Breaking down the question

The command word is "identify", asking you to name and explain the different forms of inequality that structure agrarian society in India. The focus is on the agrarian social structure — the web of relations around land, labour and produce in rural India.

The sociological point to establish early is that agrarian inequality in India is multi-dimensional. It is not reducible to class alone or to caste alone; the two are entangled, and further inflected by gender, region and access to the means of production. Andre Beteille's classic study of a Tanjore village showed how class, caste and power, once neatly aligned, have progressively become distinct dimensions of stratification. Your task is to lay out these interlocking axes of inequality clearly.

How to approach it

Structure the answer as a set of distinct but connected forms of inequality. A strong response will:

  • Begin with the foundational inequality in landownership.
  • Use an established typology such as Daniel Thorner's categories of malik, kisan and mazdoor.
  • Layer in caste, gender and regional dimensions.
  • Cite Beteille, Thorner and Desai, and note change over time.

For fuller treatment, see our notes on agrarian class structure.

Model answer

Inequality in the Indian agrarian order is layered, with several overlapping axes rather than a single dividing line.

Inequality in landownership. The most basic inequality is in the distribution of land, the primary means of production in the countryside. A small stratum of large landowners controls a disproportionate share, while the majority hold marginal, sub-viable plots or none at all. Daniel Thorner captured the resulting hierarchy through three functional categories: the malik, who owns land and lives off rent or the labour of others; the kisan, the working peasant cultivating his own or rented land; and the mazdoor, the landless labourer who survives by selling labour. This graded structure of property is the spine of agrarian inequality.

Inequality in the relations of production. Beyond ownership lies inequality in the terms on which people work the land. Tenancy relations — sharecropping, insecure leases and high rents — allow surplus to be extracted from cultivators by owners. Agricultural labourers, often bound by debt and dependence, face inequality in wages, security and bargaining power. The command over the agrarian surplus is therefore deeply unequal, concentrated in the hands of those who control land and credit.

The class-caste nexus. A distinctive feature of Indian agrarian inequality is the intertwining of class and caste. Historically, upper castes tended to be landowners, middle or dominant castes the cultivating peasantry, and Dalits the landless labourers performing stigmatised work. Beteille's study of Sripuram showed that class, caste and power were once congruent but have gradually differentiated, so that economic class no longer maps perfectly onto ritual caste. Nonetheless, the correlation between low caste and landlessness remains strong, giving agrarian inequality a dimension of humiliation and social exclusion over and above economic disadvantage.

Inequality created by agrarian change. The Green Revolution and commercialisation added new lines of inequality. Its gains accrued mainly to those with capital, irrigation and larger holdings, widening the gap between a prosperous class of capitalist farmers and a stagnant mass of marginal cultivators and labourers. This process of agrarian differentiation produced what scholars describe as a class of rich, market-oriented farmers alongside a growing body of wage labour, deepening rather than levelling rural inequality. Regional inequality also sharpened, as capital-rich zones surged ahead of rain-fed and backward regions.

Gender inequality. Agrarian inequality is strongly gendered. Women contribute heavily to cultivation, yet rarely own land, and inheritance customs marginalise them from titles. With male out-migration to cities, there is a growing feminisation of agriculture in which women bear the burden of farm work without corresponding control over land, credit or produce. Their labour is undervalued and their decision-making power limited.

Inequality in access to institutional resources. Finally, there is unequal access to the enabling resources of modern agriculture — institutional credit, irrigation, technology, markets and state support. Larger farmers command formal credit and subsidies; the small and marginal are pushed toward exploitative informal lenders. This unequal access reproduces the underlying hierarchy across generations.

A dynamic structure. These forms are not static. Land reforms, tenancy legislation, reservation and rural mobilisation have partially reshaped the older order, and dominant intermediate castes have risen as new agrarian power-holders, a shift A. R. Desai's tradition of agrarian analysis helps illuminate. Yet the core inequalities — in land, in the terms of labour, in the caste-class overlap and in gender — persist, making the agrarian structure one of the most durable sites of inequality in Indian society.

In sum, agrarian inequality in India is multi-dimensional: unequal ownership of land, unequal relations of production, the fusion of class with caste, sharpening differentiation from agrarian change, pervasive gender disparity and unequal access to institutional resources. Understanding rural India requires holding all these axes together.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners reward candidates who show that agrarian inequality is multi-dimensional rather than a single owner-versus-labourer divide. Deploying Thorner's malik-kisan-mazdoor typology gives the answer analytical structure, and Beteille's Sripuram argument about the differentiation of class, caste and power is almost expected in a top script.

The dimensions that lift an answer are the class-caste nexus, the inequalities intensified by the Green Revolution, and the gendered nature of agrarian work, including the feminisation of agriculture. Noting change — land reforms, the rise of dominant castes — signals that the candidate sees the structure as dynamic.

Weak answers reduce the topic to a two-class model or drift into a general essay on poverty. Strong answers name distinct, well-labelled forms of inequality and connect them to established sociological studies of rural India.