Lb _PS . /e 7
POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER    1870
The Evolution of Poverty                                             Continued
growth and diverstfic,
and Inequality in Indian                                             intononagriculturaisa
Villages                                                          are essentiai if India ,-
continue reducing rur
poverty. But policmrna
Rajit Jayaraman                                                      hoping to aileviate -ur
Peter Lan jouw                                                       poverty must also be
the causes and implicX
persisting, if not incrct
inequality within viiiac
The World Bank
Development Research Group
Poverty and Human Resources
January 1998



POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAI'ER 1870
Summary findings
Jayaraman and Lanjouw review longitudinal village                There are few reports in village studies of particularly
studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to        effective government policies aimed at reducing poverty.
identify changes in living standards in rural India in        The long-term poor still tend to be from the
recent decades.                                               disadvantaged castes and to live in households that rely
They scrutinize the main forces of economic change-         on income from agricultural labor.
agricultural intensification, changes in land relations, and    There is little evidence that inequalities within village
occupational diversification - to explain changes in          communities have declined. In some cases improved
level and distribution of living standards in rural           material well-being of rural households has led to greater
communities.                                                  social stratification rather than less, with women and
These forces of economic change appear to have offset    members of the lower castes suffering the consequences.
or at least mitigated the pressure that growing                 Such inequalities could limit how policy interventions
populations can place on existing resources. But the          or continued growth can reduce poverty further.
decline in rural poverty has been slow and irregular at       Policymakers must ensure accountability to keep abuses
best. Nor is poverty reduction only a matter of economic      -for example, the privileged classes directing all
development. For instance, the rural poor often attribute     benefits to themselves -  to a minimum.
much of the improvement in their living conditions to
reduced dependence on patrons.
This paper -a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the
group to study the dynamics of poverty in the South Asia region. Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank,
1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Peter Lanjouw, room MC3-555, telephone 202-473-4529, fax
202-522-1153, Internet address planjouw@worldbank.org. January 1998. (58 pages)
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the finidings of work in progress to encourage the exchanzge of ideas about
development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The
papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this
paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the
countries they represent.
Produced by the Policy Research Dissemination Center



The Evolution of Poverty and Inequality in Indian Villages
Raji Jayaraman and Peter Lanjouw*
Comrel University and the World Bank
We are very grateful to Jean Dreze for guidance in the preparation of this paper though we do not wish to
implicate him for any remmang enors and omissions. We also thank Harold Alderman, Zoubida Allaoua, James
Fairhead, Barbara Harriss-White, Jesko Hentschel, Ravi Kanbur, Valerie Kozel, Takashi Kurusawa, Jenny
Lanjouw, Michad Lipton, Lant Pritchett, Martin Ravalion, Naresh Sharma, and participants at a seminar held at
Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford Universiq, for usefil comments and suggestions.



The Evolution of Poverty and hiequality in Indian Villages
1.     Introduction
2.     The Sources of Income
2.1    Agricultural Intensification
2.2    Landownership and Tenancy Relations
2.2.1 Incidence of Landlessness
2.2.2 Land Transactions
2.2.3  Land Legislation
2.2.4  Tenancy Arrangements
2.3    Occupational Change
2.3.1  Decline in Traditional Labor Services
2.3.2   Casualization of Labor Contracts
2.3.3 Expansion of Non-Agricultural Employment
2.3.4   Agricultural Wages
2.3.5  Labor Migration
2.3.6  Proletarianization
2.3.7 Social Implications
3.     Poverty and Living Standards
3.1    General Trends
3.2    Instances of Impoverishment
3.3    People's Perceptions
4.     Inequality
4.1    Land Ownership
4.2   Income and Wealth
4.3    caste
4.4    Gender
5.     Summary and Discussion



1.     Introduction
The rural economy of India is currently the subject of much discussion. Since the early 1990s, hLdia has
been engaged in an ambitious programme of economic reforms designed to stimulate the economy and accelerate
growth. There is growing recognition however, that this programme has yet to make a strong mark on the mral
economy.' Given that a majority of India's population resides in rural areas and that poverty in India remains to a
large extent rural, there is much value attached towards a better grasp of living conditions in rural areas, and
towards an appreciation of how rural living standards have evolved over time.
The Approach of this Paper
Compared to many countries at similar levels of per capita income, India possesses an extensive statistical
foundation upon which to base investigations of the type described above. There exists a wealth of data, derived
from sample surveys as well as various census rounds. These sources can be scrutinized to trace the evolution
over time of consumption levels and poverty rates, demographic and occupational trends, education levels, health
and nutritional status, etc., at the state, regional and occasionally even district level.2
There has also been a rich tradition of village studies in India, undertaken by investigators from a wide
range of disciplinary backgrounds and some dating back to before India's independence.3 Many of these studies
enter into considerable detail; assembling a combination of both qualitative and quantitative information, collected
on the basis of a whole range of methodologies, including formal questionnaires, informal interviews, group
discussions, personal observation, archival searches, and so on. These studies typically offer a rounded,
contextualized, perspective on the life of rural households; highlighting relationships between households and
their surrounding community and illustrating the role of village institutions. Such information cannot always be
easily distilled from larger-scale purposive surveys.
Survey and census data have been widely analyzed to inform the debate on what has been happening to
living conditions in rural India. However, to date there have been few similar attempts to bring together the
findings from the many villages studies which have been conducted across the country, over time. In this paper
1 While the 1991 reforms are thought to have created a favorable incentive environment for agriculture, there
was no explicit agricultural component. And, as has been pointed out in World Bank (1995), the actual
implementation of economic reforms in rural areas so far has been partial and uneven.
2    See Datt and Ravallion (1996b), Dreze and Srinivasan (1996), Dreze and Sen (1995), Sen (1996) for
recent analyses.
3 In addition to the anthropologists who might be expected to specialize in such studies, villages have come
under close scrutiny from agronomists, demographers, economists, geographers, historians, political scientists and
sociologists.



we attempt such a review, focussing on the subset of Indian village studies which have been concemed with the
analysis of change over time.4 Such an exercise is worthwhile for at least four reasons. First, it could indicate
whether the findings from large-scale surveys accord with the observations and experiences at the village level.
Where they do not, it is clearly warranted to investigate possible reasons. Second, although village studies across
a country as large and heterogeneous as India would be expected to display a wide variety of experiences, there
may also exist some commonalities. Both differences and commonalities could shed useful light on the
institutions and processes which govern change-- aspects which large surveys may be less well equipped to
investigate. Third, where there are common findings across village studies, one may be able to develop indicators
which could be usefully added to future large-scale survey questionnaires. Fourth, a review of village study
findings may raise new questions for further investigation.
The studies included in this survey typically comprise at least one re-visit to the village, although in
some cases we include reports from single visits where either the investigator was in the field for a very long
time, or where there was a specific effort to report on aspects of change over time.5 We also draw on some studies
which take a slightly broader, regional or meso-level perspective. The more focussed approach taken in this paper
enables one not only to study the various dimensions of rural livelihoods, but also to understand better the
processes which govern rising or falling living standards.
While the study of an individual village by definition concentrates on a very specific location, this review
attempts to comment on developments in rural India more broadly. There is clearly no statistical basis for
generalizing beyond the village studies which are being examined. Although we have taken care to examine a
number of studies, covering a wide range of locations, we do not have a random sample of villages. Nor are the
data collected in the villages of an identical form, permitting ready comparisons. In fact, one of the challenges in
undertaking this review has been in the interpretation of findings from the different village studies, undertaken by
investigators with dissimilar disciplinary backgrounds, varying methodological frameworks, and differently tinted
spectacles.
4 Barbara Hafriss-White (1992) provides a comprehensive survey of micro-level evidence on rural poverty in
India. This study is quite complementary to the present effort, and differs largely in that the present paper is
more explicitly concerned with changes over time. Lipton and Longhurst (1989) also draw heavily on village
study research in their study of the impact of technological change in agriculture on poverty. For an interesting
exposition of the methodological distinctions between village studies and large-scale survey-based studies, see the
contributions in Bardhan (1989) and also Harriss-White (1996).
5 This reduces the population of applicable village studies considerably (the library of the Agricultural
Economics Research Centre of Delhi University, for example, is stacked from floor to ceiling with reports of
village studies by its investigators; most of these are single visits however). This list is inevitably incomplete.
2



How comfortably one can extrapolate findings from these village studies to rural areas at large is thus
ultimately a question of judgement and personal inclination. Caution is clearly warranted. Without independent
support from representative data, generalizations based on clear patterns across vilage studies remain, in fact,
conjectures. Of course, we are also interested to identify and understand possible differences across areas. In such
cases it is hoped that this review might help to delineate where findings from larger-scale surveys are likely to be
relevant.
Table 1 lists the thirty-odd longitudinal village studies which comprise the primary source of information
for this review. The studies from which we have drawn are referenced in the bibliography. The list is inevitably
incomplete. From Table 1 we see that regional coverage is fairly broad although it is clear that Tamil Nadu, and
to a lesser extent Uttar Pradesh, have been most heavily studied. Important omissions include Kashmir,
Himalchel Pradesh, the northeastern states, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Table 1 also illustrates that the
reference periods for the various studies vary widely. It should be noted that in addition to the ommitted states
listed above, the available information on Orissa, Kramataka and Kerala is relatively old, and coverage in these
states is therefore also less complete than might be desired.
In this paper we are broadly concerned with the evolution of material living standards in rural India. We
are interested to trace not only the path of outcomes in terms of poverty or wealth, but also the forces which may
have governed these changes. We therefore begin, in the next section, with a brief account of the agricultural
intensification in rural India which provides the background against which any assessment of evolving living
standards should proceed. We then turn to an examination of two key factors in determining rural incomes, land
and labor, to ask how the links between these and rural living standards have evolved over time. In Section 2.2
we focus on evolving landownership and tenancy relations while in section 2.3 we examine the process of
occupational change.
In Section 3 we look at changes in poverty and living standards. We briefly summarize in 3.1 general
trends in rural poverty obtained from secondary data and compare these with the trends which we observe in the
village studies. In 3.2 we focus on some examples of where there has been clear impoverishment over time and to
try to understand the possible factors involved. Section 3.3 turns to villagers' perceptions of poverty, to attempt
to gauge how the poor themselves judge their living standards.
In Section 4 we turn to several dimensions of inequality and ask how these have changed over time. We
consider in 4.1 the evolution of the distribution of land before examining, in 4.2, the distribution of income and
wealth. In 4.3 we turn to the question of inequality between castes, and in 4.4 we examine the evolution of
gender inequality. In Section 5 we summarize the broad conclusions from the review and discuss their policy
implications.
3



2.      The Sources of Income
2.1     Agricultural Intensification
In most of India's half million or so villages, agriculture remains central to the local economy. The
intensification of agriculture which began during the 1960s-the introduction of new inputs (such as fertilzers and
seeds) and expanded application of existing inputs (such as irrigation and labor), per unit of land-has exercised an
unmistakable and profound impact in many parts of the country.6 The degree to which agricultural practices were
affected by the introduction of new seeds and fertilizers, increased mechanization, the spread of irrigation, and so
on, has varied markedly by region and agro-climatic zone in the country.7 It seems fair to say, however, that few
areas of rural India have not seen some intensification of agriculture take place.
During the early years of the Green Revolution there was much debate regarding the impact on the
distribution of income in rural areas. To many observers, this process carried within it forces which could lead to
rising inequality of rural incomes. It was thought, for example, that lower risk aversion and better access to
credit would allow large farmers to adopt new technologies more rapidly. This, and the possibility of economies
of scale, would result in higher returns per unit of land for large farmers than small farmers and a resultant
widening of incomes.
Alongside the production advantages to the large and affluent farmers, it was believed that intensification
would unleash a process of rising landlessness and concentration of land ownership, as the earlier beneficiaries
capitalized on their advantages by adding to their landholdings through purchases. Thus a vicious cycle could set
in, resulting in a rural society considerably more polarized than before.
Village studies provide many valuable insights into the Green Revolution's impact. In this sub-section
we indicate, first of all, that, although the new seeds and fertilizers which were introduced during the 1960s and
1970s were not suited for cultivation in all parts of the country, some expansion of production has been observed
since the late 1950s in virtually all of the village studies surveyed. Of the Green Revolution package of new
technologies and inputs, it seems that expanded and improved irrigation has comprised possibly the most
important element. Second, alongside the production expansion there is evidence from a number of studies that
6 The Green Revolution in developing countries has received much attention in the literature. Lipton and
Longhurst(1989) provide a valuable review of the literature. See also Griffin (1974), Hazell and Ramasamy
(1991), Singh (1990).
7 The term "Green Revolution' implies a sudden and dramatic shift in agricultural practices. This is a
somewhat unfortunate image, as the process of agricultural intensification has been an ongoing one, extending
over the past twenty five years or so.
4



the new technologies appear to have been broadly scale-neutral (i.e. the technologies did not benefit the largest
fiumers disproportionately). We will examine further the second set of concerns, namely the impact over time of
the Green Revolution on the distribution of land, in section 2.2 (and again in section 4.1).
In Palanpur, Uttar Pradesh, there were significant improvements in agricultural productivity over the
survey period between 1957158 and 1993, particularly after the mid-1960s (Bliss, Lanjouw and Stern,
forthcoming). Output per acre of the main food crop, wheat, increased by about four times between 1957158 and
1993. These increases translate into an annualized per-capita growth rate of output of around 2 percent.
Agricultural technology underwent a number of highly visible changes. There was a substantial rise in irrigation,
new varieties of high-yielding seeds became commonplace, the use of chemical fertilizers expanded sharply.
Cropping patterns shifted towards wheat, rice and sugarcane, with a decline in the cultivation of coarser cereals
and in mixed cropping. Output per hectare in Palanpur was unrelated to farm size throughout the period,
indicating that there was no clear advantage (or disadvantage) to large farmers from the new technologies.
While agricultural productivity did improve significantly, Dreze, Lanjouw and Sharma (forthcoming;
referred to henceforth as DLS), suggest that agriculture in Palanpur in 1993, was still far from the frontier in
terms of productive potential: farmers stiU sow late; the seeds they use are often adulterated; they are casual about
sowing-related details such as timing, depth and spacing; they neglect weeding; and so on. DLS suggest that much
of this can be explained by the combination of risk aversion, inadequate insurance, expensive credit and a lack of
basic education which has slowed the adoption of new technologies.
In another village of westem Uttar Pradesh, called Parhil, Saith and Tankha indicate that gross
agricultural output per capita grew at a rate of about 0.64 per cent per year between 1970 and 1987--somewhat
more slowly than Palanpur (Saith and Tankha, 1992). This slower growth rate might be due to the fact that Parhil
is located in a district which had been selected in the early 1960s for intensive agricultural development, and thus
much of the initial boost to agricultural production associated with the introduction of high-yielding seeds and
fertilizers, canal irrigation and electrification had already arrived before the first survey in 1970. Nevertheless,
between 1970 and 1987, Saith and Tankha also observe a shift in cultivation patterns toward high value crops
such as vegetables sold for the market, away from mixed cropping and from wheat (the relative price of which had
been declining for some time). Irrigation had expanded further by 1987 and many Parhil farmers had begun
harvesting three crops per year. Leaf, (1983) paints a fairly similar picture of increasing intensification between
1965 and 1978 in a village in Punjab.
In a detailed study of the impact of the Green Revolution in North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu, and
drawing heavily on the evidence from longitudinal village studies in the district, Hazell and Ramasamy (1991)
indicate that while the growth in agricultural productivity was not as great as in northern states such as Punjab and
Haryana, significant growth in paddy output was achieved between the early 1960s and late 1970s. The yields
5



