This is an investigation of the anatomy and internal dynamics of peasant movements in India. It makes a comparative analysis of the Tebhaga (Bengal, 1946-47), Telengana (Andhra, 1948-52) and Naxalite (North Bengal, 1967-71) movements to study the ways in which grassroots mobilizations transform and institutionalize themselves, forge new collective identities and articulate new strategies for survival and resistance. The author uses empirical data and secondary research to argue that radicalism in peasant movements is in inverse proportion to institutionalization. As spontaneous expressions of discontent against oppression and marginalization become institutionalized movements, the space for radical challenge shrinks. Therefore, in Bengal, the co-option of the peasant movement by the ruling communist party and the state has largely killed the scope for radical action. In Andhra Pradesh on the other hand, the relative independence of the grassroots mobilization process (along with logistic and ideological inputs from NGOs and radical social and Naxalite groups) has allowed the peasantry to exercise multiple options for collective action. However, in both cases, the grassroots mobilization has led to a transformation of the social identity of the peasant, and created a social environment in which issues of dominance and resistance have an important place. The study of the Indian experience is placed in the context of theories of peasant identity and resistance to oppression. The first chapter of the book is devoted to the summing up of sociological perspectives on peasant societies, identities and movements. It includes references to the works of Marx and Lenin, Redfield, Chayanov, Wolf and Gramsci, and, in the Indian context, Beteille, Byres and several others. The book reexamines problems that have got relatively less importance in recent years. It seeks to understand issues that are of enduring relevance in the Indian countryside that continues to simmer with unrest even as it comes to grips with a new economic situation. The book will be of as much interest to researchers and policymakers as to the intelligent general reader.

This classic work in subaltern studies portrays the peasant insurgency in British India from the peasant's viewpoint.

These twelve essays explore the nature of south Asian agrarian society and examine the extent to which it changed during the period of British rule. The central focus of the book is directed to peasant agitation and violence and four of the studies look at the agrarian explosion that formed the background to the 1857 Mutiny. The essays give a coherent historical treatment of the Indian peasant world, and the paperback edition of this successful book will be of interest to the student of peasant studies and to the sociologist as well as to development economists and agronomists generally.

Addressing an important gap in the historiography of modern Assam, this book traces the relatively unexplored but profound transformations in the agrarian landscape of late- and post-colonial Assam that were instrumental in the making of modern Assamese peasantry and rural politics. It discusses the changing relations between various sections of peasantry, state, landed gentry, and politics of different ideological hues — nationalist, communist and socialist — and shows how a primarily agrarian question concerning peasantry came to occupy the centre stage in the nationalist politics of the state. It will especially interest scholars of history, agrarian and peasant studies, sociology, and contemporary politics, as also those concerned with Northeast India.

This definitive study explores what the postcolonial condition has meant to rural people in the Third World. Based on fieldwork done in the village of Alipur in rural north India from the early 1980s through the 1990s, POSTCOLONIAL DEVELOPMENTS challenges the dichotomy of "developed" and "underdevelopoed", and offers a new model for future ethnographic scholarship. 15 photos.

This book is a collection of 12 essays on three interrelated themes of Nation, Civil Society and Social Movements organized in three parts each having four chapters.

A critical work of synthesis and interpretation of agrarian change in India over the long term.