ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to understand the state of employment in rural West Bengal, and its dynamic relations with the aspects of class and especially of caste. It attempts to understand the role of caste and class in determining the nature and extent of employment and unemployment in a particular rural setting. The chapter reveals the issues of employment and unemployment are, in fact, politically constructed through a complex process of dynamic interaction between class, caste and the capital. It explores the trajectory of transformations in land relations, and the role of upper caste landholding group in shaping the phenomenon of landlessness, and the implications of the policy interventions on the part of the government on all rural classes and groups, particularly the subordinate land-poor groups, in employment terms. The rich peasantry or 'the dominant castes' would hardly play any role in formulation of policies and acts that aimed at alleviating rural distress.
