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\"Behind India's high recent growth rates lies a story of societal conflict that is scarcely talked about. Across production sites, state institutions and civil society organisations, the dominant and less well-off sections of society are engaged in a protracted conflict that determines the material conditions of one quarter of the world's 'poor'. Increasingly mobile, and often engaged in multiple occupations in multiple locations, India's 'classes of labour' are highly segmented, but far from passive in the face of ongoing processes of exploitation and domination. Drawing on detailed fieldwork in rural South India over more than a decade, the book uses a 'class-relational' approach that focuses on 'the poor's' iniquitous relations with others, and views class in terms of contested social relations rather than structural locations marked by particular characteristics. The book explores continuity and change amongst forms of accumulation, exploitation and domination in three interrelated arenas of class relations: labour relations, the state and civil society. Marginal gains for labour derived from structural change are contested by capital, local state institutions and state poverty reduction programmes tend to be controlled by the dominant class, and civil society organisations tend to reproduce rather than challenge the status quo. On the other hand, elements of state policy have the capacity to improve the material conditions of 'the poor' where such ends are actively pursued by labouring class organisations. It is argued that social policy currently provides the most fertile terrain for redistributing power and resources to the labouring class, and may clear the way for more fundamental transformations.\"

Cowinner of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology’s Edward Sapir Book Prize Since the early 1990s hundreds of thousands of Tamil villagers in southern India have participated in literacy lessons and other events designed to transform them into active citizens with access to state power. These efforts are part of a movement known as the Arivoli Iyakkam (the Enlightenment Movement), one of the most successful mass literacy movements in recent history. This rich ethnographic account of highlights the paradoxes inherent in such movements that seek to emancipate people through literacy. “A work of linguistic anthropology that makes crucial contributions to the study of literacy and language ideologies. It is also a broadly ranging work of social theory that will be of interest to students and scholars of the postcolonial state and neoliberal governmentality in South Asia and beyond, and of activism and social movements more generally.”—Anthropological Quarterly

This highly practical and informative book provides unique insights into the essential features of rural markets in India as well as challenges posed by the rural consumer. Retaining the managerial perspective of the first edition, this second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded, and examines in greater detail the concept of rural markets and rural marketing. It also contains numerous short cases to illustrate how social and cultural habits influence rural consumer behaviour. The book contains comprehensive insights into: - The nature and patterns of rural behaviour. - A detailed profile of the rural market. - The opportunities available in rural markets and new methods used to access the rural consumer. - Strategic decisions for new product development. - Promotion, distribution, communication, and channel servicing decisions. - the importance of rural market institutions such as haats and melas. - Emerging channels to access rural market. A guide to strategic marketing and management decisions, this book will be of interest to students of marketing and management as well as professionals in the field.

Renowned as the predominant farmers and landlords of Punjab, and long possessed of an autocthonous agricultural identity, Jat Sikhs today often live urban and diasporiclives. Rural Nostalgias and Transnational Dreams examines the formation and meaning of Jat Sikh identity in the contemporary Indian city. Nicola Mooney describes a number of Jat Sikh social practices and narratives through which contemporary notions of identity are developed. She contextualizes these elements of Jat Sikh modernity against local, regional, and national histories of cultural and political differentiation, perceptions of marginality, and the expression of increasingly exclusive notions and practices of identity. This unique ethnography incorporates first-hand observations and local narratives to develop insights into the traditions and social memory of Jat Sikhs, as well as on the issues of urban and transnational social transformation.