increased as a result of the introduction of high-yielding varieties and increased irrigated areas. There was also
some shifting of cropping patterns towards higher value crops. Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) also indicate that
the new technology was broadly "scale-neutral' in that large-scale farmers did not achieve significantly higher
yields than small-scale farmers. These findings are supported by a large number of village studies elsewhere in
Tamil Nadu (Ardhreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg, 1990, Ramachandran, 1990, Harriss, 1986, and Gough, 1981).
Guhan and Mencher (1983) also observe a dramatic increase in the intensity of agricultural land use in the South
Arcot village of Iruvelpattu, Tamil Nadu, between 1968 and 1981. Yields nearly doubled, and in 1981, three
crops per year were being harvested, including two paddy crops. However, unlike is the case with most other
village studies, Guhan and Mencher maintain that in the highly polarized community of Iruvelpattu the spread of
new technology has benefited the more affluent landowners disproportionately.8
In the ICRISAT study of six villages in the semi-arid regions of Mahbubnagar (Andhra Pradesh),
Sholapur (Maharashtra), and Akola (Maharashtra), Walker and Ryan (1990) also describe increasing agricultural
intensification between 1975/76 and 1983/84. This process has been less rapid and far-reaching than in states
such as Punjab or Haryana, however. For example, although groundwater irrigation did increase gradually in all
the villages, cropping intensity has not yet changed appreciably because few wells are perrenially wet. Even so,
farmers in the ICRISAT villages have responded to new incentives offered by a changing economic environment:
in the Akola villages of Kanzara and Khinkeda, a rise in the farmgate price of mung bean led to a ten-fold increase
in mung-bean production; in the Sholapur village of Kalman farmers started cultivating grapes and sunflower
during the 1980s. High-yielding seeds, fertilizers and pesticides have been introduced and adopted, to varying
degrees, by farmers in the ICRISAT villages - with generally lower adoption in drought-prone regions and on
unirrigated fields.9
2.2 Land Ownership and Tenancy Relations
2.2.1 Incidence of landlessness
The greater benefit of large farmers from the expansion of irrigation is also reported in Beck (1994) for a
village in West Bengal.
9 The six ICRISAT villages have received a remarkable amount of attention from economists. Detailed and
high-quality quantitative data were collected in these villages on a continuous basis over the period 1975/76 to
1983/84. These panel data have permitted rigorous analysis of an enormous range of issues pertinent to rural
economic development. Rather than refer to all of these studies in turn, we draw here on the review by Walker
and Ryan (1990) for the main results of this research program. References to individual studies can be found in
Walker and Ryan (1990).
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Landlessness in rural areas is often taken as a sign of vulnerability and poverty. Land is obviously a
major fictor of production in agriculture, and households without access to land are thus thought to be at a high
risk of poverty. Trends in landlessness are therefore often scrufinized to indicate whether poverty is increasing or
decreasing. And as was mentioned in the previous section, a commonly voiced fear has been that the Green
Revolution would set off a process of land sales leading to a widening disparity in the distribution of land and an
increased incidence of landlessness.
There is relatively little evidence from secondary data on trends of landlessness in rural India. Those
studies which have been undertaken have often come to conflicting conclusions regarding this issue10. Village
studies are similar in that they provide mixed reviews on the, trends in landlessness over the past few decades;
rising in some areas, and declining in others. However, the number of studies which provide evidence of the latter
(i.e. a decing incidence of landlessness) is quite surprising in light of the popular perception that the big
changes in agriculture which have taken place in rural India are associated with an increase in the incidence of
landlessness.
There are two important lessons to be learned from village study findings on landlessness. First, the
extent of, and change in, landlessness at the village level has a whole range of causes, and impoverishment is only
one of these.  Other causes include changes in household structure, population growth, migration, and
occupational change. Second, given that the causes of landlessness are numerous and varied, it is misleading to
equate all increases in the incidence of landlessness with worsening economic conditions.
In a sample of 46 smal and marginal farming households in the Kosi area of north-east Bihar, which is
technologicaly and economically backward even relative to the rest of that state, Rodgers (1984) reports net
losses in land owned and share-cropped among small-holders between 1971 and 1981. However, neither
landholdings nor local wages appeared to play much of a role in determining household incomes --which over this
period actually rose slightly. An important explanation for this was the better employment opportunities in, and
consequent migration to, Assam, by various household members. The study is admittedly selective because the
sample in question included only small holders, and it is perhaps unsurprising that landholdings should contribute
little to changes in income of such households. Nevertheless, it does suggest that households with only small
landholdings were attempting, with some success, to diversify away from a reliance only on cultivation. As
Srinivas writes in The Remembered Village (1976): 'It gradually dawned on me that a monthly salary appeared as
a way out of the hazards and difficulties of agriculture to many villagers, and every village youth who graduated
from high school was eager to exchange the back-breaking shovel and plough for the clerical pen." This
preference for the stability of off-farm wage employment to the vagaries of agricultural employment is a recurrent
10 See for example, Raj (1976) and Vyas (1979).
7



observation in many of village studies, and one which deserves consideration when interpreting trends in
landlessness. '1
Based on retrospective data for a village in the famine tract of Maharashtra, Attwood (1979) also finds
that the proportion of landless households increased between 1920 and 1970. However, he indicates that this
increase was due mainly to in-migration, and not the downward mobility of village cultivators. The availability of
non-farm employment in the local cooperative sugar factory made it possible for these landless immigrants to
enjoy living standards that were comparable to the landed population.
DLS show that landlessness in Palanpur remained relatively stable at around 14 per cent between 1957158
and 1974/75, but rose to 23 per cent by 1993. However, they observed a good deal of movement in and out of
landlessness over time. Only a small minority of households became landless due to the sale of land. More
commonly households became landless when sons chose to separate from their father's household before his
death, and hence before they inherited their share of the household's land. It follows that much of the movement
out of landlessness in Palanpur then occurred when these sons subsequently acquired their inheritance upon the
death of their father.
In the ICRISAT villages described in Walker and Ryan (1990), the general trend from 1950 to 1982 has
been towards (1) decreasing landlessness; (2) increasing equality of landholdings, and (3) declining average farm
size. Declining landlessness was most noticeable in the Akola villages of the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra,
which has reliable rainfall. Gadre, et al.(1987) convey the same picture for another village in the same region. In
the drought-prone village of Shirapur, where the distribution of land was less unequal to begin with and dryland
cultivation is often less profitable than off-farm employment, Walker and Ryan (1990) indicate that landlessness
remained relatively stable over time.
Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) note that in Thiruchirapalli district, Tamil Nadu: "there seems to
have been a case of peasantization' (an increased incidence of small-holder cultivation and a decline in
landlessness) over the last generation, with an accompanying decline in inequality in landholdings. In irrigated
areas, the incidence of landlessness decreased from 64 to 55 percent, and the land area occupied by landholdings
of 25 acres and above decreased from 50 percent to one-third of the total land area. In the dry areas, 50 percent of
those who started out as landless acquired some land.
In Karimpur, Uttar Pradesh, Wadley and Derr (1989) observe a decrease in the proportion of landless
families from 1925 to 1975, with a further sharp fall between 1975 and 1984, and in North Arcot, Tamil Nadu,
11 In fact, the final 'decline' into landlessness of such households might indicate that they can afford to
withdraw from agriculture altogether, and could therefore just as well indicate an improvement in living
standards.
8



HazeUl and Ramasamy (1991) find no evidence of any general increase in loss of land by small landholders over
time.
2.2.2. Land Transactions
Srinivas (1976) reports that in Mysore, 'parting with ancestral land was a serious matter under any
circumstances, and selling or mortgaging it to indulge in one's taste for women, gambling and liquor was
regarded as a heinous offense against those closest to the wrong-doer." If this attitude to land ownership can be
generalised to rural India more broadly, it is not surprising that few viUage studies observe high levels of activity
in the land market in rural India. This is in conformance with the general perception of low turnover in land
markets in developing countries (see Binswanger and Rosenzweig, 1986a).
In Palanpur, Dreze, Lanjouw and Sharma (forthcoming) find that 'the land market is quite 'inactive'...in
the sense that sales and purchases of land are infrequent events.' Over the period 1957-93, the average amount of
land transacted in Palanpur was found to be barely half of one per cent per annum. Similar results are presented
by Saith and Tankha (1992) for Parhil, another village in Uttar Pradesh. They report the land market to be "inert
and sluggish' with a low frequency of sales and small areas of transaction (a turnover of 0.5 per cent per annum).
The turnover rates reported by Walker and Ryan (1990) for the ICRISAT villages (0.7 per cent per annum) and
by Beck (1994) for Fonogram village in West Bengal (less than 1 per cent) also conform with the observed
inactivity in the rural land market.12
The inactivity of the land market provides some counter-evidence to the notion of rapid land polarization
in rral areas. Moreover, it is obvious that activity in the land market does not, in itself, imply increased
polarization in landholdings either. Harriss (1986) finds, for instance, that in 4 viUages in North Arcot district,
Tamil Nadu, small holders frequently added to their holdings while the large holders more often than not sold
land.  In Palanpur, half of the relatively modest quantity of land sold between 1957 and 1993 was sold by
Thakurs, the dominant landowning caste in the village, but one whose traditional occupation did not involve
cultivation (DLS). This observation, that land sales involve transfers from landed but traditionally non-
cultivating castes, to traditionally cultivating castes, has also been noted in Jha (1994).
12 Bliss, Laujouw and Stem (forthcoming) suggest that typical motives for land transactions, such as life-cycle
changes, moving jobs, adjustments to desired capital holdings as a result of changing wealth, and changes in
perceived returns to different forms of assets, while not absent in a village such as Palanpur, are much more
muted in a rural Indian village than one might expect to find in a developed country context. In addition, the
"thinness" of the land market in Palanpur can be linked to a number of different types of transactions costs, and
these may also be present in other vilages.
9



Some village studies do offer interesting exceptions to the general pattern of relatively low levels of
activity. These suggest that although there may be important transaction costs in the rural land market, they are
not insurnountable.
The arrival of canal irrigation is one factor which appears to stimulate increased levels of activity in the
land market. Epstein (1973) reports that the conversion of dry land to wet in rural Karnataka led to an "overnight"
increase in land prices, presumably because canal irrigation arrived at once over a large area, leading to a sudden
change in land productivity and expected retumns to land ownership. Epstein describes how early land sales
proved to be economically disadvantageous for the sellers, and that those who had better access to credit and were
less risk-averse were able to buy this land and profit in the longer-term. She suggests that between 1954-56 and
1970, the poor in two Karnataka villages have become poorer in both relative and absolute terms. The increased
polarization is due in part to the profits the jaggery boom procured for those farmers who owned two or more
acres of wet land.     Canal irrigation is often accompanied by the extension of cash crop cultivation which,
although potentially lucrative and perhaps also less exposed to harvest fluctuations than non-irrigated crops, is
vulnerable to the vagaries of the market. In a village in the famine tract of Maharashtra, booms and busts in the
market for sugar are reported by Attwood (1979) as having been a driving force behind distress sales which were
a important source of downward mobility among the largest cane growers and their creditors, many of whom
were overextended. This is an instance in which distress sales, though largely responsible for the high level of
transactions, had an equalizing effect on the distribution of land ownership.
2.2.3 Land Legislation
Village studies report mixed effects from land legislation focussed on limiting the size of landholdings or
of strengthening the security of tenure of sharecroppers. A few find a progressive distributional effect and some
find increased concentration. Most find that the ultimate changes induced by land legislation were not those
originally intended by the architects of the legislation. Thus well-intentioned land reform can often be counter-
productive.
Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) conclude that some deconcentration of land holdings in
Tiruchirapalli had taken place over the preceding generation and could be attributed largely to land reform
legislation which compelled large landlords to sell their land. They argue that the success of land legislation in
this instance could be accounted for by the success of the particularly active Tenant's Movement in the area
combined with a high incidence of absentee landlords. Similar legislation elsewhere in Tamil Nadu did not,
however, achieve the same degree of success. For Tanjavur district Gough (1987) concludes that land reform was
far from successful in achieving its stated objectives of: raising wages for agricultural labourers; abolishing
intermediary non-cultivating tenures; providing security of tenure to cultivating tenants; establishing fair rents for
10



tenants; limiting the size of landholdings; and allotting confiscated land to the landless. There was widespread
evasion of land ceilings, and many tenants were evicted. Kapadia (1992) reports a similar pattem among the
Pallars of Poovaloor in Tamil Nadu, where nmsguided legislation resulted, perversdy, in the eviction of tenants.
For two villages in the neighboring state of Kerala, Mencher (1980) finds that land legislation passed in
the early 1970s, giving permanence of tenure and also ownership rights to former tenants, had two divergent
effects depending whether landlords had tenants or not. Those who stil had tenants in the 1970s (among these,
many Brahman landlords) were able to retain only that portion of their land which they had kept to cultivate with
hired labour or which they had left uncultivated. Consequently, many of these families were, in 1980, quite poor.
On the other hand, those landlords who had rid themselves of tenants in the late 1950s and early 1960s, did not
suffer any substantial adverse effects from the legislation. Mencher further finds that the only benefit most
agricultural labourers derived from the legislation was the acquisition of permanent rights to their house sites, and
a tiny piece of land immediately around their houses. Mencher pointed out that since in Tamil Nadu, the chen
(harijan quarter) was always hanjan property, from which evictions could not take place, landless agricultural
labourers in Kerala only just acquired what the landless in Tamil Nadu had always possessed.
In the semi-arid ICRISAT villages, Walker and Ryan (1990) indicat that little land changed hands
diwectly because of the land ceiling and tenancy legislation. Most of the redistribution effects were indirect results
of the land reforms. Since the threat of confiscation was perceived as being real by large farmers, the risk of land
accumulation increased. This increased risk, coupled with the advent of irrigation resulted in a shift in emphasis
to irrigation investment away from rainfed land acquisition. While land reform in Gough's villages appears to
have resulted in the eviction of tenants, large farmers in the ICRISAT viUlages are reported to have developed
instead an aversion to long-term tenancy - a development which Walker and Ryan claim has led to more equitable
access to land among prospective tenants.
In Karimpur, a village east of Agra, Uttar Pradesh, two developments took place which changed the
pattern of land distribution, with varying degrees of success (Wadley and Deff (1989)). The first, the Uttar
Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act of 1950, in conjunction with land ceilings meant that (i)
absentee zamindars (land agents) were eliminated and tilers acquired land ownership and (ii) there was a
redistribution of land to non-Brahmins. The results were by and large progressive in this case. On the other hand,
land consolidation during 1967-70, though meant to regroup the holdings of smallholders, seems to have
benefited richer farmers disproportionately. DLS note that in Palanpur, an attempt at very modest land
redistribution in 1976 (six households were allotted one acre of government-owned Palanpur land), involved a
considerable amount of corruption and did not benefit the poor, although these were the intended beneficiaries.
Similarly, they judge that while a land consolidation exercise carried out in Palanpur in 1985-86 was broadly
11



