst popular rhetoric; however, a closer examination reveals that these reforms were smaller in size than the land reform of 1959.  Table 1 shows the progress of land reforms according to government sources.  The estimated number of people who benefited from this land reform is 75,213.  Only 308,390 acres were redistributed from 1972-78.  In other words, only 1 percent of the landless tenants and small owners benefited from the land reform.

Table 5: Progress of 1972 Land Reforms up to 30 June 1980 Under MLR 115

Source: Ahmed, Viqar; Amjad, Rashid (1984) The Management of Pakistan’s Economy 1947-1982 Oxford University Press. 

Land Reform of 1977

In 1977 the Pakistan Peoples Party instituted a second and more radical land reform program.  The land holding ceiling was reduced to 100 acres for irrigated land and 200 acres for unirrigated land.  However, in July 1977 the government was overthrown in a military coup and the decision to undertake this land reform was permanently shelved by Zia ul Haq.

These political events did not alter the basic pattern of the development of capitalist agriculture.  Despite vastly different overall political agendas, the military governments and the democratic governments remained committed to the basic strategy of the green revolution—that is, the introduction of tractors, tubewells, HYV, fertilisers, and pesticides. 

The Growth of Capitalism in Agriculture

The overall impact of the green revolution and the development of capitalist agriculture can be traced through the four agricultural censuses taken in 1960, 1972, 1980, 1990.  These censuses show two developing tendencies: On the one hand, the decline of the middle peasant, on the other, the growth of owner farming at the expense of tenant farming.

The government agricultural censuses divide land holdings into three categories: owner farms, owner-cum tenant farms, and tenant farms.  Mahmood Hasan Khan argues that owner farms are the closest approximation to capitalist agriculture, and tenant farming is the closest approximation to feudal agriculture.  This categorisation is an approximation; however, it helps to highlight certain overacrhing tendencies.  Table 7 was compiled from the information of the four agricultural censuses (see appendix 1).  Table 7 shows the growth of owner farms and their predominance today both in terms of acreage and in terms of numbers.  Figure 5 captures this transformation in visual terms and shows the growth of farm area cultivated as owner farms.

Table 6: Tenure Classification of Farms

Source: compiled from the agricultural censuses of 1960, 1972, 1980, 1990 (see appendix 1)

Figure 5: Tenure Classification of Farms

Mahmood Hasan Khan shows by meticulously breaking down this data into regions the growth of the capitalist agriculture at the expense of tenant farming (Khan, p. 105).  Similarly, Akbar Zaidi concludes from the above information that,

The increase in owners and the decline in tenancy suggests that more and more landowners are acquiring land from tenants and are going in for self-cultivation, probably hiring in agricultural wage-labour.  It is unlikely that many of the tenants are in a position to become owners, so most of them will probably have been changed into agricultural or rural wage labourers or have migrated to urban areas and towns as they have been displaced by owner-cultivators. (Zaidi, p. 44)

The Differentiation of the Peasantry

The agricultural censuses also reveal the growing differentiation of the peasantry.  The census categorises land in accordance with size.  Let us assume as before that rich peasants and large landlords are those who own more than 50 acres, middle peasants are those who own between 12.5 and 50 acres, and poor peasants are those who own less than 12.5 acres.  Given this categorisation for the sake of simplicity, Table 8 compiled from the agricultural censuses (see appendix 1) shows that while the percentage cultivated area by rich peasants and landlords has not changed substantially, the percentage cultivated area by middle peasants has declined substantially.

Table 7: Percentage area by size of farm

Source: compiled from the agricultural censuses of 1960, 1972, 1980, 1990 (see appendix 1)

Figure 6, compiled from the information in Table 8, shows this process visually.

Figure 6: Percentage area by size of farm

Therefore, the pattern of differentiation that we saw between 1924 and 1939 continued with the green revolution.  This decline in middle peasant farming is so large that as middle peasant farmers have become small peasant farmers, the average size of farms all over Pakistan has fallen from 13.04 in 1972 to 9.38 in 1990. 

If we juxtapose pre-partition data with post-partition data, the decline of middle peasant farming becomes even clearer. 

Figure 7: Historic Trend of Middle Peasant Farming

The dotted line represents a break in the data series for two reasons.  First, the dotted line represents a change in the administration caused a change in the divisions used for land-owning size. Second, the dotted line represents evidence suggesting that large landlords deliberately underreported land-holding size in order to escape land reform beyond this date.  Therefore, the sets of data should be seen as a discontinuous series.  Within the parameter of these necessary qualifications, nonetheless, it is clear that the process of class polarisation and differentiation of the peasantry has continued unabated through the 20^th century.

Conclusion

The birth of capitalist agriculture after the conquest of Punjab and Sindh in the mid 19^th century, the infancy of capitalist agriculture through the early 20^th century, and the maturity of capitalist agriculture during the green revolution in the last part of the 20^th century.  In each of these successive periods, the spread of capitalist agriculture has indicated two strong tendencies.  First, the decline of the middle peasant, and second, the decline of tenant based farming. These two factors underscore the growing differentiation of the peasantry and the transformation of relations of production in agriculture.  In conclusion, this brief analysis of agriculture in relation to state policy in Pakistan has confirmed Marx and Lenin’s view regarding the differentiation of the peasantry owing to the spread of capitalist relations in agriculture.  The implications of these facts are that the growing differentiation of the peasantry in the countryside is transforming the poor peasants into an agricultural proletariat that objectively forms an enormous reserve army of the urban proletariat.  In other words, owing to the spread of capitalism in agriculture the objective interests of poor peasants are increasingly becoming aligned with the interests of the urban proletariat, thereby, not only increasing the likelihood but also creating the preconditions for a Peoples Democratic revolution.

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