Ch 9Change and Development in Rural Society — Class 12 Sociology, concept-first.

India remains, at its core, a rural society, even as urbanisation accelerates — the 2011 Census still counted 69 per cent of the population in rural areas, most of them dependent on agriculture or agr…

The single most important resource in rural India is agricultural land. It is not just a means of livelihood; it is the primary form of property. Yet this resource is distributed very unequally.

The story of land in India is the story of power. Before you can understand why land reforms were needed after independence, you must first see how the colonial period deliberately twisted the relatio…

The agrarian structure of India that we see today did not emerge overnight. It was shaped by a long history, and the most decisive turning point was the colonial period.

After independence, India faced a severe agricultural crisis. Productivity was low, the country depended on imported food grains, and a large section of the rural population lived in intense poverty.

The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was a government programme of agricultural modernisation, largely funded by international agencies.

The post-Independence period, especially in regions that experienced the Green Revolution, brought profound changes to social relations in rural India.

The circulation of labour is one of the most visible changes in rural India, driven directly by the commercialisation of agriculture.

The policy of liberalisation, pursued since the late 1980s, has deeply reshaped rural India. At its core, this policy required India to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which pushes for freer…