BOOK-2

CHAPTER – 2: Change and Development in

Rural Society.

➢ KEY TERMS and IMPORTANT POINTS:

1. Large Landers: Own large amount of lands. Earlier known as

zamindars.
2. Landless landowners: Have no land of their own, work for others.
3. Green Revolution took place between 1960s and 1970s. It refers
to the modernization of agriculture.
4. M.N Srinivas is best known for the study of “The Remembered
Village”.
5. India adapter ‘mixed economy system’.
6. The upper castes are major landowners except the Brahmins.
7. The term ‘footloose labour’ was coined by Jan Breman in 1985.
8. Maharashtra is famous for cotton production.
9. Gram Swaraj was a vision of Mahatma Gandhi.
10. “Rural Sociology in India” – book written by Akshay R. Desai.
11. Bhoodan Movement is also known as Bloodless Revolution.
12. Halpati system - Gujarat
13. Jeeta system - Karnataka

Q 1. What does agrarian structure mean?

Ans- Agrarian structure refers to the structure as well as distributions of
land holding in rural India.

Q 2. What changes were brought in by the Green Revolution?

Ans- The Green Revolution was funded by International agencies
regarding the utilization of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds or hybrid
seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs to farmers.
Q 3. “Green Revolution led to regional inequalities.” Justify the
statement with relevant examples.
Ans-
1. Green Revolution involved the deployment of technological
advancement in the cultivation.
2. Only few states like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra and Andhra
Pradesh were able to adopt the technologies in agriculture.
3. As a result, they had enormous socio-economic development.
4. On the other hand dry regions such as Telangana, Bihar and
Eastern Uttar Pradesh were relatively under developed.

Q 4. “The feudal system was abolished during the structural changes in

the agrarian society.” Comment.
Ans- Even today, few regions continue to have entrenched feudal
system, where dominant land-owning castes control the landless
people.

Q 5. Express the correlation between agricultural productivity and

agrarian structure.
Ans-
1. Agrarian structure refers to the sustaining divide between land
owners and peasants.
2. If there is an unequal distribution of lands among people, only few
will get profit from out of the cultivation.
3. Peasants will get wages, while land owners get profit.
4. It increases the class inequality. The rich becomes richer and poor
becomes poorer.

Q 6. Discuss the concept of “footloose labour”

Ans-
1. This term was coined by Jan Breman in 1985. He used this concept
to describe the situation of migrating labours.
2. Since the migrating labours have no job security, they have the
compulsion of migrating from one place to another based on the
demand.
Q 7. What factors lead to “feminization of agricultural labour force”?
Ans-
1. In villages men migrate from their native village for work.
2. The women stay in the village and take care of the household as
well as agricultural activities.
3. Eventually, agriculture has become a female oriented task.
4. This led to the feminization of agricultural labour force.

Q 8. Write a short note on “Bhoodan Movement.”

(or)
What is “Land Gifting Movement?”
Ans-
1. Bhoodan movement refers to land gifting movement. It is also
known as the “Bloodless Revolution.”
2. It is a voluntary land reform movement.
3. The movement persuaded landowners to voluntarily donate the
land to the landless people.
4. The movement was started by Vinoba Bhave in 1951.

Q 9. Explain “Contract Farming.”

Ans-
1. Contract farming is the trade pertaining to agricultural
production.
2. It is an agreement between the farmers and buyers.
3. In a liberalized economy, a farmer can have contract farming with
government, private as well as multi-national companies.

Q 10. “The pattern of farmer’s suicides points to the significant crisis

that the rural areas are experiencing.” What do you understand by
‘matrix event’ and how are they responsible for farmer’s suicides?
Ans-
Matrix events are a set of factors that coalesce, combine, or come
together to form an event, such as farmer distress/suicide. Suicides
have become matrix events, according to sociologists, who have tried
to explain them by looking at the structural and social changes that
have occurred in society.
Crop failures, floods, and debt have caused a lot of problems for
farmers in our country for centuries. They have been living in terrible a
condition, which encourages them to take harmful actions.
Farmers' suicides are becoming a common occurrence for a
variety of reasons, including:
1. Unable to bear the burden of debt.
2. Due to crop loss, they are unable to meet their social
obligations.
3. Agricultural equipment, chemical, and seed prices for
cultivation and farming are already costly and rising on a
daily basis. Farmers found it difficult to make a living as a
result of this.
4. Cultural lag due to technological advancement.
5. High competition from big land owning farmers.
6. Mono-crop farming and crop failure.
7. Increased marginalization due to green revolution.

