Revision summary
Intermediary landlordism declined after land reform. A commercial rich-peasant layer grew in Green Revolution regions. Labour is more migrant and informal, as COVID reverse flows showed. Caste-land overlap and landlessness persist. The structure is changing, not ending.
Model answer
Introduction
Yes, India’s agrarian class structure is changing, but it is not becoming a simple two-class farm. Intermediaries fell, a rich-peasant layer thickened, and labour became more mobile and informal.
Body
What changed
- Zamindari abolition and later tenancy laws, as A. R. Desai noted, cut the old rentier top and strengthened occupancy peasants in many regions.
- Green Revolution belts produced a commercially oriented farmer class that hires labour, buys inputs, and uses the state, which Daniel Thorner’s malik–kisan–mazdoor map only partly captures now.
- Land ceilings were uneven, yet fragmentation, tenancy revival, and reverse tenancy by capital-rich farmers recast who commands the surplus.
Illustrations
- Operation Barga in West Bengal recorded bargadars and shifted bargaining against landlords.
- Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh show farmer unions and tractor capital beside landless Dalit labour.
- Circular migration and COVID reverse migration showed that many rural poor live as worker-peasants, not as a closed village class.
What persists
- Dominant castes still overlap with land control, as Srinivas’s Rampura insight still travels.
- SECC and other rural counts keep showing landless and deprived households, so change is real and incomplete.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD Z[Zamindari abolition] --> RP[Rich peasant and tenant] RP --> M[Migrant labour] DC[Dominant caste land] --> RP M --> I[Informal worker peasant]
Conclusion
- Agrarian class structure has changed: intermediaries declined, rich peasants and migrant labour rose. Caste and landlessness still organise who wins, so the change is transformation, not disappearance of class.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Elucidate the challenges of integration for tribal communities in india.
Next question in the 2022 paper (Q1). View answer →
-
Has the landlord vanished?
The classic zamindar often has. Rent, reverse tenancy, and labour control continue in new forms.
-
Is every farmer a capitalist?
No. Smallholders, tenants, and landless labourers remain the majority in many tracts.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2025 · Q3(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Describe the main features of Indian new middle class. How is it different from the old middle class? -
2024 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Discuss the changes taking place in the industrial class structure in India. -
2024 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Identify different forms of inequalities associated with agrarian social structure in India -
2023 · Q2(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Elaborate the salient features and the role of middle class in India's democracy and development -
2023 · Q4(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Explain the implications and the impact of globalization in situating the changing agrarian class structure in Indin -
2022 · Q8(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the changing nature of industrial working class. -
2021 · Q2(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Discuss the salient features of 'new middle class' in India -
2019 · Q3(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Is industrial development in India a bane or a born to agrarian class structure ? Substantiate your answer with suitable examples
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Elaborate on M.N. Srinivas's structural functionalist approach to the study of Indian society.
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Srinivas replaced a book view of India with a field view from villages such as Rampura. Structure is observed groups; function is how custom holds them together. Dominant caste and Sanskritization explain local power and mobility inside caste. Westernization and politics add new resources without erasing the village system. Conflict theorists say the method underplays class.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Elucidate the challenges of integration for tribal communities in india.
Tribal communities in India
Ghurye’s assimilation and Elwin’s protection still frame the debate. Nehruvian integration promised partnership; projects often meant loss of land. Schedules, PESA and the Forest Rights Act are the legal path. Displacement, language loss and a thin elite are the main social risks. Integration must be citizenship with resources, not cultural wipe-out.
Q1(d) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
In the context of changing Indian society, how do you view Andre Beteille's conceptions of harmonic and disharmonic social structures ?
Caste System
Harmonic structure legitimates inequality in its own values. Disharmonic structure proclaims equality while inequality continues. Sripuram showed this clash after land reform and democracy. Changing India lives in disharmony: law versus ranked honour. The tension is the field of politics, not a temporary error.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.