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The Khwushnishin Population of Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Eric J. Hooglund
Eric J. Hooglund*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

Iranian villages generally contain two distinct social classes: (1) peasants who cultivate land they own and/or rent, and (2) landless non-farmers who engage in various commercial, service, and labor activities appropriate to an agricultural economy. Peasants generally employ one term to designate all landless villagers; the most widely used is “khwushnishin.” Although for peasants this term is useful, it poses some difficulty for the social scientist since khwushnishins do not comprise a homogeneous class, but rather are a collectivity of diverse occupational groups sharing in common only a landless status. Included among the khwushnishins are some of the wealthiest, as well as some of the poorest, of all villagers. In terms of economic and social stratification, one can identify at least three separate groups of khwushnishins. In this paper I propose to describe these three groups and analyze their unique roles in the villages.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1973 , pp. 229 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1973

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented in the SIS Population Panel of the MESA Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in November, 1973. The author wishes to express his appreciation to John Anthony, Ali Banuazizi, Mary Hooglund, Thomas Ricks, and Dennis Williams for reading preliminary drafts of the paper and offering helpful suggestions for its revision.

References

Notes

1. The term khwushnishin, which literally means “he who sits comfortably” is common throughout the Central Plateau. Different terms are used to designate landless villagers in other areas; for example, āftābnishīn in much of Khurasan, karāneshīn in parts of Kurdistan, and gharībah in some Azerbaijan districts. For the sake of consistency khwushnishin has become the generally accepted term in scholarly research and publications.

2. A 1960 government survey of some 1800 villages in all parts of the country found that khwushnishins comprised an average 45 percent of all inhabitants. Since 1960 subsequent government surveys and several University of Tehran sponsored research projects have found similar patterns in a sample of several hundred villages. See Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Census of 1339; Sample Survey of 14 Areas (Tehran, 1340/1961-62); Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Barrisīhā-yi Masā'il-i Nīrū-yi Insānī, Vol. III (Tehran, 1344/196566), pp. 2343-2438; and Plan Organization, Mushkilāt dar Rustāhā-yi Iran (Tehran, 1350/1971-72).

3. This situation should be remedied soon. The Iranian government has become concerned about the condition of landless villagers and in 1973 extended to the University of Tehran's School of Social Sciences a research grant for an intensive study project on the khwushnishin population. This project is being conducted by the Rural Studies Group, a research department whose previous publications have made significant contributions to knowledge about social and economic aspects of Iranian villages.

4. Two excellent monographs which discuss the khwushnishin problem are: Javad Ṣafinezhād, Tālibābād (Tehran, University of Tehran Press, 1345/1966-67); and Ismācil cAjamī and Muhammad Muhājer-Yazdānī, Bihābād (Tehran, University of Tehran Press, 1346/1967-68).

5. See, for example, his article “La stratification social rurale en Iran,” in Etudes rurales, No. 22-23-24 (Juli-dec., 1966), pp. 243-247; and his recent book, Jāmicah-shināsī Rūstā'i Iran (Tehran, University of Tehran Press, 1351/1972-73), pp. 130-136.

6. In Jānicah-shināsi, Khusrovi uses the term “Sudāgarān” (the profit workers) instead of the “rural bourgeoisie” which he has used consistently in his articles in French and Persian scholarly journals.

7. Ṣafīnezhād's classification is implicit in his recent study of the organization of production in village society, Bunih (Tehran, University of Tehran, 1351/1972-73). He outlined his views more fully in several discussions in Tehran during 1972. I am very grateful for a complete exposition of the three khwushnishin groups provided in a personal communication of February 12, 1974.

8. Peasants, of course, consider all khwushnishins as one group separate from themselves. However, whenever I asked peasants how many kinds of khwushnishins there were, the inevitable response would be “two”: the rich ones and the poor ones. In conversations in which I would inquire about the appropriateness of dividing the poor khwushnishins into two categories of agricultural and non-agricultural workers, about one-third of all peasants interviewed would agree that this was valid; one-fifth would be stimulated to subdivide this group into three or more types; and roughly one-half would insist there was no reason to divide them. Interestingly, the khwushnishins, themselves, do not identify with a broad landless group. Indeed, there is an intense dislike of being in any way equated with those considered to be inferiors; shopkeepers, for example, generally feel superior to all others, while carpenters tend to look down upon barbers and laborers. Virtually all khwushnishins whom I have interviewed identify themselves along occupational lines and would divide non-farming villagers according to their jobs.

9. This is the estimate of the Rural Studies Group researchers based upon preliminary data obtained during a 1973 survey. See Note 3 above.

10. For a detailed discussion of salaf-khars and the practice of salaf-kharī, see Khusrou Khusrovi, “La réform agrarire et l'apparition d'une nouvelle classe en Iran,” Etudes rurales, 34 (1969), pp. 122-126.

11. Plan Organization, Mushkilāt dar Rustāhā-yi Iran (Tehran, 1350/1971-72), p. 5.

12. For information on the problems of the rural cooperatives, see University of Tehran, Shirkathā-yi Tacāvunī Rustā'ī dar Shish Manṭaqah (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 95-100; 140-148; 189-191; 202-204.

13. See Note 9 above.

14. For a discussion of peasant judgments regarding social status see, Alberts, R. C., Social Structure and Cultural Change in an Iranian Village (Madison: University of Wisconsin Ph.D. Dissertation, 1963), pp. 727-797Google Scholar.

15. These were the prevailing wages when I conducted field research in 1971-72; generally, the lowest wages were found in the south and southeast and the highest ones in the north and northwest. The pre-1973 exchange rate of 76.25 rials to one $US is used in this paper; the rial has been revalued by about 9 percent since 1973.

16. For a fuller discussion see Chapter III, “'The Trans fer of Tenure,” in my Ph.D. dissertation, The Social and Economic Consequences of Land Reform in Iran (Washington: Johns Hopkins University, 1974).

17. Interviews with large landowners in the Varamin area of Tehran, Summer, 1972.

18. See further Bill, James A., The Politics of Iran (Columbus: Charles Merril, 1972), p. 46Google Scholar

19. In interviews which I conducted in 1971-72, khwushnishin laborers gave two consistent responses when queried about their own evaluation of their future: either (1) they would find some work in a nearby town, Tehran or some other city; or (2) they would obtain land through government aid.

20. See Okazaki, Sōkō, The Development of Large-scale Farming in Iran: The Case of the Province of Gurgan (Tokyo: The Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, 1968), pp. 18-21Google Scholar.

21. Narraghi, ed., Barrisī-yi Natāyij-i Işlāḥāt-i Arzī dar Shish Manṭaqah (Tehran: University of Tehran, n.d.), pp. 19-24.

22. Ibid.

23. See Further, “A Study of the Rural Economic Problems of East and West Azerbaijan,” Taḥqīqāt-e Eqteşadi, Vol. 5 (January, 1968), pp. 165-180.

24. On Miānduāb see ibid., pp. 181-195 passim; on Turbat-i Jām see Andre Singer, “Social Organization Among the Timuri of Khurasan.” Paper presented at the British Institute of Persian Studies, Tehran, 12 June, 1972.

25. Although the University of Tehran has been doing research in the slums and squatter settlements of the capital since 1972, no scholarly publications can ever capture the essence of life in these areas the way it has been recorded in the realistic sociological stories of the late Samad Behrangi; especially recommended is his novella about the life and dreams of a young khwushnishin boy, Bist-u-chahār sācat dar Khwāb-u Bīdārī (Tabriz, 1348/1969-70).