RURAL SOCIETY IN SOUTHEAST INDIA (SOUTH ASIA EDITION)

This book is a comparative study of caste and class in two small villages in the Thanjavur district of southeast India based on fieldwork done by the author in 1951–3. Differing from the usual village study Gough’s work traces the history of the villages over the past century and examines the impact of colonialism on the district since 1770. The volume’s theoretical significance lies in its attempt to define more clearly the characteristics of rural class relations particularly addressing the question whether Indian agrarian relations are still precapitalist. The author discusses the villagers changing internal class relations in the context of changes in the larger structures of the district state and nation and argues that villagers have definitely been incorporated into a wider more modern class structure. She then portrays the effects of this development on internal power relations status rankings judicial processes and political party affiliations. Gough examines the economic impact of colonial rule and the resultant changes in class structure describing the district’s transition from a relatively self-contained and prosperous small kingdom to an agrarian hinterland that exports rice and labor to more developed areas. She goes on to describe socioeconomic life and relations in the villages of Kumbapettai and Kirippur with a comparative analysis of their social structures and internal and external political economies. The book also deals with the revolutionary potential of various classes of villagers in India by examining the organization of the Communist movement in this region in the 1950s and the conditions in which villages retain or dissolve traditional hierarchies of authority through caste assemblies.