Change and Development in Rural Society

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Social Change and Development in India), Chapter 4.

Why do four different New Year festivals fall at harvest time?

Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Bihu in Assam, Baisakhi in Punjab and Ugadi in Karnataka are celebrated in different languages and customs. Yet each one marks the main harvest and the start of a new farming season. That is the first idea of this chapter: in rural India, land is not only a means of production or a form of property. It is a way of life, and culture and social structure grow out of it.

Roughly seven in ten Indians live in villages (69 per cent in the 2011 Census) and most make a living from farming or work linked to it. This chapter follows one question across time: who owns the land, who works it, and how did that change after Independence?

Rural India is more than farming

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood, but a village also supports many other people. Potters, carpenters, weavers, ironsmiths and goldsmiths served the village, and so did story-tellers, astrologers, priests, water-distributors and oil-pressers. Many of these occupations were tied to specialist or service castes, so the diversity of work in a village was also reflected in the caste system. The numbers of artisans have shrunk since colonial times because factory-made goods replaced hand-made ones.

Today the links between village and town create new kinds of work. Rural residents work in the postal and education departments, in factories and in the army. These are rural non-farm activities.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: rural society is built around agriculture and the agrarian way of life. In reality: many village households mix farm work with non-farm work, and towns keep growing over former farmland. Look at your own city. Colonies, malls and flyovers often stand where fields and a village once were, and the families who lived off that land had to find new work. Why it matters: the textbook's picture of the "rural" is a starting point, and questions can ask how rural and urban economies interconnect.

Agrarian structure: land, class and caste

The agrarian structure is the structure or distribution of landholding. Because land is the most important productive resource in a village, access to land decides what role a person plays in farming, and so shapes the rural class structure. Land is very unequally held. In some regions most households own a little land, usually tiny plots. In other regions 40 to 50 per cent of families own no land at all and depend on farm labour or other work.

Women are excluded from ownership because of the patrilineal kinship system (descent and inheritance through the male line). This is the gap between the legal right and the social practice that CUET likes to test.

Caste shapes class. In many areas higher castes hold more land and higher incomes, so caste and class roughly correspond, but not exactly. The highest caste, the Brahmins, are not usually major landowners, so they sit outside the agrarian structure even though they are part of rural society. In each region one or two landowning castes, who are also numerous, usually dominate. M.N. Srinivas called them dominant castes: the group that is most powerful economically and politically in a region and dominates local society.

The other side of this picture is that most marginal farmers and landless households belong to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes. In many regions the former "Untouchable" or dalit castes were not allowed to own land and supplied most of the farm labour. That labour supply let the dominant landowners farm intensively and earn higher returns.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: a dominant caste is a numerically large, landowning, economically and politically powerful caste in a region, and the term is M.N. Srinivas's. In reality: Srinivas's idea is regional. A caste can be dominant in one region and not in the next, and dominance can shift as land, education and political links change. Why it matters: "dominant" is not the same as "highest in the caste hierarchy". The Brahmin example above is the proof.

Pause and predict: Brahmins are the highest caste. Are they the dominant caste in a village?

Check your answer: Not necessarily. Dominance in the agrarian sense comes from owning land, having numbers and holding economic and political power. Brahmins are not usually major landowners, so they fall outside the agrarian structure.

Irrigation and inequality. There is a direct link between productivity and agrarian structure. Where irrigation is assured, as in rice-growing river deltas such as the Kaveri basin in Tamil Nadu, intensive cultivation needs a lot of labour. The most unequal structures developed there, with many landless labourers, often "bonded" workers from the lowest castes. The reason is simple: more work to be done meant a bigger labour force kept under control.

Begar means free labour. Low ranked caste groups had to work for the village zamindar or landlord for a fixed number of days each year, and many of the working poor were tied to landowners in hereditary labour relationships. These practices are abolished by law but continue in some areas.

Colonial roots: zamindari and raiyatwari

To understand today's villages, start with the colonial settlement of land revenue. Before colonial rule, the dominant castes were probably cultivating castes but not direct owners of land. Local kings or zamindars (landlords who were also politically powerful, usually from Kshatriya or other high castes) controlled the land and took a large share of the produce. The British ruled through many of these zamindars and gave them property rights. Because the British also imposed heavy land revenue, zamindars squeezed cultivators for as much as they could.

