Daniel Thorner's classification of the agrarian population into malik, kisan and mazdoor is based on:

The type of income derived from the land

Redfield described peasant society as:

A self-sufficient little republic

The Tebhaga movement of 1946–47 in Bengal demanded:

Two-thirds of the crop for sharecroppers

Remunerative prices for sugarcane

Two-thirds of the crop for sharecroppers

Assertion (A): Amit Bhaduri characterised Indian agriculture in parts of the country as semi-feudal. Reason (R): He argued that landlords who were also moneylenders profited from tenants' indebtedness and so had little interest in raising productivity. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

The slogan 'Bharat versus India', contrasting rural producers with the urban-industrial sector, is associated with:

Sharad Joshi and the Shetkari Sanghatana

Which of the following is NOT correctly matched?

Peasant Society and Culture — Eric Wolf

Peasant Movements in India, 1920–1950 — D.N. Dhanagare

The Agrarian Prospect in India — Daniel Thorner

Peasant Society and Culture — Eric Wolf

Weapons of the Weak — James Scott

Rural and Peasant Society: Agrarian Structure, Land Relations, De-Peasantization and Peasant Movements

Unit 4, Rural and Urban Transformations, has two blocks, and this chapter covers the first, Rural and Peasant Society. Its six items run as an argument: caste-tribe settlements; agrarian social structure and emergent class relations; land ownership and agrarian relations; decline of agrarian economy, de-peasantization and migration; agrarian unrest and peasant movements; and changing inter-community relations and violence. The chapter begins with the concept of the peasantry and the Indian village as sociologists studied it, then follows the land question from colonial tenures through land reform and the Green Revolution to today's agrarian distress and the movements it has produced.

1. The peasantry, the village and caste-tribe settlements

Robert Redfield (Peasant Society and Culture, 1956) described peasants as a part-society with a part-culture: they cultivate land for subsistence as a way of life, but are tied to towns, markets and states, and their local little tradition interacts with the literate great tradition of the civilisation. McKim Marriott, studying Kishan Garhi, called the two-way flow universalization (little-tradition elements rising into the great tradition) and parochialization (great-tradition elements being localised). Eric Wolf (Peasants, 1966) defined peasants as rural cultivators whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers, and A.V. Chayanov argued that the peasant family farm follows its own logic — balancing the family's consumption needs against the drudgery of labour — rather than profit maximisation, so that differentiation among peasants is partly demographic, following the family life cycle.

Colonial officials such as Charles Metcalfe (1830) described Indian villages as self-sufficient 'little republics', an image later village studies dismantled. S.C. Dube's Indian Village (1955), Srinivas's Rampura and Marriott's Village India (1955) showed villages tied by caste, kinship, markets and administration to a wider world. Caste-tribe settlements are spatially structured: in many regions the dominant caste occupies the village core, service castes surround it, and Dalit households live in separate hamlets at the edge — a segregation that governs access to wells, roads and temples. Tribal settlements range from dispersed hamlets to nucleated villages, and where tribes and castes live together, relations of dependence, land alienation and moneylending have repeatedly turned tribal cultivators into tenants or labourers. The jajmani system, described by William Wiser (The Hindu Jajmani System, 1936) for Karimpur, organised hereditary exchange of services for grain between patron (jajman) and service castes (kamin); functionalists read it as reciprocity, while critics such as T.O. Beidelman (1959) read it as a system of exploitation backed by landed power.

2. Agrarian social structure, land ownership and emergent class relations

Colonial tenure	Who paid revenue to the state	Social consequence
Zamindari (Permanent Settlement, 1793)	Zamindar, with revenue fixed in perpetuity	A powerful landlord class and insecure tenants; subinfeudation
Ryotwari	The individual cultivator (ryot) directly	Peasant proprietorship, but high assessments and dependence on moneylenders
Mahalwari	The village community (mahal) jointly	Village elites controlled collection and land

