Abstract
This chapter examines the changes in the rural, agrarian economy of India, through a two-period survey of a village in Rajasthan. It is found that the increasing number of uneconomic farm plots due to the continuous division of land and lack of alternative job opportunities in rural areas have profoundly affected the tenancy relations. It is the marginal farmers who are leasing out land as cultivation has become unviable due to high fragmentation and uneconomic size of farm plots. A resurvey of the villages revealed the ground-level implications of price fluctuations in the world market. With an increase in the price of a single crop, self-cultivation became profitable, leading to a fall in tenancy, which in turn, had an adverse impact on the livelihood of marginal and landless tenant farmers pushing them into the labour market.
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Notes
- 1.
Statistics used here have been taken from various volumes of Agricultural Statistics, Rajasthan.
- 2.
A tehsil in Alwar District.
- 3.
A tehsil in Alwar District.
- 4.
This was not a discrepancy. It was mainly due to specific socio-economic and geographical situation of the village. This village is 2–3 kilometre far from the town Kathoomer. A lot of comparatively well to do people, non-resident of Mankhera, living in this nearby town are involved in the land-related business in Mankhera. As these people are settled in the town, they don’t have time or much interest in visiting the town but do land business in the village. They generally tend to lease out land and mortgaged in the land from the villagers. As these people are not the part of this village and do not live in village they are not entitled to be surveyed. This is the reason we have amount of land leased in and mortgaged out higher in comparison to leased out and mortgaged in. Another reason is that the government land would be reflected in the total land leased in but would not reflect in total land leased out, as government is not a household to survey.
- 5.
Increase in the price of guar can be attributed to alternative use of guar in the production of guar gum which is highly demanded in the OPEC countries.
- 6.
The main reason for increase in the price of dhaincha, as discussed earlier, was the adulterated use of the crop for mixing in pulses.
- 7.
The demand for lease is increased due to increase in profitability in the cultivation, as a result of which there was pressure in the market to raise the fixed rent, but most of the tenant cultivators were unwilling to do so as they were not sure that this high price of guar will persist in the long run. Future uncertainty of persistence of high price of guar made the shift of tenancy contract from fixed rent contract to share rent contract, as share rent contract was safer for the tenants and landlord both.
- 8.
Capital city of the state of Rajasthan.
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Gupta, A. (2020). Globalising Agrarian Markets and Changing Production Relations: Village-Level Evidence from India. In: Mishra, D., Nayak, P. (eds) Land and Livelihoods in Neoliberal India. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3511-6_6
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