ABSTRACT
The changes in South India outlined above seem to have their parallels in agrarian change in seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Japan. Common features include the intensification of agricultural production, the acquisition of land by erstwhile agricultural labourer classes and the consequent increase of small farmers, and the decrease in the number of permanent bonded labourers. Moreover, both cases indicate that the general trend in agricultural progress in Japan and in South India has been toward a smaller rather than a larger farm. Following the general discussion in Chapter 1.2, this chapter attempts to make a more specific comparison between Japan and South India, and, by so doing, highlights the characteristics of agrarian changes in South India from a comparative perspective.