successful in reducing land fragmentation, influential farmers exploited their connections with the headman to use
consolidation as an opportunity to obtain an improved holding in quality terms.
In West Bengal, Chattopadhyay (1992) claims that ceiling laws had no direct impact on the village of
Rajoor, because no land was declared as surplus and vested with the Government for redistribution. There were,
however, two important indirect effects. The first was that large joint families, in an attempt to evade the land
ceilings, separated into smaler proprietary units, and although this did not initially change the pattern of land
management among these families it did sow what Chattpadhyay terms as the 'seeds of fragmentation (among
large, wealthy joint families, and their dominance of village politics)". Second, as observed elsewhere, it led to
the large-scale eviction of tenants by landowners. Beck (1994) indicates that in Fonogram, a muslim village in an
agro-climatically favourable part of Midnapore district, West Bengal, the program of sharecropper registration
called Operation Barga had had no effect whatsoever, nor was there any redistribution of land. However, another
program of land redistribution did have an impact in the two relatively poorly endowed villages of Bithigram and
Keshipur, in the same district. Although the quality of land redistributed was generally low (and occasionally
uncultivable), sheduled caste and tribal households did receive a sizeable proportion of the land.
2.2.4 Tenancy arrangements
The volume of evidence from village studies on the incidence of tenancy is testimony to the resilience of
tenancy as an institution. Village studies point to four broad developments over time in the operation of this
institution. First, there has been a movement from sharecropping towards fixed rent contracts (including those
where the payment is in-kind, and which might be misconstrued as sharecropping). Second, landlords have
generally become more involved in cost-sharing and supervision of day to day operations. Third, there has been a
shift away from permanent labor towards tenancy in areas where permanent labour used to be common. Finally,
there has been emergence of what is commonly referred to as 'reverse tenancy", i.e., the leasing of land by larger
landholders from smaller landholders.
Dreze and Sharma (forthcoming) indicate that in Palanpur the tenancy market is very active, with several
features of tenancy contracts worth noting. First, tenants and landlords in Palanpur are widely distributed in the
scales of per-capita income, land ownership, caste status, etc. Contrary to "the clich6 that pitches the helpless
tenant against an oppressive landlord, the average characteristics of the two groups are remarkably similar' (Dreze
and Sharma, forthcoming). Second they point out that each year there is considerable turnover, with landlords
and tenants re-sorting themselves. This process includes some tenants becoming landlords and vice-versa.
Drbze and Sharma describe how the evolution of tenancy contracts in Palanpur is closely associated with
the intensification and increased market orientation of agriculture. In the past, non-labor inputs in cultivation
were relatively unimportant. Tenants were generally small, poor, farmers with little or no land. Landlords were
12



wealthy and less risk-averse, with better access to credit, but with a traditional reluctance to engage directly in
cultivation themselves. Sharecropping contracts thus involved an implicit and secured loan from landlord to
tenant (with rent being postponed until after the harvest). Sharecropping contracts also shifted some of the risks
of cultivation from cultivators to landlords. With agricultural intensification, there has been an expansion of cost-
sharing of inputs (irrigation, fertilizers, seeds and so on). This has led to a reduction in economic differentiation
between landlords and tenants, as poor households lose the ability to contribute their share of cultivation costs,
and as ownership of indivisible productive assets such as pumping sets or tractors creates an incentive for some of
the larger landowners to lease-in land. This has resulted in some cases of large farmers leasing-in land from small
landowners (the phenomenon of reverse tenancy). The emergence of tenants who are less risk averse and credit
constrained than in the past also provides an explanation for the shift away from share-cropping contracts towards
fixed-rent tenancy contracts m Palanpur.  In interpreting these developments Dreze and Sharma make the
important point that while tenancy contracts have evolved in such a way that there is now less differentiation
between landlords and tenants (which might be interpreted in a positive light), there are reasons to expect that the
poor are now more excluded from participation in the tenancy ma-ket than they were in the past.
Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) find for their vilLages in Tiruchirapalli district, Tamil Nadu, that
fixed rents almost completely dominate, accounting for 97% of leased-in land. Although the rising incidence of
fixed-rent leases does appear to be something of a general trend, to have such a high proportion of fixed rents is
certainly unusual. In this particular case, the authors suggest that it is due primarily to the high incidence of
absentee landlords (60 per cent of the area under registered leaseholds). The authors regard the movement from
sharecropping to fixed rents in their Thiruchipalli villages as evidence of the disappearance of most 'exploitative
forms of tenancy".
Ramachandran (1990) finds that in Gokilapuram (a vilage in the Cumbum vaUey in Tamil Nadu) the
input share and supervision by landlords in share cropping arrangements have increased. Ramachandran points out
that the reduced involvement of the tenant in cost-sharing under the sharecropping arrangement has made it
increasingly difficult to draw a distinction between tenant and agricultural laborer. This finding and its
accompanying assertion are echoed by Ravi Srivastava who notes that in Alipurjeeta, a vilage in Uttar Pradesh,
"Iandlord supervision over tenants' holdings has increased and leasing contracts in which landlords provide a
greater proportion of the cost share and receive a proportionately greater share of output are also no longer
unknown" (Srivastava, 1995). He concludes that leasing contracts, which are now issued seasonally for labour-
intensive crops, make it increasingly difficult to distinguish tenants from piece rated workers, except that the
former continue to share the risks.
An increased incidence of "reverse tenancy' (smallholders leasing land to largeholders) is a phenomenon
observed in village studies other than Palanpur. Walker and Ryan (1990) observe that the decline in the median
13



size of operational holdings in the ICRISAT villages has been more gradual than that of owned holdings because
of the phenomenon of reverse tenancy. This is particularly true in dryland areas since off-farm employment in
these regions tends to be more lucrative than own farm cultivation on small plots of land; in rainfall-assured
Kanzara, by contrast, operational area is approximately equal to owned area. Janakarajan, in his re-study of a
Tamil Nadu village, finds a new form of tenancy: multiple year reverse tenancy, or Kazippukuthagai
(Janakarajan, 1996). In this example, traders of korai (a commercial crop) enter into multiple-year contracts
leasing in land from small landholders.
2.3. Occupational Change
2.3.1 Decline of Traditional Labour services
The decline of traditional caste occupations has received much attention from village studies. But though
the broad trend seems to hold fairly widely, there do also seem to be some exceptions. In addition, the village
studies suggest that the trend, by itself, does not suffice to imply that the households previously occupied in such
activities have slipped into greater poverty.
Wiser and Wiser (1971) describe in some detail the services offered by kamins, or the "service castes", a
group to which traditional artisans belonged. Despite being an essential part of Karimpur's life in 1925, the
"H.indu jajmani system' (whereby customary payments are received in return for the performance of regular
services for a patron) was virtually extinct in the Uttar Pradesh village by 1984, as described in a subsequent
resurvey of Karimpur by Wadley and Derr (1989). They attribute the extinction of demand for the services
offered by kamins to three main factors: (i) behavioral change; (ii) technological change and mechanization; and
(iii) greater market integration. Where ritual services continue to be both demanded and provided, Wadley and
Derr (1989) indicate that kamins are now paid 'by event' (i.e. as and when services are provided) rather than in
fixed annuities for year-round services - a development which points to the casualization of those services which
have not disappeared altogether.
Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) comment on the casualization of certain services and the
extinction of yet others in their Tamil Nadu villages. They report that even those traditional artisans (such as
blacksmiths, carpenters, and cobblers) who continue to be regulated by the old jajmani system, supplement their
income by working against cash payment for other customers, or as agricultural wage labourers. Leaf (1983)
reports that over half the har#ans in a Ludhiana (Punjab) village who were formerly weavers are now
predominantly engaged in full-time agricultural work, and some sweeper families who previously played at
weddings no longer do so.
14



While the caste-based nature of the traditional artisan system incorporated rigid, often insurmountable
barriers to entry, Ramachandran (1990) points out that barriers to obtaining employmnent in manual labour are
negligible. In Gokilapuram, a village in the Cumbum valley in Tamil Nadu, he describes how two-thirds of those
in the artisan or service castes have moved out of their traditional activities, mainly into manual labour. In fact,
the low barriers to entry in manual labour has meant that agricultural labour is the most caste-heterogeneous
activity in the village.
DLS also comment on the virtual disappearance of several traditional village-based caste occupations in
Palanpur, but note that some other occupations for which there is a high income elasticity of demand, such as
carpentry, continue to be in strong demand. Nor does a shift out of traditional occupations necessarily imply a
decline in absolute living standards. In Palanpur the decline of traditional labor occupations has preceded rising
real wages in the economy (including rsing agricultural wage rates).
2.3.2. The Casualization of Labour Contracts
Parallel to the decline in traditional labor services, village studies have also noted a decline in traditional
farm labor arrangements. There has, first, been a noticeable decline in long-term patron-client relationships
between employer and laborer in favor of more casual, non-personalized, contracts. Second, in some parts of the
country, there has been an increase in the sub-contracting of specific cultivation tasks to labor "gangs' (often
comprising migrants).
In general, it seems to be the case that villages which continue to have a predominantly agrarian base
tend to be more reliant on traditional labour relationships than those which have experienced more occupational
diversification, and greater market integration. But it is difficult to single out a specific cause for observed
changes in labor relationships. In addition, it is important to realize that 'decline" is not the same as "demise". In
some cases, the traditional farm servant arrangement has been replaced by the so-called "right of first call",
whereby the workers first check in at their patron's house to see if there is any work available, before seeking
employment elsewhere. Thus village studies indicate that "traditional" labour relationships need not be either
rigid or static. Indeed, as Breman (1993) indicates, even in villages where the use of permanent farm servants was
conmon in the past, cultivators often 'permitted, these servants to seek work elsewhere during the slack season.
Do casualized contracts imply greater poverty? One point of view is that those agricultural labourers
who have gone from being permanent farm servants to being casual labourers have in some sense acquired a
greater freedom of choice in employment as a result. For Ramachandran (1990), for instance, even the "right of
first call" remains a manifestation of "unfreedom" in agriculturl labourers' choice of employer. On the other
hand Breman (1993) contends that although bondage was in large part imposed, it was advantageous for the
permanent servant to have year-round employment, and that therefore, "servitude was preferred to free labour by
15



landowners and agricultural labourers alike, and paradoxically, for the same reason: the unequal distribution of
the work on the land over different seasons". Epstein (1973) echoes this sentiment when she recounts the
expression of envy on the part of casual agricultural labourers in unirrigated Dalena at the continuation of the
permanent farm servant institution, however "unfree", in Wangala.
As another manifestation of the 'depatronization" of labor relations, Gough (1987) observes a movement
away over time from in-kind payments in rural Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu. More specificaly, attached labourers
received more income in cash, were less likely to be given clothing and life cycle rites goods, and were not given
a plot of land in the 1980s, whereas they tended to be provided with all of the above in the 1950s. Walker and
Ryan (1990) observe a similar decline of in-kind payments to farm servants in several of the ICRISAT study
villages. They attribute this to the diminishing importance of the "survival motive". They justify this claim with
the observation that in Sholapur, which is drought-prone and is characterized by high income variability, payment
in kind continues to be important.
One implication of the expansion in casualized labor contracts and the rise of cash payments is that trends
in wage rates can be monitored to track the economic position of a well-defined segment of the vilage population.
Agricultural daily wage rates have been observed to be remarkably uniform across laborers (of the same gender)
within a village.13 As a result, the prevailing wage rate in a given village can be monitored to check whether
laborers' earnings are rising over time (assuming no offsetting changes in days of employment). 14
In addition to the "casualization' or "depatronization' discussed above, two additional trends have been
widely observed in village studies. First, permanent servants are being replaced by "gang" (often migrant)
labour, and second, there has been an expansion of piece-rate contracts over time.
Breman (1993) claims that the movement from cane cultivation (which is highly labour intensive) to fruit
tree cultivation (which only requires hired labour durng picking season) after World War II was the primary
cause of the widely observed expansion of gang labor in Gujurat. He notes that things might have been different
if more labour intensive crops had been cultivated. However, Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) observe
that in their Thiruchirapali viHlages, contract gang labour has been spreading and gradually replacing wage labour
13 Dreze and Mukherjee (1989) survey the structure and functioning of rural labor markets, as seen from the
vilage-study perspective, more generally. See also Datt (1996).
14 Dreze and Sharma (forthcoming) observe that standardized contract terms are not uncommon in a number of
other village markets. They suggest that such standardized contracts may be preferred over personalized contracts
for a number of reasons. For example, personalzed contracts may be considered as a form of "discrimination"
which may generate resentment within the village community. Standardized contracts may give expression of
group solidarity. There may also be efficiency gains from a reduction in the economic and social costs of repeated
haggling and a reduction in uncertainty.
16



and displacing permanent farm servants, even for labor-intensive crops. Gang labour is a collective piece-rate
system; payment is for the whole operation and is generally shared equally between member of the gangs. While
the system originated with large-scale banana cultivation at the turn of the century, it expanded further under
cane, and with the expansion of irrigation. These new cash crops demanded more labour per unit than traditional
paddy cultivation. Nevertheless, Athreya et al (1990) claim that the use of gang labor has now become common
even for paddy cultivation. A similar picture obtains in a village in Ludhiana, Punjab, as described by Leaf
(1983). He notes that the advent of the Green Revolution has led to a marked increase in "periodic labour needs'
which is met by an increase in the hiring of gang labor.
Desai (1983) reports that "time wages have been replaced by piece wages for all major operations without
much resistance". Bhalla (1976) echoes this finding noting a movement from long-term to piece-rate work in
Haryana. Saith and Tankha (1992) suggest that the shift is not only from long-term to piece-rate work, but also
from casual, daily-wage labor toward piece-rate labor. Dreze and Sharma (forthcoming) suggest that in Palanpur,
farmers have a clear view of the respective merits of piece-rate and daily wage contracts. Piece-rate contracts
dispense with the need for close supervision and tasks are often achieved at greater speed, but such contracts are
less suitable where there are important quality-control considerations. Dreze and Sharma suggest therefore that
the choice of one contract over the other will depend crucially on the particular tasks for which labor is being
hired. Harvesting activities, for example, seem to be particularly well suited to piece-rate contracts. 5
2.3.3 Expansion of non-agricultural employment
Discussions of occupational change in village India tend to centre around the decline of traditional labor
services. This trend is often perceived in a negative light and becomes associated with involuntary occupational
displacement or even unemployment. A topic which has received relatively little attention, however, and which is
clearly relevant to the debate on the decline of traditional occupations, is the expansion and diversification of non-
agricultural employment.
Many village studies comment on the expansion of non-agricultural employment, although few pursue
this important development in detail. Wiser and Wiser (1971), for instance, notice the emergence of a tea stall by
the bus stand, and new bicycle and tractor repair shops. Epstein (1973) reports on the movement of entrepreneurs
to the tertiary sector; in 1970, cafes, shops, and cattle trading posts, cane crushers, and rice mills emerged where
Baland, Dreze and Leruth (1996) suggest that piece-rate contracts are attractive to highly productive
workers, who can raise their earnings above the village daily wage rate with such contracts, but also to the least
productive workers who might otherwise be rationed from employment in the daily wage labor market.
17



they had not existed in 1955. Srinivas (1976) notes investment in bus lines, while Saith and Tankha (1992)
comment on bandplaying as a local speciality of growing importance to the residents of Parhil, Uttar Pradesh."6
Observations of this kind, though somewhat superficial, are informative in that they are indicative of an
expansion of employment opportunities which have, in many cases, accompanied contractions such as the
decreasing viability of many traditional services. While several authors point out that barriers to entry remain
strict for those traditional services which continue to be viable, few take note of the opportunities offered by
greater market integration and technological advances. When Bailey (1957) and Srinivas (1976) say that
traditional servitudefell into disfavor with the rise of the market economy, they could just as well have remarked
upon the increased alternative employment opportunities which were becoming available as a result of greater
market integration. Moreover, the new labour market and self-employment opportanities tend to be rather caste
heterogeneous, thus compensating at least in part, for the contraction in the market for traditional labour services.
Village study evidence suggests that off-farm labour market opportunities are an important means of
offsetting declines or high variances in income. In North Arcot, Tamil Nadu, Ilazell and Ramasamy (1991)
indicate that although new agricultural machinery was displacing hired labor in paddy cultivation, real wage rates
in agriculture actually rose (at least for some activities) as a result of increased off-farm employment and the
consequent tightening of village labor markets. Epstein (1973) notes that whern the advent of irrigation in
Wangala (in Kamataka) made farming less viable in the neighboring, unirrigated, village of Dalena, most of the
landless and marginal farmers found ermployment as laborers for contractors, or for the Public Works Department
directly, in construction and maintenance of the irrigation canal.
Walker and Ryan (1990) find that in the ICRISAT villages, non-agricultural self-employment and labour
market earnings have become increasingly important sources of income, increasing mean and dampening
household income variability in the 1980s. The latter effect seems, in fact, to be the main source of improvement
in living standards for rural households in this sample of 6 villages located in the semi-arid region of India.
In Palanpur, the expansion of non-agricultural wage employment has taken the form of both regular and
casual employment outside the village (DLS, and Bliss, Lanjouw and Stem, forthcoming). In this village, located
on the densely populated Gangetic plain, wage employment outside the village generally involves commuting to
some nearby town within the district. Commuters have found employment in a wide range of establishments,
both public and private, but the jobs in question rarely involve advanced slills or education levels. In Palanpur
there is evidence of excess demand for employment in the non-agricultural sector (wage rates are relatively high,
t6 Most of these anecdotes describe instances of self-employment outside of agriculture. In fact, evidence from
village studies suggests that non-farm wage employment has expanded more rapidly than non-farm self-
employment. This is also supported by secondary data (Visaria and Basant, 1993).
18