A terrifying sound disturbs the peace of Hansuli Turn, a forest village in Bengal, and the community splits as to its meaning. Does it herald the apocalyptic departure of the gods or is there a more rational explanation? The Kahars, inhabitants of Hansuli Turn, belong to an untouchable \"criminal tribe\" soon to be epically transformed by the effects of World War II and India's independence movement. Their headman, Bonwari, upholds the ethics of an older time, but his fragile philosophy proves no match for the overpowering machines of war. As Bonwari and the village elders come to believe the gods have abandoned them, younger villagers led by the rebel Karali look for other meanings and a different way of life. As the two factions fight, codes of authority, religion, sex, and society begin to break down, and amid deadly conflict and natural disaster, Karali seizes his chance to change his people's future. Sympathetic to the desires of both older and younger generations, Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay depicts a difficult transition in which a marginal caste fragments and mutates under the pressure of local and global forces. The novel's handling of the language of this rural society sets it apart from other works of its time, while the village's struggles anticipate the dilemmas of rural development, ecological and economic exploitation, and dalit militancy that would occupy the center of India's post-Independence politics. Negotiating the colonial depredations of the 1939--45 war and the oppressions of an agrarian caste system, the Kahars both fear and desire the consequences of a revolutionized society and the loss of their culture within it. Lyrically rendered by one of India's great novelists, this story of one people's plight dramatizes the anxieties of a nation and the resistance of some to further marginalization.

This is a comparative study of small capitalists and rural industrialists in three Asian countries. Studies on the entrepreneurial class in South Asia tend to focus on the structural aspects of entrepreneurial behaviour, while studies on this class in Southeast Asia tend to focus on cultural aspects of their behaviour. In fact, this book points to striking similarities between Indian, overseas Chinese and Muslim businessmen in Asia, similarities usually hidden under variations in analytical approaches. Although this study emphasizes similarities within Asia, it does not support the view of a specific Asian business pattern different to the rise of non-Asian, especially European, entrepreneurs. The findings are of major interest not just within the fields of anthropology and entrepreneurship, but to all scholars working on South or Southeast Asia, who will find much of interest in the author's observations of variable research results between the two regions.

Addressing an important gap in the historiography of modern Assam, this book traces the relatively unexplored but profound transformations in the agrarian landscape of late- and post-colonial Assam that were instrumental in the making of modern Assamese peasantry and rural politics. It discusses the changing relations between various sections of peasantry, state, landed gentry, and politics of different ideological hues - nationalist, communist and socialist - and shows how a primarily agrarian question concerning peasantry came to occupy the centre stage in the nationalist politics of the state. It will especially interest scholars of history, agrarian and peasant studies, sociology, and contemporary politics, as also those concerned with Northeast India.

Rural Marketing as a separate discipline in management teaching has emerged recently. The growing importance of the subject has been well realized by the marketers, policymakers and management interns. However, there is dearth of quality literature on the subject, comprehensive coverage of all the dimensions, aspects and managerial issues pertaining to rural marketing. In most of the management institutions, a half-baked knowledge of rural marketing is being imparted to the management interns while there is more emphasis on marketing perspective on harnessing the immense potential offered by rural areas through suitable marketing planning, product mix, pricing, distribution, promotional mix, branding and communication strategies. Present book is a serious attempt to bridge the need gap in the subject.

As the first output from the gender and governance in rural services project, this report presents descriptive findings and qualitative analysis of accountability mechanisms in agricultural extension and rural water supply in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia, paying specific attention to gender responsiveness. The gender and governance in rural services project seeks to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve agricultural and rural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project focuses on agricultural extension, as an example of an agricultural service, and drinking water, as an example of rural service that is not directly related to agriculture but is of high relevance for rural women. A main goal of this project was to generate empirical micro level evidence about the ways various accountability mechanisms for agricultural and rural service provision work in practice and to identify factors that influence the suitability of different governance reform strategies that aim to make service provision more gender responsive. Three out of four poor people in the developing world live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Providing economic services, such as agricultural extension, is essential to using agriculture for development. At the same time, the rural poor need a range of basic services, such as drinking water, education, and health services. Such services are difficult to provide in rural areas because they are subject to the \"triple challenge\" of market, state, and community failure. As a result of market failure, the private sector does not provide these services to the rural poor to the extent that is desirable from society's point of view. The state is not very effective in providing these services either, because these services have to be provided every day throughout the country, even in remote areas, and because they require discretion and cannot easily be standardized, especially if they are demand driven. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and communities themselves are interesting alternative providers of these services, but they too can fail, because of capacity constraints and local elite capture. This triple challenge of market, state, and community failure results in the poor provision of agricultural and rural services, a major obstacle to agricultural and rural development.