ABSTRACT
Changes in Third World agrarian systems under the impact of cash cropping and industrialization were not simply the result of forces imposed by capitalists but also of constraints imposed by peasants. The low levels of coercion in the labor control system are also illustrated by the careers of some permanent migrants, who came to the canal areas as construction workers and daily laborers. The prototype of the plantation system had been established earlier, by the only factory in the region which survived in the 1920s. Studies written from the perspective of dependency or world-system theory emphasize external causes: that is, the influence of world trade, foreign investment, colonial administration, western technology, and so on. In many areas of the world, sugarcane is grown on large plantations whose ownership is tied to the factories that process the cane. Large-scale cane growers operating on rented lands emerged among local Marathas, Dhangars, and Brahmans.