and work conditions are generally perceived to be less arduous than agricultural work), and as result the question
of how these jobs are allocated is of considerable interest. DLS indicate that the process may be governed in part
by an ability to pay a bribe, but also seems to involve personal connections. They illustrate that regular non-
agricultural jobs tend to "cluster' around a small number of establishments where some village resident initially
succeeded in making an entry, and then helping others to follow him later. Those who follow frequently belong
to the same caste as the initial entrant, or have some other bond with those who preceded them.
This role of personal contacts and influences in job search, if more widely applicable, could have wide
ranging implications. It could, for example, explain the large gap between rural and urban wages; the low
turnover of regular jobs; and the fact that persons with low social status seem to be at a disadvantage in the
competition for regular jobs, even for given skills and endowments.17 These features of the labor market can
obviously have an important bearing on the distributional consequences of the expansion of non-agricultural wage
employment.
This distribution of non-agricultural employment and earnings is likely to reflect two distinct influences.
First, some (usually the better educated, or otherwise privileged) have more opportunities for non-agricultural
employment. Second, the poor with lower "reservation' wages might make greater use of available opportunities.
In Palanpur there has been a clear pattern over time of the relatively better-off in the village acquiring an
increasing share of non-agricultural employment and earnings. By 1993, the end of the survey period, the high-
ranked Thakurs had a disproportionate share of non-agricultural employment. This pattern of a gradual reduction
in the share of non-agricultural ermployment and earnings for disadvantaged groups has also been observed by
Wadley and Derr (1989) in Karimpur, also in western Uttar Pradesh, and Leaf (1983) for a village in Punjab.is
2.3.4 Agricultural Wages
One of the more important distributional impacts of the Green Revolution and the expansion of the non-
farm economy has been felt through their influence on agricultural wages. Until recently it was widely believed
that real wages in rural India showed no significant upward trend. This conclusion was based on evidence from
secondary data (such as Kurien, 1980) and also supported in some village-studies (Walker and Ryan, 1990).
However, more recent analyses suggest that an upward trend did, in fact, emerge in the 1970s and 1980s in most
17 Probit models estimated by Bliss, Lanjouw and Stern (forthcoming) indicate that Jatabs, the lowest caste in
the Palanpur hierarchy of castes, were significantly less likely to be employed in regular wage employment
outside the village, controlling for education and wealth characteristics. (See also Unni, 1997).
1' The recent expansion of non-agricultural employment in rural Uttar Pradesh as a whole has been widely
documented, see for example Ranjan (1994) and Shanma and Poleman (1993).
19



regions of India (Acharya, 1989).19 The rise over time of agricultural wages is also remarked on in numerous
village studies (for example, Leaf, 1983, Ramachandran, 1990, Harriss, 1989, Guhan and Mencher, 1983).
DLS indicate that in Palanpur real wages since 1974/75 have displayed a rising (if not monotonic) trend,
and have consistently remained well above the levels that prevailed in either 1957/58 or 1962/63. This
improvement appears more dramatic when wage rates are expressed in terms of the wheat that they can purchase.
Because the relative price of wheat declined in Palanpur, reflecting a large increase in the all-India production of
wheat over time, one day of casual labor in 1993 fetched more than 8kgs of wheat, compared to less than 3kgs in
1957/58. Similarly, Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) show that because of a withdrawal from agricultural labor by
large farmers and the expansion of competing employment opportunities in dairying and non-farm activities,
agricultural employment earnings doubled between 1974/75 and 1983/84 for landless labor, small paddy farm,
and non-agricultural households.
2.3.5. Labor migration
The increasing importance of labour migration in income earnings opportunities is a well documented
phenomenon. Drawing from numerous large-scale surveys (such as the NSS and Government of Tamil Nadu
surveys), Kurien (1980) finds that in rural Tamil Nadu, there seems to have developed a willingness of the poorer
sections of the population to give up not only their traditional occupations, but also their places of work. Village
studies have also noted a rising incidence of migration. Walker and Ryan (1990) observed a tightening of the
labour market from 1974-85 which resulted in a 60 percent increase in male and female real wages in Aurepalle.
During this period, there was decreasing participation in daily wage-labour for a number of reasons, among
which, they claim the most important to be temporary migration due to off-farm employment opportunities in
Hyderabad. Saith and Tankha (1992) observe that in the village of Parhil, Uttar Pradesh, the incidence of out-
migration virtually doubled.
To study changes in the role of labour migration has obvious logistical difficulties in the context of a
closed village study, even one which takes the form of an initial visit to the village followed by one or more re-
visits.20 Nevertheless, the village studies do take note of an important feature concerning changes in rural-urban
migration - namely, that there appears to be a movement from low-caste, low-skilled, to high-caste, high skilled
migration. In Karimpur, Wadley and Deff (1989) observe both an expansion in numlber and type of extra-village
19 There is no clear indication of a trend during the 1990s (Unni, 1996).
X Breman (1985) presents an exhaustive analysis for rural Gujarat within a framework which extends beyond a
single village to encompass a wider region. The ICRISAT study of Walker and Ryan (1990) and the study of
North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu by Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) take a broader, regional, perspective as well.
20



service jobs available to both high and low-skilled migrants, with the balance shifting in favor of the former.
Previously, extra-village service jobs had been held solely by the poor (who migrated to Calcutta to work as
sweepers). By 1984, services jobs had become the 'desired occupation" of wealthier, jati famnilies. The poor
continue, however, to shift from agncultural employment to low-skilled, casual employment in urban centers (as
rickshaw drivers, porters, construction workers, and so on). Leaf (1983) finds that, in a village in Punjab, high
caste jars have participated more actively in out-migration than harijans since the Green Revolution, which has
generally been accompanied by out-migration of wealthier, better-educated groups rather than poorer, unskilled
agricultural labour.
2.3.6. Proletarianization?
Evidence from secondary sources, such as the census, points to an increasing proportion of wage labor
employment in the rural population. This has been sometimes been interpreted to indicate a trend towards
"proletarianization" of the labor force. This term can be interpreted to mean at least two different things. First,
proletarianization may simply describe the shift away from self-employment (mainly in agriculture) towards wage
labor. Second, it can be given the more normative interpretation which assumes that smallholder cultivators are
"pushed" out of agriculture and into wage labor (in contrast to the alternative possibility that they are "pulled" out
of agriculture due to the attraction of better earnings or employment conditions). How one judges this
phenomenon depends on how one defines it. The process of "proletarianization" is a theme which has received
particularly close attention in both village studies and analyses of secondary data for Tamil Nadu. However, it
resonates also for village studies elsewhere in the country.
It is not terribly surprising that Tamil Nadu should have received close attention in this context, given
what Kapadia (1992) describes as "misguided" land legislation in that State which seems to have led to large-scale
eviction of tenants. An analysis by Kurien (1980), based on large-scale surveys, finds that in Tamil Nadu there
has been a "tendency of small farmers to leave land and farming to join the ranks of the rural proletariat". Kurien
claims that this process has been characterized by peasants moving into poorly remunerated activities with
increasing impoverishment and insecurity21. His analysis has, however, been vigorously questioned by Harriss
(1986) who claims that although some "proletarianization" has indeed taken place it is mainly a process of farming
households supplementing their cultivation incomes with wage employment in both agriculture and non-
21 This increase in the proportion of agricultural labourers in the rural workforce over the last few decades in
Tamil Nadu is also observed by Subramanian and Ramachandran (1982).
21



agricultural sources.2 He concludes that there has been a process of 'proletarianization without
depeasantiZation".23
Ramachandran (1990) also demonstrates that a rise in agricultural labour employment does not
necessarily imply a withdrawal from cultivation. In his study of Gokilapuram in the Cumbum valley of Tamil
Nadu, he finds that despite increased polarization in landholdings and a burgeDning number of agricultural
labourers, there continues to be a high incidence of small-scale production among the lower peasantry. He fiurther
observes that in Gokilapuram, small-holders resorted to supplementing their cultivation activities with agncultural
labor rather than selling their own land. Ramachandran therefore regards the expansion of the market for hired
labour as having served to preserve the institution of small-scale production.
The degree to which the expansion of agricultural labor employment is associated with a withdrawal from
cultivation seems to be closely linked to the incidence of tenant-evictions accompanying 'Land to the Tiller"
legislation. In Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu, Gough (1987) finds that there has been a dramatic increase in the category
of male landless agricultural labourers from the 1950s to the 1980s, both in absolute terms, and as a proportion of
the male agricultural labour force. The number of landless agncultural labourers shot up between 1960 and 1970
because of tenant eviction, and through the 1970s and 1980s as more tenants were evicted and more peasants
forced into land sales.
The factors "pushing' the labor force out of self-employment in agriculture to wage labor in Tamil Nadu
are mainly linked to tenant evictions and population pressure on the land (a gradual decline in average farm size).
"Pull" factors have also been present, however. Most important among these has been the expansion of non-
agricultural activities. Whether "push" or 'pull' effects dominate across rural India, varies with the experience of
land legislation, population pressure on the land, and the expansion of non-agricultural opportunities. The fact
that proletarianization often takes place against a background of rising real agricultural wages suggests that the
influence of "pull" factors might in general be more pronounced than the "push" factors.
2.3. 7. Social implications of occupational change
Occupational change is likely to be accompanied by changes in the prevailing social order. Breman
(1993) for instance, regards the disintegration of the jajmani system largely as a product of changes in the scale
22 Harriss (1989) notes a sharp increase in the number of occupations outside of cultivation or agricultural
labour between 1973 and 1984 in the villages he studied in North Arcot.
23 Artireya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) suggest that in fact the process has been one of 'peasantization
rather than proletarianization" from their analysis of villages in Thiruchipelli District in Tamil Nadu, but they
point out that in their study area, the eviction of tenants was not a widespread phenomenon.
22



and type of agriculture pursued, migration, reduced provision of marriage loans, socio-political developments,
and new aspirations among agricultural labourers. He writes "...the relationships lost their local flavor in the
process of enlargement of scale. Commercialization of agriculture and continuously increasing govermment
intervention diminished the importance of local autaky and autonomy. The dnft of memnbers of the artisan and
serving castes to the urban centres, from which they began to serve the surrounding countryside, contributed to
the rise of an ever-increasing number of different contacts which went beyond the village. Depending on the
accessibility of the region, this development began early or late." (p. 21).
The degree of integration with the market economy can have an important influence on the occupational
and social order in the village. In her analysis of rural societal change in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu, between 1852
and 1952, Gough (1981) remarks that coastal regions, which have been more fdisturbed" by external change, tend
to break more easily with the age-old caste-based occupational structure. Where an area's comparative advantage
lies in agriculture, the traditional social order (and associated occupational structure) tends to be relatively more
resilient to change. Breman (1993) believes that differences in soil fertility are largely accountable for differences
in agarian employment. In Gujarat, the village of Chikhlingam is characterized by poor soil quality and
indifferent use of irrigation, so year-round labour was not required. This reinforced the urban orientation of both
the cultivating castes (the Anavils) and the agricultural labour castes (the Dublas), leading to high seasonal
migration among the Dublas. In Gandevigam, where the soil is much more fertile, most Dublas are engaged as
fArm laborers.
Epstein (1973) describes a similar process of social change in the two Kamataka villages she studied, one
of which was served by a recently constructed irrigation canal and another neighbouring village which remained
unserved. The advent of irrigation in Wangala enabled farmers to grow cash crops. However, since Wangala's
eonomy remained almost wholly agricultural, the new cash economy co-existed with the traditional system of
hereditary relationships between Wangala Peasants and their "functionaries". The latter was reinforced by the
introduction of labour-intensive cash crops, and this, in turn, rendered virtually impotent the All-India anti-
Untouchability policies in Wangala. Economic diversification in neighboring Dalena (which remained unirrigated)
led to increased factionalism as the glue of agriculture no longer bound the villagers together. The radical
economic change which Dalena underwent at the advent of irrigation into the region undermined the hereditary
pnrciples on which the society had been formed. Greater integration into the rural economy led Dalena
commuters into contact with the wider world, where the principles of differentiation along caste lines and other
social institutions were diluted. Ramachandran's (1990) evidence from Gokilapuram is much the same. He notes
that the structure of control over labor relations has been rigid in areas of surplus paddy production (which are
irrigated areas) and more lax in unirrgated areas. In the former, the traditional occupations of harijans (sweepers,
watchmen, and cleaners in particular) have tended to be maintained.
23



3. Poverty and Living Standards
3.1 General Trends
Aggregate economic statistics on the evolution of poverty in India point fairly unambiguously towards
steady, albeit slow, progress in the reduction of poverty. The poverty headcount (based on various rounds of the
National Sample Survey Organization's household surveys of consumption) declined from 53 % in 1970 to 36 % in
1991 (Datt, 1995, and Datt and Ravallion, 1996a). This decline was driven principally by the fall in poverty in
rural areas (from 55 % to 37 %), where the bulk of the population still lives and where the incidence of poverty has
always been highest. Poverty measures which give greater weight to the poorest of the poor declined more
rapidly: the poverty gap in rural areas declined at 1.77% per year between 1951-92 (compared to a fall of 0.82%
per year for the rural headcount over this period); and in rural areas the squared poverty gap declined at 2.55%
per annum (Datt, 1995). These measures suggest that the poorest of the poor, in per capita consumption terms,
have seen the more pronounced improvements.
Other indicators of well-being generally lend support to the notion that living standards have been rising
in lndia over time. Female literacy rates, for example, rose from below 10% in 1950 to 39% by 1990; male
literacy rates expanded from 27% to 64% over the same period; life expectancy in India in 1950 was only 32.1
years, by 1990 rising to 59.2 years (Dreze and Sen, 1995).  The complementary relationship between
consumption-based poverty calculations and these other dimensions of living standards is borne out by the
observation of Datt and Ravallion (1996a) that poverty reduction, measured in terms of consumption levels, has
been most rapid over time in Kerala, the state which has achieved the most dramatic improvements in social
indicators since independence.
The analysis based on national or state-level data are also supported by raore disaggregated statistical
studies. Dreze and Srinivasan (1996), for example, examine National Sample Survey data for 61 constituent
regions (loosely defined in terms of agroclimatic characteristics) in India in 1972/73 and 1987/88. They find little
evidence of regional 'pockets' where the incidence of poverty has risen. Nor has inequality widened markedly
within these regions over time.
The picture from secondary data, in terms of direction of change, is thus fairly positive. What is equally
clear however, is that the absolute levels of deprivation are still very high. This is true in terms of consumption-
based poverty (where the poverty threshold defined in absolute terms is conservative by any yardstick), and also
in terms of social indicators. India in the 1990s is still far from its goal of universal primary education, and
freedom from hunger and preventable illness.
24