Q 11. Explain Agrarian society in terms of class and caste.

Ans-
1. In terms of class, the Agrarian society is divided based on land
ownership.
2. There are medium and large landowners on one hand and
agricultural labourers on the other hand. The medium and large
landowners earn large incomes from the agricultural produce.
However, the agricultural labourers do not own the land and work
in others’ lands. This makes their job and income insecure, leading
to unemployment and low incomes.
3. Another category is the tenant cultivators, who lease their land
from landowners and earn low incomes as they pay often as much
as 50% to 75% of the income from the cultivation to the land-
owner as rent.
4. The Agrarian society is divided based on caste and this also
influences the class they occupy.
 5. In general, the land owners belong to the dominant castes or the
‘upper castes’. For example: the Jats, Rajputs, Vokkaligas,
Lingayats, Kammas, Reddys, etc. These dominant castes are
powerful economically, socially and politically.
6. Similarly, the menial or agricultural labourers are predominantly
from the ‘lower’ caste. They are marginal farmers or landless
labourers. For example: Scheduled Castes or Tribes (SC/STs) or
Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
It can be observed that class and caste are intertwined.
Class is determined by access to land, resources and the ability to
command labour and make profit from the produce. Caste plays a
major role in determining ones class, therefore, access to power and
privilege. The halpati system in Gujarat and the jeeta system in
Karnataka show that the caste system affects the ones class. These
systems have tied the poor to the landowners, leading to bonded
labour.

Q 12. Discuss some of the changes in the rural society after

independence of India.
Ans- Some of the changes are:
1. Increase in the use of agricultural labour as cultivation became
more intensive.
2. Shift from payment in kind (grain) to payment in cash.
3. Loosening of traditional bonds or hereditary relationships
between farmers or landowners and agricultural workers (known
as bonded labour) and a rise of a class of ‘free’ wage labourers.
4. Farmers in the more developed regions were becoming more
oriented to the market. As cultivation became more
commercialized, these rural areas were also becoming integrated
to the wider economy. This process increased the flow of money
into villages and expanding opportunities for business and
employment.
5. Government promoted modern methods of cultivation and
attempted to modernize the rural economy through other
strategies.
 6. The state invested in the development of rural infrastructure,
such as irrigation facilities, roads and electricity and on the
provision of agricultural inputs, including credit through banks
and cooperatives. A recent example is Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
Gram Jyoti Yojana.

Q 13. Give reasons for bringing land reform.

Ans-
1. The first reason for bringing land reforms was to increase
productivity in the agricultural sector.
2. The second reason was to stop the exploitation of poor farmers
by eliminating intermediaries so that farmers could get land.

Q 14. “Migration and lack of job security create poor working and living
conditions for migrant labour”. Explain with reference to the circulation
of labour in India.
Ans- The Concept of circulation of labour are as follows:
1. Agriculture's commercialization has resulted in an increase in
migrant agricultural labour. In Green Revolution areas like Punjab,
seasonal need for these labourers increased.
2. Laborers are also moving due to growing inequalities in rural
areas. Men migrate out in search of work and better wages on a
regular basis, abandoning women and children behind in their
villages.
3. Migrant workers come primarily from drought-prone and less
productive areas, and they spend the majority of the year working
on farms in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi,
Bangalore, etc.
4. Jan Breman has called these migrant workers "footloose labour."
These landless workers, on the other hand, have very few rights
and are not paid minimum wage.
5. In both the receiving and supplying regions, the large-scale
circulation of labour has had several significant effects on rural
society.
6. Women have increasingly become the main source of agricultural
labour, resulting in the elimination of the agricultural labour form.
Women have greater job insecurity than men since they earn
lower wages for similar work.