ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to increase people understanding of regional patterns of agrarian capital accumulation in India. It focuses on those classes who accumulate capital through farming activities in India's regions. The role of the agricultural sector in India is changing. In the early 1980s more than two-thirds of the country's working population were employed in agriculture. The least investigated aspect of accumulation in the countryside is that of non-agrarian accumulation. A number of states in central, eastern and northeastern India have more than 60 per cent of their workforces in agriculture. In Chhattisgarh the percentage is above 70 per cent. The chapter outlines aspects of the developments in Punjab and Tamil Nadu. These are states where agrarian accumulation clearly takes place, but, this accumulation follows somewhat different trajectories. The evidence from Indian states is that there is no neat fit between agricultural development and industrial investments.