To enquire into the question of how poverty has evolved over time from a village study perspective
requires caution because relatively few village studies track absolute poverty, measured in terms of consumption
or income, over time. Rather, they tend to scrutinize the position of households relative to each other and these
changes in relative poverty can occur alongside improvements in living standards for all. Beck (1994), for
example, argues that poverty rose in three West Bengal villages during the late 1980s, even though he documents
an increase in incomes of the poorest households. His judgement, reflecting the perception of villagers
themselves, is based on the observation that the rich in these villages enjoyed significantly larger increases in
income than the poor during this same period. Of course, this combining of aspects of poverty and inequality is,
in itself, quite illuminating and deserves close examination (it will also be discussed further in Section 4).
In Palanpur, Uttar Pradesh, the proportion of the population below any reasonable poverty line clearly
declined between 1957-8 and 1983-84 (DLS). However, the authors show that poverty rates can fluctuate
markedly on a year to year basis as a result of variation in the quality of harvest and in the movement of prices.
Moreover, in the income space there is much movement by households in and out of poverty. This is due not
only to factors related to quality of the harvest, but is also associated with demographic factors such as household
partitioning. Nonetheless Lanjouw and Stern (forthcoming) indicate that households of the low-ranked Jatab caste
and households which are reliant on casual agricultural labor as a main source of household income, tend to be
highly represented among the poor in any particular year, irrespective of its level. The relatively high and
constant risk of poverty among agricultural labor and low-caste households is stressed in many village studies (see
also lha, 1994, Mencher, 1980, Ramachandran, 1990, Rodgers, 1984).24
Walker and Ryan (1990) also observe a high degree of movement in and out of poverty in their study
villages. They found that two-thirds of the people moved in or out of poverty in at least 1 of the 9 consecutive
years between 1975/6 - 1983/4. Higher income households had more diversified income streams, and also had
access to a regular source of income (mostly government jobs). The non-poor (those who never crossed the
poverty line in the 9 year period) were more educated, did not actively participate in the casual labour market, and
owned more land. Those who kept moving in and out of poverty were middle-size cultivators, and the consistently
poor were predominantly landless harijans with high dependency ratios. Overall, Walker and Ryan (1990)
measure an increase in real per capita income between 1975/6 to 1983/4 of 3-5% per annum. In Kinkheda and
Kanzara, this was due to improved technology, and, in Shirapur, it was due to public sector food for work
24 Dreze, Lanjouw and Stem (forthcoming) argue that agricultural labor is perceived as a 'last-resort' option
by Palanpur villagers, one which is tumed to only when all other alternatives have been exhausted, and is
therefore a reliable indicator of poverty in any year.
25



programs and the depletion/replenishment cycle folowing the 1971-73 drought. This finding largely conforms
with all-India survey results, i.e. increasing prosperity albeit from a low base.
Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) indicate that in North Arcot, Tamil Nadu, small paddy farmers and
landless laborers gained the largest proportional increases in family income between 1973/74 and 1983/84, 90 and
125 per cent respectively. They conclude that there were sizeable gains for all groups over this period and that
absolute poverty declined.
Vilage studies which observe income levels in multiple years are quite rare. Comparisons of income
across the more common two- period structure, associated with an initial study and a revisit, are vulnerable to the
effect that harvest flnctuations might have. Even where comparisons of income are handicapped in this way, there
are other indicators which can be scrutinized to assess changes in longer-term living standards. Jodha (1989)
finds that in 2 Rajasthani villages, by the more "conventional" per capita income measure, 20% of the households
were poorer in 1982-84 compared to 20 years earlier. At a poverty line of per capita income of Rs. 180 in 1963-
64 prices, the proportion of households below the poverty line increased from 18% in 1964-66 to 23% during
1982-84, with both upward and downward mobility across the poverty line. Households which became poorer
according to the income measure did, however, seem to be better off when seen through other, qualitative,
indicators of their economic well-being. Jodha (1989) pointed to: (i) expanding opportunity sets or increasing
number of choices of employment, borrowing, etc.; (ii) an increase in consumption activities with high income
elasticities (travel, slack season purchases, etc.); and (iii) investment in lumpy consumer durables ("pucca" houses
and structures, etc.).
A reduced reliance on patrons among those who had become poorer is interpreted by Jodha as 'the surest
indicator of their improved economic status". This group also relied less on "inferior jobs" such as food
gathering. Jodha observed that households in 1982-84 had greater liquidity, as indicated by their ability to make
purchases of provisions in bulk, cash purchases during summer season festivals, and the keeping of significant
amounts of cash in hand during the slack season. A higher proportion of the now-poor were able to consume
better quality food items, and offer better maternity diets to women for a longer period. Women and children
wore shoes more regularly, and a higher proportion of the population possessed consumer durables. Notably, the
proportion of households showing qualitative improvement in economic conditions as per these indicators were
not very different in the case of sub-groups of high and low income households which suffered a decline in their
per capita annual income.
25 Although he notes that his comparisons of per capita income may be influenced by the fact that the period of
1964-65 had better crops on average than the period 1982-84.
26



The increased ownership of consumer durables has been widely observed among village studies. Leaf
(1983), for example, finds that in a village in rural Punjab, the Green Revolution has been accompanied by a
substantial improvement in housing and shelter, and Battacharya (1987c) notices a considerable increase in
ownership of some non-traditional items such as radios, torch lights, wrist watches, bicycles, in a series of
villages in rural West Bengal between 1972-74 and 1985-86, although absolute levels remained very low.
The increase, over time, in the ownership of consumer durables in rural areas has been widely interpreted
to indicate an improvement in living standards. It is important to note however, that the expanded ownership of
"modern" consumer durables (which is the increase most often remarked upon) is in part a relative-price effect. In
Palanpur, for example, modern consumer durables have become cheaper relative to livestock and there has been a
clear substitution away from the latter towards the former over time (DLS). In an analogous example, Leaf
(1989) interprets the increased consumption of goatmeat in his Punjab village as being indicative of an
improvement in general welfare. However, this increase in meat consumption was also a product of the pumpset
revolution, which led to a shift from owning draught animals to maintaining livestock for food and marketing
purposes. While ownership of durables has no doubt increased, this is probably only an imperfect index of
change in living standards over time.
Village studies in many areas have also witnessed improvements in social indicators over time.
However, as has been observed with reference to secondary data, there are very strong regional pattems.26
Villages in South India have tended to do better than those in the northern parts of the country. Although
Mencher (1980) argues that poverty in the late 1970s was still widespread amongst agricultural laborers in two
villages in rural Kerala, there is no question that their life expectancy and education levels were already markedly
higher than in other states of the Union. In contrast, literacy rates for females aged 5 and above in the Uttar
Pradesh village of Palanpur had only increased from 0.5 % to 9 % between 1957-58 and 1993 (Dreze and Sharma,
forthcoming).
Much of the impetus behind the decline, albeit slow, of rural poverty over time can be found in the
process of agricultural intensification which has taken place, at a varying pace, across rural India. As we saw in
Sections 2.1 and 2.2, the "Green Revolution" in agriculture, which ushered in new technologies, expanded access
to irrigation and increased mechanization (both land-augmenting and labor-displacing) was broadly scale-neutral
across landholdings. Small farmers were not excluded from participating in the new opportunities. The increased
intensity of cultivation, associated with heightened attention to land preparation, multiple applications of
2 See Dreze and Sen, 1995.
27 The comparable rates for males are not much more impressive: from 18 percent in 1957/58 to 37% in 1993.
27



fertilizers, greater attention to weeding, and so on, led to greater employment of labor. Moreover, agricultural
intensification does not appear to have coincided with a sharp rise in landlessness.
In many areas there has been an expansion of occupations into various non-farm activities (section 2.3).
The expansion of non-farm employment has had important feedback effects on poverty, even if the recipients of
the more attractive jobs have tended to be the non-poor. It has permitted increased agricultural specialization by
relieving pressure on the land due to population growth and by supporting intensified agriculture through agro-
processing and the expanded supply of inputs. And by offering a crucial source of alternative employment, this
process has tightened labor markets, resulting in higher real wages for agricultural laborers and helping to 'pull"
households out of low-productivity activities.
3.2. Instances of impoverishment
Although both large-scale studies and village studies find a general, albeit modest, trend of declining
poverty since the 1960s, there are also pockets where these trends did not emerge.  Such instances of
impoverishment are worth scrutinizing for general lessons.
Rapid population growth represents one factor which can result in increased impoverishment. Village
studies have noted this as a force which can offset rising productivity, and occasionally result in a decline in per
capita incomes. They note that population growth in the agricultural labour force may be a function of land-
augmenting technological change, particularly when the latter induces in-migration of landless laboring
households. Ramachandran (1990) observes stagnation and some decline in wage rates in Gokilapuram between
1948 and 1975. This despite the fact that the region is relatively advanced, and has faced a steep increase in the
demand for labor over the same period. Ramachandran shows that the Cumbum valley experienced a sharp growth
in the relative and absolute size of the agricultural labor force. In the ICRISAT village of Kanzara, Walker and
Ryan (1990) find that despite the increased demand for agricultural labour, there has been an insignificant increase
in wages, due largely to an influx of landless laboring households from neighboring areas.
Where there are factors 'pushing' smallholders into landlessness and agricultural labor, such as tenant
evictions or population growth (as in the example above), the need for offsetting "pull' factors becomes
paramount. Jha (1994) observed increasing poverty in two villages in Kosi district, North Bihar, between 1971-
89. Although the region is agriculturally well-endowed, a number of factors combined to result in stagnant real
agricultural wages for agricultural laborers over this period. Against a background of population growth, there
were numerous instances of tenant-eviction with a concomittant rise in landlessness, growth in the agricultural
labor force, and a decline in employment days per worker. Tha (1994) observed that the incidence of indebtedness
among agricultural laborers had grown over time--most loans were consumption loans taken out from large
landowners and moneylenders. While the incidence of attached labor in Kosi district was in decline, as elsewhere
28



in India, it remained fairly high, and lha (1994) reports that earnings for attached laborers tended to be lower
even than those for daily wage laborers. Unlike various other parts of the country, the non-agricultural sector in
Kosi district remained very underdeveloped, and migration opportunities (to Punjab and other states) had been in
decline.
Many parts of rural India are vulnerable to drought. Village studies indicate that when drought hits, the
impact on the poor can be devastating. Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) show that average incomes in North Arcot,
Tamil Nadu, mi 1982/83 (a severe drought year) were lower than in 1973/74 for all agriculturally dependent
households. Consumption levels in 1982/83 were roughly half their levels in 1983/84 (a year with favorable
rains). The authors indicate that many households in North Arcot did not possess the financial reserves to cope
with droughts, particularly when low rainfall years tend to be bunched together. They argue, that government
public relief works and food subsidies were not adequate in protecting incomes and consumption for most
households. Moreover, the Green Revolution had not exercised a stabilizing effect in North Arcot. This is due to
the fact that irrigation water came from groundwater reserves, which depend on rainfall for their recharge. They
are a usefil way of redistributing the monsoon rains but they provide limited capacity for carrying water from
good to bad rainfall years.
Even against a background of declining poverty in general, it is clear that at any given moment there are
certain subgroups of the population who face a high risk of falling into poverty. The reasons are often associated
with life-cycle events, accidents and illness. For example, Dreze (1990) indicates that in most parts of the India,
because of the common age difference between husbands and wives, women face a high probability of becoming
vidowed during the course of their lifetime. Whether this event translates into a sharp decline in their living
standards depends on factors such as which inheritance laws are adhered to locally, whether there exist restrictions
on women engaging in remunerated employment, and whether the widow has children (in particular, sons) who
can provide support.
It is important to remember that such causes of poverty cannot be expected to disappear automatically, or
even diminish markedly, as a result of a general rise in rural incomes. Although agricultural intensification and
occupational diversification are no doubt having an impact in slowly raising living standards in general over time,
there are always specific circumstances or events which mean that some will experience shortfalls. Village studies
are generally silent on the functioning, or even existence, of a safety net to catch those affected in this way. If
certain villagers are reliant on traditional social support networks then the impact of general income growth on
2' The close association between poverty and access to groundwater resources is explored by Bhatia (1992) for
villages in rural Gujarat. Saith and Tankha (1992) and Dreze, Lanjouw and Sharma (1997) point to declining
groundwater tables in the Gangetic plain, caused by unregulated and expanding pumpset irrigation, as a potential
cause for concern.
29



such social networks becomes critical. We have seen that village studies do suggest that with the intensification of
agriculture and of links with the outside world, certain institutions, such as jajmani and permanent labor
contracts, have declined. Whether the decline of such social institutions has been compensated for in the general
environment of rising incomes is one which requires case-by-case empirical investigation but cannot be asserted a
priori. We will return to some of these points in Section 5.
3.3. The Perceptions of the Poor
Income or consumption-based measures of well-being are often accused of failing to capture local
perceptions of how living standards have evolved over time. This is an area where village studies offer useful
information since the closeness of the authors to their subject makes them privy to information which is simply
not available to the conductors of larger-scale studies.
Bhattacharya et al. (1987e) find that 60 to 80 percent of households in a series of villages in rural West
Bengal felt that their standard of living with respect to social consumption (drinking water, medical care,
education, "roads and transport", and "recreation and culture") had improved over time, while less than 10
percent felt that there had been a deterioration. Most people were of the opinion that the "general population' had
had roughly the same fate as their own household. More generally, Bhattacharya et al (1987e) find that 50 to 60
percent of people felt that their overall living standards had gone up, while about 20 to 25 percent perceived a
deterioration. The main reason for the perceived change was a perceived increase or decrease respectively in real
income. In his study of two villages in westem Rajasthan, Jodha (1989) reports that farmers saw their economic
status as having improved through a reduction of reliance on traditional patrons, better access to high wage
employment, improved mobility and liquidity, a shift towards better consumption goods (e.g. sugar rather than
jaggery to sweeten tea), and the acquisition of consumer durables.
Importance attached to personal freedom and dignity, even among very poor people is a recurrent theme.
Indeed, a desire to secure personal freedom and dignity can be a driving force behind the acquisition of assets.
Srinivas (1976) writes: "Landownership and wealth were occasionally able to mitigate if not overcome the effects
of birth in a ritually low caste.. .No wonder then, that there was a general scramble for land. The rich competed
among themselves to acquire more land, for a variety of reasons, economic, political and social.. .The poor, and
the low castes, wanted land for it meant freedom from hunger and bondage to patron, and also self-respect."
(p.111).
Self-reliance through the acquisition of productive assets is, nevertheless, not always a realistic goal, and
among those dependent on wage employment, village studies indicate that the decline of traditional patronage is
viewed alternately with approval in terms of increased personal freedom, or with nostalgia for lost security.
Wadley and Derr (1989) find that although many of the poor in their Uttar Pradesh village believed their living
30



standards had stagnated in recent years, those who perceived an improvement in their conditions spoke of it in
terms of increased personal freedom rather than reduced hunger or poverty. In contrast, Epstein (1973) suggests
that in the two Karnataka villages she studied, "freedom" is in some cases neither a voluntay choice nor a
desirable option. She remarks that the demise of the traditional jajmani system in Dalena put the traditional
service and laboring castes in a vulnerable position as they could no longer be assured minimal sustenance, and
were at a disadvantage in the regional urban labour market which was largely farmer-dominated. Consequently,
Epstein reports that she often encountered expressions of envy at the continuance of the strong system of
patronage in Wangala, however unfree. A new liberal attitude towards social distance was affected only by a few
low caste men in Dalena, notably those who managed to secure employment outside the village. She reports that
most others were more concerned about their extreme poverty saying: 'you cannot eat social acceptance". On the
other hand, Beck (1994) finds that across three villages in West Bengal, forty-nine out of fifty-eight respondents
claimed they valued self respect more than food.29
That concerns about personal freedom can be something of a luxury is starkly pointed out by Mencher
(1980) who warns against complacency about rural Kerala, where the remarkable inroads being achieved on the
health and literacy front might be taken to imply that poverty has been eliminated. She argues that the "miracle of
Kerala" has not been a miracle for agricultural laborers, many of them women, who are still daily confronted with
the uncertainty of how they are going to feed their children. She points out that while agricultural labourers do
feel a real increase in dignity and personal freedom, associated with their no longer being 'agrestic slaves" but
individuals who are free to organize and to agitate, this has not necessarily brought them much material benefit.
4. Inequality
An enquiry into changes in the distribution of rural living standards is closely related, but not identical,
to the more specific question of how rural poverty has evolved. While the latter question is clearly of great
importance, an appreciation of the overall distribution of living standards in village communities, as well as being
of intrinsic interest itself, can provide important insights for poverty reduction efforts. For example, there have
been many initiatives in rural India aimed at strengthening local decision-making power, under the impression that
this will improve their poverty-reduction impact. The Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) employment programme,
for instance, introduced by the central government in 1989, has adopted "decentralization" as a central platform.
The scheme is implemented by village panchayats, and is intended to be geared to the creation of durable
community assets. How much one can expect from such schemes depends to some extent on how well represented
29 One villager is reported as stating "If I don't have self respect, will food go into the stomach?" (Beck, 1994,
page 141).
31



