Indian District Database

Cultivators

A person was considered as cultivator if he or she was engaged either as employer, single worker or family worker in cultivation of land owned or held from government of held from private persons or institutions for payment in money, kind or share of crop. Cultivation included supervision or direction of cultivation.

A person who had given out his/her land to another person or persons for cultivation or money, kind or share of crop and who did not even supervise or direct cultivation of land was not treated as cultivator. Similarly, a person working in another person's land for wages in cash or kind or a combination of both was not treated as cultivator.

Cultivation involved ploughing, sowing and harvesting and production of cereals and millet crops such as wheat, paddy, jowar, bajra, ragi, etc., and pulses, raw jute and kindred fibre crop, cotton, etc., but did not include fruit growing, vegetable growing or keeping orchards or groves or working on plantations like tea, coffee, rubber, cinchona and other medicinal plantations.

Agricultural Labourers

A person who worked in another person's land for wages in cash, kind or share was regarded as an agricultural labourer. Such a person had no risk in cultivation but merely worked in another person's land for wages. An agricultural labourer had no right of lease or contract on land on which he worked.
Return to:  labor force codebook
Indian District Database
Last updated October 1, 2000
comments to: Reeve Vanneman. reeve@umd.edu