ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the overall pattern of mobility in Malegaon between 1920 and 1950, to see what effect it had on the pattern of inequality. The results of the statistical approach show, first, that economic mobility was not an unusual experience but was an important and pervasive characteristic of the local economy. The great depression was a cause of rapid upward and downward mobility. The standard assumption is that the non-commercial processes worked primarily to the disadvantage of middle and small farmers, and agricultural laborers. Big cane growers had to face serious problems in terms of the cost and efficiency of hired labor. The Saswad Malis were small-scale market gardeners who migrated to the canal villages and became wealthy by growing cane on rented land. A careful study of production costs in the late 1920s concluded that "Business farmers renting land and borrowing capital have little scope for sugarcane growing under the present circumstances".