the poor are in local decision-making. This, and factors such as village solidarity, are likely to be influenced by
the degree of polarization in village living standards.
4.1. Land ownership
We have already considered aspects of the distribution of land in Section 2.2, in particular the issue of
whether there has been rising landlessness in rural India. In this section we focus on land as a major component
of household wealth, and we consider what has been happening to the overall distribution over time. Village
studies' findings on changes in the distribution of land challenge several common cliches. First, there appears to
be a fair amount of change in the distribution of land, belying the common impression that land ownership
patterns are highly static. But, as was already discussed in Section 2.2.1, these changes in the distribution of land
are not necessarily linked to a highly active market for land.
Second, the evidence on whether-disparity in land ownership has increased or decreased varies across
village studies. Although some village studies confirm the common perception of increased polarization in
landownership, others find that there has been a equalizing tendency. Furthermore, it is important to distinguish
between dry and wet areas. Irrespective of the direction of change, however, the distribution of land in most
villages remains highly unequal.
Demographic change is a factor which is particularly relevant to changes in land distribution. Srinivas
(1976) writes: 'while a man may have had his descendants in mind when buying land he also knew that it would
be divided after his death. Big estates were more usually built up through the accident of single sons in more than
one generation.. .But even worse than division of land among descendants was not having any. That meant the end
of the lineage, a disaster which no one liked even to contemplate." Although in this observation, Srinivas has the
two largest landowners in his village in mind, it remains an important one in that it suggests the absence of
systematic rigidity in land distribution, and highlights the importance of an inter-generational element in the
determination of farm size.
DLS illustrate that in Palanpur demographic factors account for the bulk of observed changes in the
distribution of land and was associated with the process of inheritance and household partition (discussed in
Section 2.2.1). The combined land ownership of each 'dynasty' (defined as the union of all households
descending from a particular household in the first survey year, 1957/58) has tended to remain fairly constant
over time. The Gini coefficient of per capita land owned by these dynasties in Palanpur during the five survey
years between 1957/58 and 1993 took the values 0.46, 0.44, 0.45, 0.43 and 0.43. Thus, inequality of land
remained high and fairly constant over time.
Swaminathan (1991) also finds a high degree of inequality in landholdings in Gokilampuran village in
Tamil Nadu. Land was found to be more unequally distributed than other assets. This inequality increased
32



between 1977 and 1985 (confirming Kurien's (1980) finding for Tamil Nadu as a whole based on NSS data) while
there was a tendency towards a less unequal distribution of non-land assets (Swaminathan, 1988). Swaminathan
(1991) notices a high degree of immobility in land ownership on either extreme of the landholdings scale; once a
household is landless, this tends to persist. In between these extremes, however, there is high degree of both
upward and downward mobility (particularly among holders of 2.5 to 5 acres of land). She concludes, therefore,
that the simple models of pauperization of small cultivators do not hold. Nevertheless, she does observe that 60
percent of all households lost land between 1977 and 1985, and only 35 percent gained, maling the average
likelihood of land loss higher than that of land acquisition in her viUlage.
In contrast to Swaminathan, Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) find no evidence of increased inequality of
landholdings in North Arcot (also in Tanil Nadu). Following population growth and partitioning, the average
farm size declined slightly across all quartiles between 1973 and 1983 in the sample villages. Farmers in the top 2
quartiles lost a greater fraction of total landholdings, and farmers in the top quartile lost more in absolute terms.
The only evidence for a mild worsening in land distribution comes from a poorly irrigated village which did not
benefit much from the Green Revolution (Duli). This worsening was attributed by Harriss (1986) to the buying
of land owned by absentee landlords, rather than the dispossession of small landholders, confirming
Swaminathan's rejection of the notion of small cultivator pauperization.
Against a background of change in the distribution of land the position of smallholders and the landless
does appear to be relatively static in many vilage studies. Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) report that in
Tiruchirapali, the landless in the wet area and those who started off with very small holdings in the dry area,
constitute the most immobile groups in those areas, respectively. Among the middle-group of landholders, there
seems to be an equalizing tendency in the distribution of land. Similar patterns are noted by Harriss (1986), Cain
(1981), Attwood (1979), Rao (1972), Caldwell et al. (1982) and Bhala (1977).
Walker and Ryan (1990) find that in the SAT viUages, some relative mobility did occur as the rank order
in 1950 was a far from perfect predictor of relative landholdings in 1982. They also report that pronounced
downward mobility in landownership was more common than marked upward movement, so that, both in relative
and absolute terms, larger landowners lost ground to small owners. OveraUl, inequality of land owned declined,
with a narrowing of the difference between mean and median holdings (although the former is still larger than the
latter). In discussing changes in land distribution, it is often important to distinguish between patterns of land
ownership in dry as opposed to wet areas, given the differences in the relative importance of land as a productive
asset in these areas. Athreya et al (1990) note that ownership structure is often extremely polarized in wet areas,
with relative equality in dry areas. Accompanying this is a high degree of landlessness in the wet area, and low
levels in the dry area. In the Thiruchirapali villages, this pattern has social origins: in the wet area, lower castes
were not allowed to own land for a long time, whereas in the dry area, land did not even command a price as late
33



as the 19th century, and is still quite cheap. This history is reflected in the land distribution. In wet areas, those
owning less than 2.5 acres of land comprise 90 percent of the population, but own only 20 percent of the land. In
the dry area, 76 percent of the land belongs to middle-size holders (2.5 to 25 acres).
4.2 Income and Wealth
We saw in Section 2.1 that there was concern during the early stages of the Green Revolution that the
introduction of new technologies and increased mechanization, associated with agricultural intensification, would
result in a pronounced disequalizing impact on rural living standards. We have seen in earlier sections that some
of the mechanisms which had been supposed to influence the distribution of income did not operate in the way
that had originally been anticipated. For example, the technologies themselves appear to have been broadly scale-
neutral and did not confer a distinct advantage to large landowners. Similarly, there does not appear to have been
a uniform trend of increased landlessness, and agricultural wages in many areas have nsen over time. On the
other hand, there have also been processes which would support the contention that rural incomes have become
more unequal over time. The observation of reverse tenancy for example, where large farmers lease-in land from
smallholder, could contribute to a widening of the income distribution. And the increased tendency for better-off
households to obtain non-agricultural employment can also exercise a polarizing influence. It is worth asking
specifically what has happened to the distribution of income and wealth over time.
The distribution of income in Palanpur did not follow a monotonic course over the period 1957-84.
However, when they distinguished the pre-Green Revolution from the post-Green Revolution surveys, DLS find
that income inequality in Palanpur declined. Certainly in Palanpur there is little evidence that the Green
Revolution led to a marked widening of the distribution of income. A similar picture of declining inequality
across the Green Revolution years (between 1963/64 and 1988/89) was also observed by Sharma and Poleman
(1993) for the village of Walidpur in westem Uttar Pradesh.
DLS point out that in the case of Palanpur, where prior to the Green Revolution ownership of irrigation
facilities was concentrated among the wealthier farmers, the sharp expansion of irrigation during the early 1960s
is likely to have had an important equalizing effect. The proportion of land which was irrigated in Palanpur
increase from 50 per cent in 1957/58 to 96 per cent by 1974/75. They also note that the sharp expansion of non-
agricultural employment does not seem to have exacerbated the distribution of income. Instead, the allocation of
non-agricultural jobs seems to broadly replicate existing pattems of inequality. They suggest that in Palanpur,
although those with fewer resources and connections were less well placed to take advantage of non-agricultural
employment opportunities, they did benefit indirectly through rising agricultural wage rates, and this rise was at
34



least in part the result of the expanding non-agricultural sector absorbing some of Palanpur's growing
population.30
Walker and Ryan (1990) note that inequality is generally lower in dryland areas. Among the 6 surveyed
ICRISAT villages, inequality was found to be lowest in Shirapur where income was tightly clustered at low
levels. In Shirapur, there is stagnating rainfed agricultural production and costlier and riskier investment
alternatives, resulting in a relatively high incidence of rural public works employment. Although Walker and
Ryan notice no significant reduction in inequality in the 6 villages over time, the poor were found to have
experienced higher income and asset growth than richer ones where there was: (1) a tightening of the labour
market, (2) stable consumer food prices, and stagnating producer prices (due largely to increasing productivity),
and (3) a decrease in real net worth in many larger cultivator households (in Kanzara due to land and family
subdivision, and in Aurepalle, due to government affirmative action for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes).
Hazell and Ramasamy (1991) find that in North Arcot, Tamil Nadu, average incomes rose significantly
between 1973/74 and 1983/84. Against this background of rising incomes, small paddy farmers and landless
labourers gained the largest proportional increases in family incomes, with non-agricultural households also
receiving substantial increases. They argue that this was driven largely by higher agricultural wages (associated
wi-th an increase in rural-urban migration and a low incidence of landlessness). In relative terms, large paddy
farmers, and non-paddy farmers did less well, due in part to sharp increases in fertilizer and other input prices and
also limits on the scope for expanding irrigation.
The effects of the Green Revolution and related economic changes on income inequality are hard to
predict out of context and may well be contingent on other factors such as the distribution of land and water.
Where the distribution of irrigation facilities is highly unequal or where a large proportion of the population is
landless, one can more readily imagine that the Green Revolution has an inegalitarian character. Epstein (1973)
notes that in her two Kamataka villages of Wangala and Dalena there was clear evidence of a sharp concentration
of income between 1957/58 and 1970. The key factor in this region was access to irrigated land, and this
remained highly unequal throughout the interval. Consequently, those with good land endowments were able to
become considerably richer by taking advantage of the high prices offered on sugar-cane. It was not possible for
the landless or those with unirrigated land to cultivate this crop. In these villages, the large number of landless
laborers and the additional presence of a sizeable pool of migrant workers ensured that agricultural wages
remained low.
3 Another factor contributing to rising agricultural wages in Palanpur was that agricultural intensification was
associatd with more labor-intensive cropping patterns.
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Swaminathan (1988) also finds an immense disparity in, and perceptible worsening of the distribution of
assets between 1977 and 1985. In her of study of Gokilapuram village in the Cumbum valley of Tamil Nadu,
Swammahn focusses on wealth rather than income, where wealth is 'the households' own estimation of the
current value of their assets". After adjusting for the over-representation of rich landlord households in her
survey, Swaminathan finds lower, but still large and increasing inequality (the adjusted Gini coefficient rose from
0.77 in 1977 to 0.81 in 1985). It is worth noting, however, that while the poor did become relatively worse off,
even the poorest households' per capita wealth holdings increased in real terms by a factor of around two over this
8 year interval.
In contrast to their finding of lower income inequality across the Green Revolution period, DLS observed
a non-negligible widening in the distribution of wealth in Palanpur between 1962/63 and 1983/84. These
contrasting findings need not be inconsistent. There are reasons why one could expect inequality in wealth to nse
even in the presence of an unchanged distribution of income. For example, if the savings function is convex at
low levels of income (the marginal propensity to save rises with income) an equiproportionate increase in income
for all households could easily lead to some polarization of new wealth?1 In Palanpur, the rise in net weslth
inequality also reflects a highly uneven accumulation of liabilities to credit institutions, with the poor particularly
vulnerable to coruption and fraudulent accounting practices perpetrated within formal credit institutions.32
Whether inequality has increased or decreased over time in rural India is, perhaps, of secondary importance to the
well-documented observation from village studies of high lees of inequality. It is worth emphasizing that while
different studies have traced alternative paths of income or wealth inequality over time, all have started from
positions of considerable disparity in levels of living. Even where inequality was seen to have fallen, only a small
fraction of the total has been elimininated over time.
4.3. Caste
Just as land and income distribution in rural India have been influenced by the underlying forces of
population growth, technological change and occupational diversification over time, caste relations have also
undergone change. Once again, the process has not been uniform across the country, nor has it always followed
the path that one might have expected. The impact of changes in occupational structure on the traditional caste-
31 Frank (1985) provides an interesting account as to why such a convex savings function could apply even in
the context of high income countries.
32 More generally, the distributionally regressive impact of institutionalized credit is well documented, see for
example, Bell and Srinivasan (1985), Binswanger and Rosenzweig (1986b), Bhende (1986), Iqbal (1988), Bouman
(1989), Krishnan (1990) and Banik (1992).
36



based social order was already described in section 2.3.5. But the reasons for the observed changes in caste-
relations are numerous and varied, including also the irmpact of technological change, external influence,
education and collective action.
Many village studies comment on the change over time in local perceptions of, and attitudes toward,
caste-based social rankings. Some studies point to a general weakening of restrictions on association and
interactions across castes. DLS, for example, point out that in Palanpur people of all castes can now sit together
on the same string cots (harpai) and the dominant Thakurs are no longer able to exercise arbitrary force over the
lowest ranked Jatabs. To the extent that these social distinctions were linked with the different caste-based
occupations, the gradual disappearance of many of these traditional occupations has inevitably weakened the
forces which differentiated castes in terms of their behaviour and associations. For example, Walker and Ryan
(1990) describe the erosion of the caste hierarchy in the ICRISAT villages as a consequence of the monetization of
transactions, and the tendency of traditional service-related castes to supplement their livelihood with agricultural
labour. Ramachandran (1990) also notes that agricultural laborers now represent the most caste-heterogeneous
group in the Cumbum valley, Tamil Nadu.
Concurrent to this gradual erosion of caste distinctions, however, and possibly counteracting this trend,
has been another process which has received much attention in village studies. "Sanskritization" was coined by
Srinivas (1966) to describe how "when a caste or section of a caste achieved secular power it usually also tried to
acquire the traditional symbols of high status, namely the customs, ritual, ideas, beliefs, and life-style of the
locally highest castes". With economic growth has come economic mobility. Some individuals and their caste
groups have gained more than others. Bailey (1957) remarks that 'increased wealth leads to a desire for a greater
say in the management of the community. At the same time the aspirants wish to assume the guise of
respectability, and they do this by improving their placing within the ritual ranking of the Hindu caste system".
Epstein (1973) describes this process occurring in Dalena through the adoption of Brahminical names by upwardly
mobile Peasant households. In addition, whereas in the late 1950s the full responsibility for arranging a wedding
and meeting most of the wedding expenses rested with the bridegroom's family, by 1970 bridewealth had given
way to dowry, with the full financial burden now resting on the bride's parents (see also Section 4.4). Leaf
(1983) also describes how the intensification of modem farming and technology has been accompanied by an
intensification of religious expressions in his Punjabi village between 1965 and 1978.
Even where the upwardly mobile households do not try to adopt rituals and customs associated with
higher castes, their rise in relative economic terms clearly affects the social hierarchy in the village. In Palanpur,
DLS describe an ongoing rivalry that has pitted the lTakurs, the highest-ranked, traditionally non-cultivating and
non-laboring caste in the village, against the Muraos, a traditionally cultivating caste. Since the 1950s, the
economic status of Muraos has risen substantially and has surpassed that of the Thakurs. This has been the
37