Daniel Thorner (The Agrarian Prospect in India, 1956) classified the rural population by the kind of income they draw from the land: maliks (proprietors whose income comes chiefly from property rights, through rent), kisans (working peasants who cultivate their own land mainly with family labour) and mazdoors (those who earn chiefly by working others' land). After independence, zamindari abolition, tenancy reform and land ceilings removed the great intermediaries but benefited mainly the upper tenants — often middle castes — while ceilings were widely evaded and tenancy went underground. The Green Revolution of the late 1960s (high-yielding seeds, irrigation, fertiliser and credit, concentrated in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh) created a class of capitalist farmers employing wage labour, sharpened differentiation, and drew a debate on whether Indian agriculture was becoming capitalist or remained semi-feudal. Amit Bhaduri argued that interlinked markets — the landlord also acting as moneylender — kept tenants in debt bondage and made landlords indifferent to productivity gains; Utsa Patnaik classified peasants by the ratio of labour they hire in to labour they hire out.

🎯 Why land reform made middle castes powerful

Abolishing intermediaries turned substantial tenants into owners. In many regions those tenants belonged to cultivating middle castes — the very groups Srinivas called dominant castes. Land reform thus fed directly into the rise of peasant castes in state politics from the 1960s, which is why agrarian structure and caste politics are studied together.

3. Decline of the agrarian economy, de-peasantization and migration

Agriculture's share of India's output has fallen far faster than its share of the workforce, so a large population depends on a shrinking share of income. Repeated division of holdings has made the great majority of holdings marginal (under one hectare). De-peasantization is the process by which peasants lose land or the ability to live from it and become wage labourers, migrants or informal workers, while often keeping a foothold in the village. Researchers describe circular migration between village and city, in which men work seasonally in construction, brick kilns or factories and return for harvests or festivals. Jan Breman called such workers 'footloose labour', moving between rural and urban informal sectors without secure employment in either. Male out-migration contributes to the feminisation of agriculture, as women take on more farm work without holding land titles. Agrarian distress — indebtedness, crop failure, price volatility — surfaces most starkly in farmer suicides.

4. Agrarian unrest, peasant movements and changing inter-community relations

Movement	Core issue
Tebhaga, Bengal (1946–47)	Sharecroppers (bargadars) demanded two-thirds of the crop instead of half
Telangana (1946–51)	Armed peasant struggle against landlords and forced labour (vetti) in Hyderabad state
Naxalbari (1967)	Uprising of tribal and landless peasants in north Bengal that gave the Naxalite movement its name
New farmers' movements (1980s)	Market-oriented farmers demanding remunerative prices and cheaper inputs — Sharad Joshi's Shetkari Sanghatana ('Bharat versus India'), Mahendra Singh Tikait's Bharatiya Kisan Union, the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha

Sociologists have classified and explained these movements in several ways. Kathleen Gough (1974) grouped Indian peasant uprisings into restorative rebellions, religious movements, social banditry, terrorist vengeance and mass insurrections. Hamza Alavi (Peasants and Revolution, 1965) argued that middle peasants, independent of landlords, are initially the most militant, while poor peasants, dependent on landlords, join only later. D.N. Dhanagare (Peasant Movements in India, 1920–1950, 1983) and A.R. Desai's edited volumes documented the class base of movements, while Ranajit Guha's subaltern history read peasant insurgency as a consciousness of its own, and James Scott's Weapons of the Weak (1985) drew attention to everyday resistance — foot-dragging, pilfering, gossip. Inter-community relations have changed with Dalit assertion: as Dalits refused customary deference and sought land, wages and dignity, dominant castes in some places responded with violence — the Kilvenmani massacre (1968) of striking Dalit labourers, and later atrocities such as Karamchedu (1985) and Khairlanji (2006) — which the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was framed to address.

