Agrarian Social Structure ( Sociology Optional)

Introduction

  • An agrarian (or farming) society is dependent on the production of food using plows and domestic animals. It focuses mainly on its economy primarily on agriculture and the cultivation of large fields.
  • The society may recognize different methods for livelihood. This distinguishes it from the hunter-gatherer society, which do not produce its own food, and the horticultural society, which produces food in small gardens rather than fields.
  • The agrarian economy evolves from subsisting on hunting and gathering, to fishing, swiddening or shifting agriculture, pastoralism, horticulture, and finally to setteled agriculture. It is discussed in the topic evolution of agricultural economy.
  • Beteille has defined agrarian social structure. To him it describes a more or less homogeneous and undifferentiated community of families characterised by small hold­ings operated mainly by family labour.
  • The crucial aspect of agrarian structure is the control over land. It is the basis of agrarian stratification. When agrarian social structure is discussed, we refer to land ownership, land control and use of land invariably. Such ap­proach to land helps us to find out agrarian hierarchy.

Relationship between fertility and social structure by Davis and Blake

  • A striking feature of underdeveloped and agricultural areas is that, mostly all of them exhibit a much higher fertility than the urban-industrial societies.
  • There is profound difference in social organization between the two types of society. It is significant for the comparative sociology of reproduction.
  • The underdeveloped areas differ markedly in social organization, and that these differences bring the variations in fertility in these regions.
  • However, the demographic statistics of backward regions is generally so poor, that the reported differences are difficult to
  • There are cases where societies with differing social organization have the same level of fertility, and they may reach this common result by quite different institutional mechanisms.
  • Ample opportunity exists for the comparative analysis of social structure as it affects fertility. Considering the effect of future population trends on economic development, such analysis has a practical as well as a theoretical significance.

Agrarian class structure

  • The concept of ‘agrarian class structure’ refers to the type of the class structure that prevails in an agricultural society or set up.
  • Scholars such as Bhargava, D.R. Gadgil and others have stated in their studies that the agrarian classes did exist in pre-independent India.
  • The agrarian social structure consists of agrarian classes which represent different social groups in rural India.
  • Agrarian in India
  • Daniel Thorner divided the agrarian class structure of India by taking three criteria:
    • Income obtained from landthat is, through rent, one’s own cultivation or ‘wages’.
    • The nature of rightthat is, ownership rights, tendency right, share-cropping right, or no right at all.
    • The extent of fieldwork actually performed that is, doing no work at all, doing partial work, doing total work, and doing work for others to earn wages.

Neo-Rich agrarian class

Daniel Thorner classified the classes on the basis of these classes:

  • Income obtained from rents, cultivation, wages in relation to the soil.
  • The nature of rights through ownership or tenancy.
  • Actual performance of fieldwork.

N. Dhanagre (1983) proposed a different model of the agrarian class structure. He He proposed five classes:

  1. Landlords
  2. Rich peasants or small landowners who have sufficient land to support their family,
  3. rich tenants have substantial holdings and give rent to landlords;
  4. middle peasants with medium size holdings;
  5. Poor peasants: They include
    • landowners whose holdings are insufficient to support their family and are thus forced to rent someone else’s land
    • Tenants with small property
    • Sharecroppers
    • Landless labourers

Class issues

  • The rich are the ones who have all social, economic and political power which keeps them in safe zone.
  • The poor peasants and labourers are exploited by rich landowners which makes their relation unhealthy.
  • More than social problems, the labourers face economic problems. Their position in the hierarchical society, fewer employment opportunities and meager wages are greater concern.
  • The more the employment opportunities the more will be the growth of agricultural economy and incentives to artisans in villages.
  • The vast majority suffering as labourers are SCs, STs, and OBCs. They are in so bulk with all their social disabilities and low position that its difficult to completely eradicate all problems.
  • As per the Agricultural Labour Enquiry, government policies have diminished some of their social handicaps, but still their condition is not good. Many a times, they are not considered a part of the village life, and are regarded with disrespect if they are considered.

Market economy and Agrarian social structure

  • A market economy is an economic system where two forces, supply and demand, direct the production of goods and services.
  • Market economies are not controlled by a central authority (like a government) and are instead based on voluntary exchange.
  • The Exchange penetrates through the social fabric and may be thought of as a network holding the society together. Exchange is rationalized by a price system. There are many exchange systems as per types of society. Market is such a system.
  • A market is a system that produces self-regulating prices. Self-regulation is through the interaction of buyers and sellers who operate impersonally, that is without regard to factors such as those of kinship, prestige, status emotion, or in any other way than as buyer and seller.

Factors contributing to the development of markets

Market place trading has been a long-established tradition. There are several factors contributing to the development of the market:

  • Introduction of cash as a medium of exchange: It facilitates exchange between persons of differing cultures, in the absence of barter or other presentation conventions.
  • Growth of transport and communications.
  • Growing dependence of producers upon agricultural cash crops seeing a market.
  • Security of law and order: It has made it possible for persons of different tribal groups to exchange goods.

Agrarian Market Place Systems

In rural and agrarian social structure, the marketplace is a focus and distinctive feature of the network of exchange, which binds the economy together. It is characterized by the following features:

  • A large proportion of the product does not find its way into the marketplace at all.
  • The marketplace frequently exists alongside prestation systems and may be interlinked with them.
  • Modern marketplace systems are today normally part of national systems, which contain industrial and commercial sectors. These are yet separated from the tribal marketplaces.
  • Agrarian marketplaces facilitate trading in small lots, and the buyers and sellers are innumerable.
  • The storage function of marketplace is noteworthy. It applies even to perishable commodities since it is an analytical rather than literal function.
  • For example, a person may sell commodities that he is now unable to consume himself, but by retaining the proceeds may be able to buy back similar commodities from other producers when his own production is in short supply.

Social Relations in the Market Place

  • Exchange is the primary form of social interaction. Exchange patterns can define group composition, the relation between group members and interaction across boundaries.
  • Trade and marketing constitute a concrete form of exchange and hence give one major indication of social structure. For example- In Mesoamerica, an exchange takes between peasants and townsmen.
  • One interesting finding is that in agrarian markets, contradictory features coexist. That is the marketplace is a typically fabricated network of impersonal relations.

Impacts of the Agrarian Transformation in India

  • The agrarian transformation in India, which has been result of the impact of land reforms mainly the zamindari abolition and land to the tillers.
  • The agrarian transformation is best seen in the rise of the class of Kulaks in parts of the country.
  • The landless labourers and dalits did not benefit from these in most parts of the country.
  • The Kulaks came to wield considerable influence in the politics of several states, and since the 1990s of the country.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s large part of the country witnessed the emergence of the movement of the small farmers and landless labour.
  • This movement started from Naxalbari in West Bengal and very soon spread to different parts of country like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa till the end of the 60s.