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Does ‘Landlordism’ Still Matter? Reflections on Agrarian Change in I ndia
Author(s) -
Harriss John
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/joac.12024
Subject(s) - agrarian society , feudalism , scrutiny , agrarian reform , scholarship , political economy , power (physics) , politics , caste , political science , development economics , sociology , economics , law , history , agriculture , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
The three principal communist parties of I ndia continue, in their programmes, to emphasize the significance of landlordism. This paper subjects their arguments about the current state of agrarian production relations to scrutiny, in the light of contemporary research and scholarship. This strongly suggests that classic ‘semi‐feudal’ landlordism has very largely gone. The paper argues however, that there remains a strong case for redistributivist land reform, even though it does not supply the answer to the agrarian question of I ndia that once it did. For all the evidence of the ‘declining power of caste hierarchies’ and the reduced significance of the village, landed power remains a major factor in I ndian politics and society.