Class Stratification in Rural India:A Socio-Historical Analysis

Abstract

The present paper has the objective of making a historical analysis of
the system of class stratification in the rural society of India. In doing so, the
paper discusses the patterns of class stratification in pre-colonial or medieval
rural society in India, the impact of the British rule on the agrarian class
stratification and the emerging trends in class stratification in postindependence
rural India. The rural society of medieval India as a whole
had five classes: supra-local feudal landlords or overlords, sub-feudal land
lords, occupancy raiyats/tenants, sharecroppers and rural artisans, and
agricultural labourers. By the end of the British rule the rural society in
India had a stratification system consisting of seven classes: zamindar
landlords, tenant-landlords, entrepreneur farmers, owner-cultivators and
registered tenants, sharecroppers, artisans, and agrarian labourers. The major
trends of the class structure of rural India, that have been noticed after the
independence are: the replacement of the zamindars by the new landlords,
emergence of the capitalist cultivators, decrease in the number of tenants and
consequent increase in the number of owner cultivators, continued existence
of tenancy and sharecropping, increase in the number of agricultural labourers,
and decline of traditional artisans