World of the rural labourer in colonial India

This series focuses on important themes in Indian history, on those which have long been the subject of interest and debate, or which have acquired importance more recently.
Each volume in the series consists of, first, a detailed Introduction; second, a careful choice of the essays and book-extracts vital to a proper understanding of the theme; and, finally, an Annotated Bibliography. Using this consistent format, each volume seeks as a whole to critically assess the state of the art on its theme, chart the historiographical shifts that have occurred since the theme emerged, rethink old problems, open up questions which were considered closed, locate the theme within wider historiographical debates, and pose new issues of inquiry by which further work may be made possible.
Agricultural labourers in India first featured within historical debates on the impact of colonialism. In the nationalist argument, agricultural labourers did not exist before the colonial period, whereas their numbers increased dramatically under British rule. Later calculations offered a different picture, namely that the number of agricultural labourers in the pre-British period was substantial, and that their proportion within the total labour force remained relatively unchanged through the British period.