ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on the basis of field data from Gujarat, with its long history of economic development, and Orissa, where the stimulus for large-scale social and economic change became available only after independence, are at variance with the early comparative literature on conflict, protest, stability and the strategies of development. It shows that while structural parameters like high social status, education or superior financial position are conducive to greater access to developmental benefits, in some cases political organisation and radical action by those bereft of such resources can act as a countervailing force, and bring some rewards to the underprivileged as well. Seen across India as a whole, the process of interpenetration of norms of centrally diffused egalitarianism and local social hierarchy is marked by contradictions and paradoxes.