Land reforms after Independence

Planners in independent India faced low productivity, dependence on imported foodgrains and deep rural poverty. Nehru and his advisors chose planned development with agrarian reform alongside industrialisation. From the 1950s to the 1970s the Centre and the states passed a series of land reform laws, in three groups.

The ceiling is lower for productive land and higher for dry, unproductive land. The loopholes included benami transfers, which were fictitious transfers of land. In some places rich farmers even divorced their wives on paper but continued to live with them, because the law allowed a separate share for unmarried women but not for wives. On the whole, the agrarian structure has changed a lot since colonial times but remains highly unequal, and that inequality holds back productivity. The textbook's view is that land reform is needed for growth, to remove rural poverty and for social justice.

Pause and predict: why would a Land Ceiling Act allow a separate share for an unmarried woman but not for a wife?

Check your answer: A separate share for an unmarried woman meant extra land could be held legally. A landowner who "divorced" his wife on paper, while living with her, could claim that extra share and keep more land. The trick shows how laws are bent when the people they affect are the people who hold power locally.

The Green Revolution and its social consequences

Land reforms had a limited impact. The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s changed much more, but only where it reached. It was a government programme of agricultural modernisation, largely funded by international agencies. It supplied high yielding variety (HYV) or hybrid seeds with pesticides, fertilisers and other inputs. The new seeds needed plenty of water, so it was introduced only in areas with assured irrigation and aimed mainly at wheat and rice areas. The first wave reached Punjab, western U.P., coastal Andhra Pradesh and parts of Tamil Nadu.

Productivity rose sharply, and India became self-sufficient in foodgrains for the first time in decades. Sociologists who studied these areas also pointed to negative social and environmental effects.

Who gains? Inputs were expensive, so medium and large farmers benefited. This is where the textbook separates two terms. Peasants produce mainly for themselves (subsistence agriculture) and cannot produce for the market. Farmers produce a surplus above family needs and are linked to the market. Farmers reaped most of the benefits of the Green Revolution and of the commercialisation that followed.

Two views. For the exam: the Green Revolution is a major achievement that made India self-sufficient in foodgrains, and it also widened inequality (differentiation). Another reading: some farmers and scientists now ask for a return to traditional, organic seeds and methods, noting the environmental and social cost of modern cultivation. The textbook records the voice of a village elder who contrasts the "wholeness" of local (organic) produce with hybrid produce, as a sign of a deeper loss of local knowledge.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the Green Revolution raised output but also widened the gap between rich and poor farmers. In reality: the environmental side has been studied as much as the social side. Topics students are asked to research include pesticide use, a falling water table, salination and waterlogging in canal irrigated areas, and loss of biodiversity. Why it matters: it explains why the debate is about more than yields.

Pause and predict: a rice farmer who grows only for the family's food gets a tractor loan offer and plants a single cash crop. Is she a peasant or a farmer in the sociologist's sense? Is her risk higher or lower?

Check your answer: Once she produces a surplus for the market, she is a farmer. Her risk is higher: with one crop and dependence on market prices, a fall in prices or a bad harvest leaves nothing to fall back on. A multi-crop system spreads risk.

Changing labour relations: patronage to exploitation

In Green Revolution regions four transformations in rural social relations took place.

Sociologist Jan Breman described the change between landlords (usually of dominant castes) and agricultural workers (usually low caste) as a shift from patronage to exploitation (1974). Some scholars read this as a transition to capitalist agriculture, because the capitalist mode of production separates workers from the means of production (land) and relies on "free" wage labour. As cultivation became more commercial, villages were also drawn into the wider economy, which raised the flow of money into the countryside and widened business and job opportunities.

Two views. For the exam: the shift is from patronage to exploitation, a move towards capitalist agriculture. Another reading: scholars have argued over whether Indian agrarian relations are better described as semi-feudal or capitalist. The textbook's references include this debate, and it explains why the same change gets different labels.

