India’s Villages in the 21st Century

Description

Post India’s economic liberalization in the 1990s, the village ceased to be central to ongoing sociological concerns. As a result, the period saw a marginalization of rural life and agrarian economy in the national imagination. However, in the 21st century as India transforms, so does its rural life.

This book revisits the realities of contemporary rural India, exploring the trajectories of change across regions such as those in rural economies, the relationship of villages to the outside world, and the dynamics of caste inequalities. The volume puts together 14 papers based on empirical studies carried out by sociologists, social anthropologists, and economists over the past 15 years to begin a holistic conversation on contemporary rural India which continues to be an important site of social, political, and economic activities.

India’s Villages in the 21st Century stresses diversity as a fundamental structure of Indian economy and society and illustrates the point by focusing on the economies, patterns of settlements, and organization of social and political life in India’s villages.

About the Editor

Surinder S. Jodhka is a professor of sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Edward Simpson is professor of social anthropology and director of the South Asia Institute at SOAS, London, United Kingdom.

Table of contents

List of Tables and Figures

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: India’s Villages in the 21st Century

Surinder S. Jodhka and Edward Simpson

Section I Rural Economies and Agrarian Lives

1. Agrarian Change and Social Mobility in Tamil Nadu

Göran Djurfeldt, Venkatesh Athreya, N. Jayakumar, Staffan Lindberg, A. Rajagopal, R. Vidyasagar

2. Non-farm Diversification, Inequality, and Mobility in Palanpur

Himanshu, Bhavna Joshi, Peter Lanjouw

3. Structural Change in Bihar’s Rural Economy: Findings from a Longitudinal Study

Alakh N. Sharma, Gerry Rodgers

4. Changes in Land Relations: The Political Economy of Land Reforms in a Kerala Village

Suma Scaria

Section II Relational Frames and Power Dynamics

5. Emergent Ruralities: Revisiting Village Life and

Agrarian Change in Haryana

Surinder S. Jodhka

6. Land, Labour, and Power: A Malwa Village (Madhya Pradesh), 1954–2012

Tommaso Sbriccoli

7. Migration, Bachelorhood, and Discontent among the Patidars

Alice Tilche

8. F.G. Bailey’s Bisipara Revisited

Tina Otten, Edward Simpson

Section III Margins and Marginalities

9. Political Exclusion and Subordination of Scheduled Castes in Rural Malwa, Punjab

Nicolas Martin

10. Living Together Separately: Dalits in an Emergent Collectivity in a Rajasthan Village

Shashi Bhushan Singh

11. Genealogies of the Urban Present: Historical Transformations in Boundary and Land Use in New Delhi’s Urban Villages

Sudev Sheth

12. The Hermit Village of Malana: An Update on Community Democracy and the Management of Change in the Himalayas

Richard Axelby, Suzanne Rigaud

13. Inequality in Rural Nagaland: Changing Structures and Mechanisms

Andreas Küchle

Section IV In Lieu of Conclusion: Revisits and Revisions

14. Village ‘Restudies’: Struggling with Ethnography as History and the History of Ethnography

Edward Simpson

Postscript

Notes on Editors and Contributors