"Poverty, class and health culture in India"

This book offers a new methodological and conceptual perspective to social sciences in India. It is based on a long term study of nineteen villages, spanning from 1972 to 1981. These villages were chosen in the states of Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The most significant aspect of this study is that the entire methodological edifice is built around an integrated concept of the of life in these villages. As such it has been possible to gain deeper insights into various key issues related to rural life in India, such as cultural and biological meaning of poverty; social, economic, demographic and political determinants of poverty; relationship between caste, religion, class and politics; interaction between different segments of a rural community and different programmes for development, including the agents who "deliver" the development programmes. The study encompassing the period of the Emergency, the two elections to the Lok Sabha, the elections to State Legislatures and to most of the village Panchayats, provides a significant insight into the nature and the process of cultural, social, economic, demographic and political changes that have taken place during this time.

The author contends that the conventional methodological and conceptual approach es to study of rural life in India, which are usually based on Western reference models, often lead to presentation of a fragmented and materially distorted account of the social reality. He attempts to present the social reality as the stepping stone to develop an alternative approach.