consequence of the Muraos having exploited most fully the opportunities offered by the Green Revolution, while
the Thakurs resisted (at least initially) changing their way of life. In fact, a significant number of Thakurs
dissipated much of their original wealth over the survey period. This process has resulted in a gradual
improvement in the social status of the Muraos as a caste, an escalating political rivalry between Thakurs and
Muraos, an erosion of the earlier caste hierarchy, and a growing dissonance between social rankings based on
economic conditions and ritual status.
This theme of a dissonance between social and economic rankings has been well documented in other
village studies. Kapadia notes that in the Tamil Nadu village of Poovaloor, "caste and class coincide less and less
today", as the relative economic power of the Brahmins of Poovaloor has declined. Wadley and Derr (1989)
indicate that in Karimpur "any correlations that existed between jati and economic status in the 1920s were largely
gone by the 1980s" and they note the relative decline in the economic position of the Brahmins. In Sunari (Uttar
Pradesh), Fuhs (1988) finds that "the formerly important Brahmins are losing ground" to the extent that many
even work as laborers for Jat farmers. Breman (1993) finds considerable upward mobility among the middle castes
(Kolis and Dhodias) in two villages in rural Gujarat. This is especially true among those who have found non-
agricultural work, as they tend to get skilled jobs as government clerks, school teachers, and skilled factory
workers which were previously reserved for upper castes. Similar patterns are also noted by Jha (1994) for rural
Bihar, and by Da Corta (1993) for rural Andhra Pradesh.
Although the specific process of Sanskritization, or the more general one of a gradual de-linling of
economic and social status, challenge the notion of a rigidly fixed caste hierarchy, caste remains an important
correlate of standard of living. This becomes particularly clear when attention is turned to the lower end of the
social hierarchy. Several village studies find that the turbulence surrounding caste relations at the middle and
upper levels of the social distribution is less marked among the lowest castes. DLS argue that there is no sign of a
transformation in the position of Jatabs in Palanpur society (representing about 12 % of the village population).
Per capita incomes of this caste have risen far more slowly than those of the village as a whole. Between 1957/58
and 1993, education levels amongst this caste remained largely unchanged. In 1993 all women remained
illiterate, and only 12% of males could read and write. Jatabs have been almost entirely left out as far a regular
non-agricultural wage employment is concerned. Nor have Jatabs managed to increase their land endowments over
the survey period. Finally, despite the fact that Jatabs (and other scheduled castes) have been targeted as
beneficiaries of various government programmes, they have not, on the whole, figured among the recipients of
this assistance.
A similar picture of comparative stagnation and immobility among the lowest castes, against a
background of considerable economic and social mobility among higher castes is reported by Epstein (1973) in
her two Karnataka villages. Guhan and Mencher (1983) also note that in Iruvelpattu village in Tamil Nadu, "the
38



combined effects of economic inequality, social discrimination, and physical segregation on the Harijans are
vividly visible' and have 'persisted to a remarkable degree' over time.
Some vilUage studies do point to success of low caste households in managing to improve their relative
standing.  Sreekumar (1995) indicates that the involvement of Dalits in non-agricultural activities in
Kumnaramangalam, Tamil Nadu has improved both their economic and their political status. It even became
possible, for example, for a Dalit to become head of the village panchayat. Improved status among lower castes is
often accomplished either through the influence of (often external) political parties or through the forum of
collective action. Growing political awareness of new possibilities organised around political parties is one factor
to which Chattopadhyay (1992) attributes the disintegration of the structure of -dominance and subordination" of
landless labourers and share-croppers by the 3 'big-men' families in 7 viUages of Bardhaman district of West
Bengal. Gough (1987) asserts that the efforts of the communists in Tanjavur to ensure that farm servants were not
ill-treated, and the rise of labour unions was largely responsible for the increase in real wages that this group
experienced between 1952 and 1976. The success or failure of the programmes instituted appears, however, to be
less important than their role in lending cohesion to otherwise fractional groups. Chattopadhyay (1990) quotes this
group of poor and landless peasants as saying after 1977: "If the CPI(M) remains in power, it would be good for
us, because it will be our government. The Congress is the party of big-men".
Sreekumar (1995) observes that the success of the lower castes in improving their socio-economic status
in many villages often depends on collective action which overcomes caste heterogeneity. In Changel, a village in
Bihar, the consolidation of Yadavs, Noniyas, and Dhanuk;s, all of which are 'backward' castes, has led to the
break-up of the Khayasth-Brahman monopoly on village politics. Even with a clear joint interest in combining
forces, however, collective action may not be easily achieved. Breman (1993) notes that the lower castes in his
two Gujarat villages have been unable to demonstrate effective social solidarity in improving their lot, due in
large part to inter-caste tensions, and effective resistance on the part of the higher caste Anavils. On the other
hand, Athreya, Djurfeldt and Lindberg (1990) suggest that in Thiruchirapalli, factionalism among higher castes
was a key to reductions in poverty and inequality.
Education plays a dual role in the erosion of the caste hierarchy, as it instigates changes in attitude as
well as opens doors to skilled employment which tends to be less incorporated in the traditional domain of caste-
based employment. Srinvas (1976) writes: "Piija was a new type of Harijan, assertive in his rights. He was also
talented and had a knowledge of Hindu mythology. He asked me, 'Does Nadu Gowda think that he is the god
Shiva for me to be burnt when he open his eyes? Everyone knows that he is rich today because his father was able
to buy up cheaply the land of absentee Brahmins.'". In addition to the changes which are induced once education
has been acquired, the educational process itself appears to have intrinsic value in the dissolution of caste-barriers.
Based on conversations with the young men of Karimpur in 1962, Wiser and Wiser (1971) find that the multi-
39



caste school in the village is largely credited with the reduction of caste restrictions, as inter-caste interaction
during school time is inevitable.
4.4. Gender
There are few signs of marked improvement in gender relations over time from the village studies
surveyed. This is not to suggest that women have not benefited from the general improvement of living standards
which has been observed across most village studies. But it remains that these overall improvements are small in
relation to the persistent inequalities between men and women in many parts of rural India. Moreover, while
living conditions in general may have improved for both women and men, there are indications that at least in
some places the position of women relative to men has deteriorated. This relative decline is generally linked to
the process of "Sanskritization' referred to in the previous section, whereby high-caste practices (often including
those relating to womens' lifestyles) are emulated by other castes aspiring to upward social mobility. Occupational
diversification and technological change also appear to have contributed to a relative decline in women's labor
market participation.
In Karimpur, Wadley and Derr (1989) notice what they term as an 'increasing negative valuation of
women', reflected in the declining female-male population ratio observed among the Jati caste. They attribute
this growing negative valuation in part to the rising incidence in off-farm employment outside the village of Jati
men. Since, in Karimpur, female farm workers are not generally hired independently of their husbands, women
have fewer employment opportunities, and this has had an adverse effect on their income-earning capacity and
therefore their economic value. In Palanpur, DLS observe a similar decline in the female-male ratio among Jatabs
over time and suggest it may be linked to the absence of any expansion in female labor force participation and a
growing identification of disadvantaged castes with the patriarchical norms of privileged castes.33
Another aspect of the 'Sanskritization' process which has been observed to influence caste and gender
relations in several village studies has been the shift from brideprice to dowry. In a study of rumral propertied elite
in a village northeast of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Heyer (1992) notes a movement from bride prices to dowries
from the 1930s to 1950s, and a doubling in the real dowries paid between the 1950s and 1970s. This shift from
bride prices to dowries is a finding common to several village studies including Epstein (1973), Wadley and Derr
(1989) and Bailey (1957).  Epstein (1973) explains that for a farmer to obtain an educated husband for his
daughter (one who would be able to afford a wife who had not been trained to contribute to household income)
offering a dowry had become essential. Heyer attributes the rising value of dowries to a number of factors. First,
33 The declining female-male ratio among scheduled castes has also been observed in Uttar Pradesh more
generally Dreze and Sen (1995). They note that this female-male ratio fell from 0.94 in 1901 to 0.88 in 1991.
40



lavish spending is indicative of one's ability to do so. Second, acquiring better husbands for daughters and better
connections for the family (through improved credit, insurance, trade, diversification into new activities,
agricultural partnerships, etc.) becomes more and more important as the community becomes increasingly
integrated with the wider world. Third, it acts as a means whereby reputation and prestige are either confirmed or
enhanced. Finally, increased differentiation and scope for mobility means that there is more scope for
advancement through marriage connections. Heyer thus suggests that marital alliances are an important instument
of mobility in an environment where there is greater potential for upward mobility.
The shift to dowries, however, does not mean that the status of women has risen. As Heyer explains, the
growing importance of dowries has led to the redistribution of capital from those households with higher
daughter/son ratios to those with lower ratios. The prevention of wealth dissipation from generation to generation
is therefore contingent on keeping the number of surviving daughters relatively small.34
Technological change in agriculture appears to have played some role in reducing the employment of
female labour. Epstein (1973) reports that when the advent of irrigation in Wangala made farming less
comparatively advantageous in Dalena, males began to diversify into other income earning opportunities, while
the dry land continued to be cultivated by women. Women's wage labour opportunities in Gokilapuram have
evidently diminished noticeaby due to the decline in lift-irrigation resulting from a shift away from cotton,
vegetables, and other such crops (Ramachandran, 1990). The steepest decline in the number of days employed
between 1977 and 1986 reportedly occurred among scheduled caste women, whereas the only increase in the
number of days employed among all castes was among scheduled caste men. While the wage rate rose for cash-
paid daily rated operations, the share of these operations in women's employment declined. By contrast, the share
of transplanting operations in women's employment increased while the average earnings in this operation
stagnated or declined (Ramachandran, 1990).
5. Summary and Discwsion
In this section we return briefly to the main findings of the review and then discuss some of the possible
policy implications.
Agricukural Gro)th, Land and Employment
The village studies which have been reviewed in this paper cover a wide geographical area. A fairly
consistent finding from all of these studies is that agricultural production has undergone significant growth during
34 And may thus be an additional factor in explaining the observation of declining female-male ratios (and
strong boy-preference among rural households).
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the last 20-30 years. Although the Green Revolution technologies which were introduced in India during the
1960s were not equally suitable for use in all parts of the country, it appears that the broad package of new inputs,
increased mechanization, and expansion of irrigation has had at least some impact almost everywhere. Irrigation,
in particular, seems to have been important.
The new technologies do not appear to have systematically conferred an advantage to large farmers. The
evidence from the village studies reviewed here suggests that overall, the impact of the Green Revolution has been
roughly scale-neutral. It is worth noting that different components of the Green Revolution "package' can hav'e
different distributional implications. While large farmers seem to be better placed to access sources of credit for
the purchase of new seeds or farm implements, the expansion of irrigation may be quite progressive if, prior to
expansion, large farmers had been the only ones with irrigated land.
Landlessness has not obviously increased over time. In fact, several village studies provide evidence, of a
fall in landlessness. More generally, village studies point to a whole range of factors determining whether a
household becomes landless. Increased destitution is only one possible reason. And consequently, loss of lalnd is
not necessarily a symptom of impoverishment.
The land market in most village studies was found to be relatively inactive. Many indicate low turnover
rates of land bought or sold per year. But there are exceptions. Canal irrigation, or other major developments
which sharply and dramatically alter retuns to land, were observed in some instances to lead to an increase in
land transactions. However, even in such cases the small and vulnerable farmers are not necessarily the ones who
are losing their land. For example, occasionally over-extended large farmers are the main losers. There is some
evidence from village studies that land sales, when they do occur, often involve transfers of land from formerly
well-endowed but non-cultivating households facing financial penury to households of the cultivating castes (who
are not necessarily large landholders).
Land legislation has not brought with it unambiguous benefits. Those beneficial impacts which have been
observed have usually been indirect, for example encouraging farmers to invest in new technologies rather than to
increase their landholdings. A very conmmon response to "land to the tiller" legislation has been the evict-'on of
tenants, and where this has occurred there has often been a sharp rise in landlessness and in the siz7e of the
agricultural wage labour force.
Modernization of agriculture and improved technologies have not meant the end for the institution of
tenancy. Instead, this institution appears to be evolving with the new cultivation practices: many village studies
point to a rise in the frequency of fixed-rent contracts; landlords becoming more involved in cost-sharing;
smallholders with traditional specialization in cultivation leasing in land from both marginal landowners as well as
large landowners (the phenomenon of 'reverse tenancy"). Although some village studies see this evoiution as
negative from the point of view of the rural poor, these developments can also be viewed as neutral - neither
42



benefiting the poor specifically nor singling the poor out for fuRther hardship. In general the evolution of tenancy
is in accordance with what one would expect given the increased intensity of agriculture and the spread of modem
practices and technologies. The persistence of this institution, against a background of often marked change in
cultivation practices, suggests that it fulfills a useful purpose - permitting the cultivation of land by those who can
put it to most productive use, without requiring a full transfer of property rights.
It is widely observed in village studies that traditional artisanal occupations have declined in number and
importance.   This trend has been interpreted by some as an indication of rising unemployment or
underemployment in rural areas. However, it is worth noting several additional points. First, some traditional
activities appear to be enjoying a "boom". For example, in some regions with rising general affluence, there has
been an increase in demand for services, such as carpentry, for which there is a high income elasticity of demand.
Second, the decline of traditional occupations has more often than not occurred against a background of rising
real wages in these villages. As a result, while most of those formerly employed in traditional occupations have
been observed to have moved into manual labor occupations, it is not clear that they have suffered a noticeable
decline in living standards.
Alongside the decline in traditional caste-based occupations has been a trend towards increased
casualization of labor mnarket contracts. Most village studies indicate that the incidence of permanent or long-term
labor contracts is declining, in favor of either daily-wage labor or piece-rate contracts. While in general most
studies suggest that this casualization has reduced the degree to which laborers are dependent on their employer,
some point out that this has resulted in increased insecurity. While daily wage labor has expanded in many
villages, a noticeable feature of many rural labor markets is that within the village, wage rates are fairly uniform.
Many village studies point to a 'tightening" of labor markets associated, at least in part, with the
expansion of non-agricultural employment opportunities. Village studies highlight several features of this
process. First, the benefit to rural households from non-agricultural employment derives in part from the incomes
received, but also because it results in dampened income variability associated with agricultural fluctuations.
Second, non-agricultural employment seems to have played a role in protecting households from major declines in
living standards. A notable feature is that households without assets have not been excluded from non-agricultural
employment. However, third, this doesn't mean to say that access to the better paid, regular, non-farm jobs has
been equal for all. Village studies suggest that the allocation of regular non-farm employment in rural India is
likely to be associated with personal contacts and connections, rather than qualifications or skills only. These
factors have probably favored the more affluent and highly ranked within the village. Fourth, while the poor
currently appear to be disadvantaged in terms of their ability to obtain such jobs, this is in contrast to their
situation in the past, when the relatively well-off eschewed non-agricultural employment.
43



In response to the 'tightening' of village agricultural labor markets, agricultural wages have risen in
many village studies. There are exceptions though. Where there has been a sharp rise in in-migration,
agricultural wages have stagnated even in the face of strong increases in demand for labor. And where non-
agricultural employment opportunities have not 'syphoned-off" surplus labor from the village, agricultural wages
have also failed to display an upward trend.
Village studies are not well-placed to comment on the process of migration as their frame of reference,
the village, is not well suited to such an analysis. However, there is some evidence that migration has increased.
Moreover, it seems that while in the past it was mainly the poor who migrated, one now tends to see mainly the
relatively better educated and higher castes among migrants.
An issue which has received some attention has been whether there is a discernable process of
"proletarianization" in rural areas. If this term is taken to describe the process of a relative decline in self-
employment (usually cultivation) in rural areas in favor of a relative increase in wage labor employment, then
proletariniization seems to be a widespread phenomenon. Once one adopts a more normative interpretation, the
process is less obviously widespread. It is not clear, for example, how many smallholder cultivators are being
pushed out of agriculture because of declining returns and land polarization, as opposed to being pulled by new
opportunities in the non-agricultural sector. Which of these is driving proletarianization depends on local
circumstances, notably the experience with tenant evictions and the rate of non-agricultural employment
expansion. That proletarianization often occurs against a background of rising agricultural wages suggests that
pull factors might be as important as push, and as such, the phenomenon does not provide prima facie evidence of
increased impoverishment.
The decline of traditional occupations and the accompanying expansion of non-agricultural employment,
which has been widely observed in village studies, is closely tied to the degree to which the village is becoming
integrated in the wider economy. This process has obviously been driven, in part, by external forces such as the
expansion of infrastructure and the growth of urban centres. But it has also depended on the original economic
structure of the village. It has, for example, been pointed out in several village studies that those villages witi a
strong comparative advantage in agriculture have tended to preserve traditional social and occupational structures,
even in the face of dramatic changes in terms of trade or technologies. In contrast, villages with relatively less
homogeneous economic structures have tended to see traditional occupational structures, such as caste-based
occupations, become more diffused, as villagers have acquired links with the outside world and have diversified
their activities.
Poverty
44