Key takeaways

Redfield's peasants are a part-society with a part-culture linking little and great traditions; Wolf stresses surplus extraction, Chayanov the family farm's own logic and demographic differentiation.
Village studies replaced the 'little republic' myth with villages tied to wider structures; caste-tribe settlements are spatially segregated, and the jajmani system is read as reciprocity or as exploitation.
Thorner's malik-kisan-mazdoor scheme, colonial tenures, land reform favouring upper tenants, the Green Revolution's capitalist farmers and the semi-feudalism debate define agrarian class relations.
De-peasantization, marginal holdings, circular migration (Breman's footloose labour) and the feminisation of agriculture mark the decline of the agrarian economy.
Peasant movements run from Tebhaga, Telangana and Naxalbari to the new farmers' movements; Gough, Alavi, Dhanagare and Scott explain them, and Dalit assertion has reshaped rural inter-community relations.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Daniel Thorner's classification of the agrarian population into malik, kisan and mazdoor is based on:
1. Size of the family
2. Caste rank
3. The type of income derived from the land
4. Religious affiliation
Show answer
Answer: C — The type of income derived from the land
Thorner distinguished those who live mainly from property rights (maliks), those who cultivate their own land with family labour (kisans) and those who work others' land for wages (mazdoors).
Redfield described peasant society as:
1. A part-society with a part-culture
2. A mode of production
3. A total institution
4. A self-sufficient little republic
Show answer
Answer: A — A part-society with a part-culture
For Redfield, peasants are part of a larger society and civilisation — linked to towns and to the great tradition — rather than a closed, self-sufficient unit like the 'little republic' of colonial writing.
Hamza Alavi's thesis in Peasants and Revolution is that the initially most militant section of the peasantry is:
1. The rich peasants
2. The absentee landlords
3. The middle peasants
4. The landless labourers
Show answer
Answer: C — The middle peasants
Alavi argued that middle peasants, owning enough land to be independent of landlords, can take the first militant steps; poor peasants, dependent on landlords for land and credit, join once the landlords' power is shaken.
The Tebhaga movement of 1946–47 in Bengal demanded:
1. Remunerative prices for sugarcane
2. A separate state
3. Abolition of the salt tax
4. Two-thirds of the crop for sharecroppers
Show answer
Answer: D — Two-thirds of the crop for sharecroppers
'Tebhaga' means three shares: bargadars demanded two of three shares of the harvest instead of the customary half, organised largely by the Kisan Sabha.
Which of the following are among Kathleen Gough's types of Indian peasant uprisings? Select all that apply.
1. Restorative rebellions
2. Sanskritising movements
3. Mass insurrections
4. Social banditry
Show answer
Answer: A — Restorative rebellions; C — Mass insurrections; D — Social banditry
Gough listed restorative rebellions, religious movements, social banditry, terrorist vengeance and mass insurrections. Sanskritisation is Srinivas's process of caste mobility, not a type of peasant uprising.
Assertion (A): Amit Bhaduri characterised Indian agriculture in parts of the country as semi-feudal. Reason (R): He argued that landlords who were also moneylenders profited from tenants' indebtedness and so had little interest in raising productivity. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Bhaduri's model of interlinked land and credit markets is exactly his reason for calling the system semi-feudal: usury, not productive investment, was the landlord's source of gain.
Who described the hereditary exchange of services between patron and service castes in Karimpur as the 'jajmani system'?
1. S.C. Dube
2. McKim Marriott
3. William Wiser
4. Daniel Thorner
Show answer
Answer: C — William Wiser
William Wiser's The Hindu Jajmani System (1936) gave the institution its name in sociology. Dube studied Shamirpet, Marriott Kishan Garhi, and Thorner the agrarian class structure.
Which two-word phrase did Jan Breman use for rural workers who move between rural and urban informal sectors without secure employment in either?
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: footloose labour
Breman's Footloose Labour (1996), based on western India, described workers pushed out of agriculture who circulate through brick kilns, construction and other informal work — a central image of de-peasantization.
The slogan 'Bharat versus India', contrasting rural producers with the urban-industrial sector, is associated with:
1. Sharad Joshi and the Shetkari Sanghatana
2. The Chipko movement
3. The Telangana armed struggle
4. The Tebhaga movement
Show answer
Answer: A — Sharad Joshi and the Shetkari Sanghatana
Sharad Joshi's Shetkari Sanghatana, a leading new farmers' movement of the 1980s in Maharashtra, framed the conflict as rural Bharat exploited through unfavourable terms of trade by urban India.
Which of the following is NOT correctly matched?
1. Peasant Movements in India, 1920–1950 — D.N. Dhanagare
2. The Agrarian Prospect in India — Daniel Thorner
3. Peasant Society and Culture — Eric Wolf
4. Weapons of the Weak — James Scott
Show answer
Answer: C — Peasant Society and Culture — Eric Wolf
Peasant Society and Culture (1956) is Robert Redfield's; Eric Wolf's book is Peasants (1966).