Peasant and peasant protests in India / edited by M.N.Karna

The importance of peasant movements has only lately been recognized. Scholars and re searchers have gone deep into the study of these movements and a wealth of material has been coming out from various sources.

In this book are assembled contributions by well-known scholars on different facets of agrarian systems and peasant protest movements in India.

The studies here are divided into three groups. The first of these wrestles with concep tual problems and focuses attention on the trends in Indias agrarian studies, the concept of the peasant and also deals with the tricky question of the category called tribe-peasant.

The second section focuses on the differ entiations emerging from these movements within the tribal setting and in the process highlights class formation a direct result of the new forces of change.

The last section presents six case studies which examine the nature of peasant activism in relation to the agrarian class structure and the political groups involved in the mobilization of the peasantry. Two studies in this section talk about tribal communities - one of the NE. and the others of middle India. The rest of the studies deal with the non-tribal situation. Of these two of the movements launched in pre-independence days are studied in their historical contex The others are discussions of on-going moven ents. These studies highlight a number of crucissues which have emerged fro the study of peasant protest movements in India today.