Staffan Lindberg

Identification of agrarian classes: A methodological essay with empirical material from South India

This article is primarily methodological. It contains a discussion of the concept of agrarian class, and an attempt to develop a method for class analysis, that is, for identifying the class status of individual households, and thereby to develop a tool for assessing the numerical strength of various classes. The article is part of a wider study of production relations in parts of Tiruchy District in Tamil Nadu, and the impact of these relations on agrarian change. After the introductory sections on the concept of class, on the study area, and the relations of production prevailing there, two methods of classification are discussed and evaluated, Patnaiks exploitation index and our own surplus criterion.

New Farmers’ Movements in India as Structural Response and Collective Identity Formation: the Cases of Shetkari Sanghatana and the BKU

(1994). New farmers’ movements in India as structural response and collective identity formation: The cases of the Shetkari Sanghatana and the BKU. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 21, New Farmers Movements in India, pp. 95-125.

Farmers' movements and cultural nationalism in India: An ambiguous relationship

How do the New Farmers Movements relate to cultural and political nationalism in India today? The farmers agitations and communalism Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh represent the two major kinds of social and political mobilizations in the past two decades in India that have come to influence national politics. The former type of movement is largely represented by democratically oriented, secular-interest organizations in the context of an increasingly state-directed capitalist agricultural economy. The latter, by contrast, are ethnic (cultural and political) movements that seek to damage the multi-ethnic character of the Indian state and society by attempting to enforce a social order based on particular religious and cultural values. This might lead one to believe that the two types of movements are completely at variance with each other, and that the strengthening of democracy would depend on the progressive development of secular interest organizations like the farmers movements, whilst the increased proliferation of cultural identities and movements, on the other hand, would thwart efforts at secular mobilizations and democratic decision-making in a multi-cultural society.

Farmers’ Movements and Agricultural Development in India

Agricultural development and the emergence of a rural petty bourgeoisie (that is, the farmers) were central elements of the modernization process in most industrialized countries. The successful mobilization and organization of commercialized peasants and farmers was in particular vital to Western history (Esman and Uphoff 1984: 31). With the labour movement, producer oriented agrarian movements mobilized the majority of the population, and made them co-actors in the great social transformations which created the modern world (Olofsson 1988: 17). The significance of these movements can still be seen in the considerable political leverage that farmers have, despite their numerical weakness, on contemporary policies in Western Europe and North America.

Identifying Agrarian classes: Answer to Utsa Patnaik

This is a response to an article by Utsa Patnaik in which she criticises the method of classification developed by the authors. They take the opportunity to clarify some points which were unclear in their original article. They maintain their criticism of the method proposed by Patnaik.

Barriers Broken: Production Relations and Agrarian Change in Tamil Nadu.

Introduction Methods Ecology Changing Land Relations Labour Relations Identificaton of Agrarian Classes Usury and Credit Economics of Scale or Advantages of Class? Summary and Conclusions Glossary of Tamil and Indian English Terms