Village studies offer support to the general perception of slowly declining poverty in rural areas. Several
viUage studies indicate that although poverty has declined across the Green Revolution period, there is
considerable movement in and out of poverty. Some of this movement can be attributed to the year-to-year
fluctuations in harvest quality, and can also linked to transient factors such as illness, etc. However, those
households which are highly represented among the long-term poor include households reliant on agricultural
labor as an important source of income, and households of the disadvantaged castes.
Some village studies have indicated that even in situations where poverty does not appear to have falen
in income terms, scrutiny of other aspects of rural living standards suggest that living standards of even the poor
have improved. These studies point to the increased ownership of consumer durables, and consumption patterns
which have shifted towards higher quality goods. Many studies also point to a perception among rural
populations of gradually improving living conditions. The rural poor often single out their reduced dependence
on patrons as an important aspect of their improving living conditions.
Although overal poverty in rural areas appears to be in decline, as a consequence of growth and
diversification, vilage studies also remind us that there remain many forces which can result in pockets of rising
poverty. One of the important factors behind the general decline in poverty has been a steady rise in agricultural
wages over time. In settings where, due to high population growth, rapid in-migration or stagnation of the non-
agricultural sector, the agricultural labor force has increased in size, the rise in agricultural wages may not be
forthcoming--and wages could even decline. Harvest fluctuations can also result in temporary, but significant,
increases in poverty. Instances of drought in rural India are common, and can spell dramatic increases in poverty.
While the expansion of irrigation has probably contributed to some dampening of such harvest fluctuations, it is
also important to recaU that groundwater tables can fluctuate with the quality of the monsoon, and that aquifers
can be overexploited. Finally, cases of impoverishment are likely to continue to occur across rural India as long
as there exist no safety nets to protect against illness, disability, widowhood, and similar household or personal
circumstances.
It remains to be stressed therefore, that in absolute terms, while the direction of change is right, poverty
in my rural viUlages (defined in either narrow or broad terms) remains extremely high. Perhaps as important to
understanding which forces have contributed to falling poverty, is the question of why poverty has fallen so
slowly in the face of what have often been dramatic changes in the overaU economic environment?
Inequality
Village studies are uniquely placed to provide a glimpse of the degree of inequality prevailing within a
small, village community. This inequality can have an important bearing on the extent to which new
opportunities are translated into higher overall living standards in the community. Moreover, a high degree of
45



inequality within a community can circumscribe certain kinds of reforms or policy interventions-especially those
which rely on some measure of cooperative community action.
While village studies have been able to confirm some decline in poverty over time, it is much more
difficult to assert that inequality in rural areas has declined. While there appears to be a fair amount of movement
of the distribution of welfare over time, one cannot easily point to a trend, particularly one which favors the
relatively disadvantaged in rural areas.
Many village studies indicate that the distribution of land owned in rural areas is less static than is often
suggested. However, much of the movement observed may be "apparent" rather than real. In particular,
demographic changes associated with an increased incidence of early household partitioning can provide an
impression of considerable change in the distribution of land, but one which is not likely to reflect fundamental
changes in the distribution of wealth. Even where significant changes in the distribution of land have been
observed, many village studies notice a high degree of immobility among the landless and smallholders,
suggesting that there is little evidence of a marked improvement in the wealth holdings among the relatively poor.
Studies which focus on the distribution of income and wealth more specifically tend to question the
notion that the Green Revolution necessarily results in a sharp widening of the distribution of income. The Green
Revolution may even have resulted in an improvement in the distribution of welfare in some villages, although the
scope for this depends closely on local conditions. However, any improvement which has been achieved would
seem inconsequential relative to the degree of inequality which remains.
Caste is an important factor in governing the structure, and evolution, of rural society. This institution
appears also to have been influenced by the large changes which have affected the rural economy. Rural growth,
and in particular the integration of the village economy with the wider rural economy, has led to some erosion of
the traditional caste structure in many villages- in general there seems to have been some relaxation in a number
of the restrictions on caste interaction which held in the past. In addition, several village studies have pointed to a
discernable breakdown in the correlation between ritual status and economic status. In many villages, the
traditionally dominant, non-cultivating caste, is being overtaken in economic terms by households of other castes,
usually those who were traditionally cultivators and who have taken greatest advantage of the new opportunities in
agriculture. This process on occasion leads to the phenomenon of sanskrtization whereby high-caste practices are
emulated by other castes aspiring to upward social mobility. It is not clear whether this process of sanskritization
should be seen as contributing to the breakdown of the caste-based patterns of behaviour, or rather the opposite,
as many of the upwardly mobile adopt behaviour pattems which are more restrictive than those practiced even by
the castes they are trying to emulate. In addition, while the changes which have been observed are significant
they do not impinge on the life of all castes in the same way. The lowest castes in Indian villages often remain
46



easily distinguishable from the rest of village society in terms of their very low material well-being and the
limited opportunities they face to improve their living standards.
Gender relations have, historically, been quite unequal in rural India, particularly in the north of the
country. There has not been much evidence of improvement over time. In fact, there are some indications that
gender-based inequality may be increasing rather than declining. For example, village studies in Uttar Pradesh
provide some support to the conclusion from secondary data that fenale-male population ratios have been
declining over time (and are already extraordinarily low). The sanskritization process described above may have
a role to play in this. With rising prosperity among certain castes who wish to consolidate their economic gains
with a raising of their social status, women are often required to adopt behaviour patterns, such as full purdah and
withdrawal from wage labor activity, that traditionally were maintained by only high-caste women. The
economic value of women, in terms of what they can contribute to household economic resources, is thus
diminished. Coupling this observation with the observed switch from brideprice to dowries (which has been
widely noted in several south Indian village studies) or the trend towards rising value of dowries (as observed in
the north) implies that from the household's perspective, prevention of wealth dissipation from generation to
generation is contingent on keeping the number of surviving daughters relatively small.
Policy Releance
What might be some of the policy implications of this review? First of all, much of this review has been
concerned with the deflating of myths, especially those surrounding the distributional impact of the Green
revolution. Many of the findings from this review of village studies support what has, in general, been the
emerging view based on large-scale surveys and secondary data sources. There is rather little evidence in support
of the contention that agricultural intensification necessarily leads to rising inequality and increased poverty. In
fact, in the face of relentless population growth, it seems difficult to imagine that much further progress can be
achieved without continued agricultural growth and further diversification into non-agncultural activities.
The village studies reviewed in this paper add to the existing evidence that agricultural labourers in rural
India are highly represented amongst the poor. Village studies indicate that the living standards of this population
subgroup may be usefully monitored through the careful scrutiny of agricultural wage rates. The observation that
daily wage labor contracts are displacing permanent and attached labor contracts i many parts of the country,
coupled with the observation that wage rates within villages tend to be quite uniform, suggests that such wage
series would be quite informative about the living conditions of the rural poor. Of course, one must be careful to
take into account the possibility of considerable variation in daily wages across villages, as well as participation
rates of laborers. But it remains that efforts to collect detailed information on rural agricultural wages would be
well justified from a poverty monitoring perspective.
47



Village studies offer numerous reasons to pay close attention to the non-agricultural sector. Evidence
from villages where poverty has fallen steadily, as well as those where poverty has persisted or even increased,
indicates that the non-agricultural sector plays an important employment provision role in rural areas. However,
apart from those cases where non-farm employment has been in the form of public-works projects (notably the
Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme) it is not clear to what extent the poor have benefited directly from
the growth of this sector. Rather, if they have benefited, it is through the impact of non-agricultural employment
on the agricultural labor market and rural wages. Trends in the composition of long-term migrants from rural
areas, as well as evolving caste-based occupational structures, suggest that the disadvantaged castes are
increasingly having to compete directly with the higher castes for non-agricultural jobs, especially for those jobs
which are perceived as regular. There is little evidence that they are the winners in this tournament. Much more
work is required to understand precisely how non-agricultural jobs are allocated in rural areas, and what possible
policies might allow the non-agricultural sector to have a more positive direct impact on poverty, alongside its
recognized indirect one.
It is clear from the villages studies reviewed in this paper that household resources are critical in
determining material rual living standards. However, we have also seen that certain other dimensions, such as
caste and gender, have an important influence on individuals' freedom and ability to take advantage of the
opportunities available to them. An important finding from this review has been that, while in general these
different dimensions do appear to evolve in tandem with one another, this is not an inevitable occurance. For
example, we have pointed to certain instances of evolving gender and caste relations where increases in material
well-being are accompanied by greater rather than less social stratification. From a policy perspective, it thus
becomes important to focus not only on measures to increase the material well-being of rural households, but also
on measures which protect beneficial social arrangements from decline.
Conspicuous in its absence from this review has been a comprehensive assessment of the performance of
various policy measures on village living standards and community life. This has been largely because most
longitudinal village studies are remarkably silent on the impact of public policy on households' circumstances.
Yet, one might have thought that longitudinal village studies were particularly well-suited to such an assessment,
given their ability to trace households over time.
Drize et al (forthcoming) undertake a comprehensive review of the Palanpur experience with every
instance of public service provisioning introduced in the village between 1957/58 and 1993. The overall
assessment is that this experience has been extremely disappointing--from provision of public schooling facilities,
to implementation of the IRDP programme and credit programmes more generally, to the experience with the JRY
48



(Jawahar Rozpr Yojana) employment programnm, to the provision of widow's pensions35.  A recurrent
observation in this assessment is that privileged individuals or groups end up directing the flow of benefits to
themselves at the expense of other village members. While we have already mentioned that few of the village
studies which we reviewed have focussed specifically on govermment programmes within the village, particularly
programmes aimed at helping the poor, it is perhaps useful to quickly note the conclusions of the few who do
offer some comment. What is suggestive is that even among these few, the diagnosis seems to point in a similar
direction to that for Palanpur (even though the degree of failure may not be as great). Swaminathan (1988) notes
that in Gokilapurm, Tamil Nadu, the distribution of wealth became markedly more unequal between 1977 and
1985, even though this village was one among specifically selected 'cluster" villages which received a large
allocation of resources under the IRDP programme. Gough (1987) and Kapadia (1992) conclude that land reform
resulted in widespread evasion of land ceilings and the eviction of tenants in their villages in Tamil Nadu (echoed
by lha, 1994, for Bihar), while Mencher (1980) argues that land legislation passed in Kerala left agricultural
labourers largely untouched. Beck (1994) argues that an irrigation scheme targeted at the poor in one village in
West Bengal, helped the poor only indirectly by slightly raising agricultural wage earnings, while the non-poor
enjoyed much greater retums via higher cultivation incomes. Land redistribution in two other villages was found
by Beck to provide the poor mainly with land of low quality (in some cases not even cultivable). Walker and
Ryan (1990) and Chattopadhyay (1992) indicate that land reform had little direct impact on their villages
altogether.
It seems worth asking whether high inequality within villages, in particular the lack of strong village
cohesion, represents a major obstacle to the successful introduction of policies within rural Indian villages. This
could have important implications for the design of policies, especially ones which seek to avoid the recognized
pitfalls of centralized delivery by exploiting the potential of decentralized mechanisms. Unless great care is taken
to ensure that accountability is maintained, so that abuses are kept to a minimum, such decentralized schemes may
do no better than previous efforts.
35 The full list of programmes also includes integrated child development scheme, electrification, health
facilities, the public distribution system, land redistribution, and water supply. The general picture, with the
exception of a programme providing two water hand-pumps near the lower caste quarters which appears to have
been a modest success, is grim.
49



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Table 1: Lontudinal Villa2e Studies Reviewed
State              District or Region    Name of Villagea   Time Period      Author (Date of
(if given)            Spanned         Report)
Rajasthan          Nagaur, Jodhpur    two villages (not      1963-1984       Jodha (1989)
named)
Punjab             Ambala             Shahidpur              1965-1978       Leaf (1983)
Uttar Pradesh      Moradabad          Palanpur               1957-1993       Bliss and Stem
(1982); Lanjouw
and Stem
(forthcoming)
Uttar Pradesh      Aligarh            Parhil                 1970-1987       Saith and Tankha
(1992)
Uttar Pradesh      Mainpuri           Karimpur               1925-1984       Wiser and Wiser
(1971); Wadley and
Derr (1989)
Uttar Pradesh      Meerut             Walidpur, Rampur,      1963-1989       Sharma and
Izarpur, Jamalpur                     Poleman (1993)
Uttar Pradesh      Allahabad          Alipurjeeta            1964-1986       Srivastava (1997)
Muzaffamagar       Chaukra               1977-1986
Uttar Pradesh      Agra               Sunari                 1964-1985       Fuhs (1988)
Bihar              Purnea, Saharsa,    5 villages            1971-1984       Rodgers (1983,
Katihar            (not named)                            1984)
Bihar              Purnia             Majra, Barahari        1985-1988       Jha (1994)
West Bengal        Midnapore          Fonogram, Bithigram,   1986-1988       Beck (1994)
Keshipur
West Bengal        Bardhaman          7 villages (not named)   1960s-1980s   Chattopadhyay
(1992)
West Bengal        Barhaman,          72 villages (not named)  1972-1986     Battacharya (1987)
Birbhum, Purulia
Orissa             Phulbani           Bisipara               1950s           Bailey (1957)
Gujarat            Bulsar             Gandevigam             1962-1991       Breman (1993)
Chikhligam
Maharashtra        Sholapur, Akola    Shirapur, Kalman,      1975-1985       Walker and Ryan
Kanzara, Kinkheda                     (1990)
Maharashtra        Vidarbha           Olegao                 1920-1970       Attwood (1979)
Maharashtra        Vidarbha           Palso                  1947-1987       Gadre (1987)
57



Andhra Pradesh     Mahbubnagar         Aurepalle, Dokur      1975-1985      | Walker and Ryan
(1990)
Andhra Pradesh     Chittoor, Guntur                    _    1950-88           Da Corta (1993)
Karnataka          Mysore              Rampura               1948-1970        Srinivas (1976)
Karnataka          Mysore              Wangala, Dalena       1954-1970        Epstein (1973)
Tamil Nadu         North Arcot         11 villages (not named)  1973-1984     Hazell and
__ __ _ __ __ _ __ _ _ _ ____   _Ramasamy  (1991)
Tamil Nadu         Thiruchirapalli     Rajendram,            1979-1980        Artltreya, Djurfeldt
Poyyamani, North                       and Lindberg
Nangavaram, Naganur,                   (1990)
Kalladai, K. Peripatti
Tamil Nadu         Madurai             Gokilapuram           1977-1986        Ramachandran
(1990),
SwaminaDthan
______ _____ _____ ______ _____ _____ __   ___ _____ _____ (1988,   1991')
Tamil Nadu         North Arcot         Randam                1973-1984        Harriss (1986)
Tamil Nadu         Thanjavur           Kumbapettai, Kirippur   1950s-1980s    Gough (1981,
____ ____ ____ ___ __   _ ____ ____ ___ 1987)
Tamil Nadu         South Arcot         Iruvelpattu           1916-1981        Guhan and
Mencher (1983)
Tamil Nadu         Thiruchiruppalli    Anrloor               1987-88          Kapadia (1993)
Tamil Nadu         Coimbatore          3 villages (not named)   1981-82       Heyer (1992)
Tamil Nadu         Tirivannamalai,     Nesal, Vinayagapuran,  1973-1993       Janakarajan (1996)
Sambuvarayar       Veerasambanur
Keral              Aleppey, Palghat    2 villages (not named)   1976-77       Mencher (1980)
a Names of villages in many of these studies have been changed to preserve confidentiality.
58



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