This process began in colonial times. In the 19th century large parts of Maharashtra turned to cotton and linked cotton farmers directly to the world market. After Independence the pace quickened, as the state built irrigation, roads and electricity and supplied inputs, including credit through banks and cooperatives. The Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana of 2014 is one government effort for an uninterrupted power supply to rural India.

Different regions, different paths. In coastal Andhra Pradesh, western U.P. and central Gujarat, well-off dominant-caste farmers invested profits in other businesses. This produced new entrepreneurial groups and regional elites that became economically and politically dominant (Mario Rutten's work). Private professional colleges in rural and semi-urban areas let the new elites educate their children, many of whom joined white collar jobs and swelled the urban middle class.

Circulation of labour and the feminisation of farm work

As patronage bonds broke down and seasonal demand for labour grew in prosperous Green Revolution regions such as Punjab, a pattern of seasonal migration emerged. Thousands of workers circulate between home villages and richer areas with more work and higher wages. They come mainly from drought-prone, less productive regions and work part of the year on farms in Punjab and Haryana, in U.P. brick kilns, or on construction sites in cities such as Delhi or Bangalore. Rising inequality since the mid-1990s has pushed households to combine several occupations. Men migrate periodically while women, children and elders stay behind.

Breman called these workers footloose labour, but the word does not mean freedom. His 1985 study shows that landless workers have few rights and are usually not paid the minimum wage. Wealthy farmers often prefer migrants for harvesting and other intensive work because they can be paid less and are more easily exploited. This produces an odd pattern, seen especially in sugarcane areas, in which local landless labourers leave in the peak season while migrants are brought in.

Feminisation of the agricultural labour force. Where men spend much of the year working elsewhere, cultivation becomes mainly a female task and women become the main source of farm labour. Women earn lower wages than men for similar work, and they were hardly visible in official statistics as workers. They toil on land as labourers and cultivators, yet the patrilineal kinship system largely excludes them from owning it.

Globalisation, liberalisation and the village

Since the late 1980s India's policy of liberalisation has included participation in the World Trade Organization, which aims at freer international trade and requires opening Indian markets to imports. After decades of state support and protected markets, Indian farmers face global competition. Imported fruit on the shelves of local shops is the visible sign. India's decision to import wheat reversed the earlier policy of self-reliance in foodgrains, and recalled the dependence on American grain in the early years after Independence.

Contract farming is a visible case. In regions such as Punjab and Karnataka, farmers contract with multinational companies, for example to grow tomatoes and potatoes. The company names the crop and supplies seeds, other inputs, know-how and often working capital, and guarantees to buy at a fixed, predetermined price. It is common for cut flowers, grapes, figs, pomegranates, cotton and oilseeds.

Multinationals as sellers of inputs. A more widespread change is the entry of multinationals as sellers of seeds, pesticides and fertilisers. As the government scaled down agricultural development programmes, "agricultural extension" agents in villages were replaced by agents of seed, fertiliser and pesticide companies. They are often the only source of information for farmers and have an interest in selling. The result has been heavy dependence on expensive inputs, lower profits, debt and an ecological crisis.

Agrarian distress and farmers' suicides. Suicides by farmers have been reported in different parts of the country since 1997 to 98. The textbook links them to agrarian distress: a changed pattern of landholdings, a shift to cash crops, liberalisation, dependence on high cost inputs, withdrawal of the state from extension and a decline in state support. Many of those who died were marginal farmers trying to raise output with Green Revolution methods, and they faced rising costs after a fall in subsidies, unstable markets and heavy borrowing. According to official statistics there were 8,900 suicides by farmers between 2001 and 2006 in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. Debt and natural disasters causing crop failure are the main associated causes. Schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Gram Uday se Bharat Uday Abhiyan, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and the Kisan Credit Card are listed as unified help for farmers.

Timeline of rural change

Key people and terms

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Structural Change introduces the colonial economy and the structural changes this chapter builds on.
• Next: Change and Development in Industrial Society turns from the village to factories, cities and the working class.
• Related: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion explains the caste and tribe categories that overlap with landlessness here.