FAS|Publications

The publication and distribution of information relevant to the study of agrarian relations for the use of activists, and academics is an important part of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies’ activities. The Foundation currently produces a book series on agrarian studies, and is in the early stages of planning an online academic journal, the Bulletin of Agrarian Studies.

Agrarian Studies Book Series

In association with Tulika Books, the Foundation publishes an Agrarian Studies Series.
The first two titles in the series are:

Financial Liberalisation and Rural Credit in India

Edited by V. K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan
New Delhi: Tulika Books. 2005. ISBN 81-85229-94-5

Contributors to the book include:

        Amiya Kumar Bagchi Institute of Development Studies
        C. P. Chandrasekhar Jawaharlal Nehru University
        Pallavi Chavan Indian Statistical Institute
        Keya Mukherjee Jawaharlal Nehru University
        Prabhat Patnaik Jawaharlal Nehru University
        V. K. Ramachandran Indian Statistical Institute
        R. Ramakumar El Colegio de Mexico
        Smriti Rao University of Massachusetts at Amherst
        Vikas Rawal Jawaharlal Nehru University
        Sujit Kumar Ray Jawaharlal Nehru University
        Abhijit Sen Jawaharlal Nehru University
        S. L. Shetty EPW Research Foundation
        V. Surjit Indian Statistical Institute
        Madhura Swaminathan Indian Statistical Institute

From the jacket:

Financial liberalization after 1991 damaged the formal system of institutional credit in rural India severely. It represented a clear and explicit reversal of the policy of social and development banking, and contributed in no small way to the extreme deprivation and distress of which the rural poor in India have been victims over the last decade.

The papers in this volume, theoretical and empirical, examine the implications of financial liberalization with respect to rural credit. The theoretical papers deal with the macro-economic and structural effects of neo-liberal financial policy on the rural banking system. The empirical papers, both secondary data-based and village-level case studies, show that changes in national banking policy have had a rapid, drastic and potentially disastrous effect on the debt portfolios of rural households, particularly the income-poor.

Although it is clear that chronic indebtedness among the rural poor is a problem that cannot be solved by banking policy alone, and that the abolition of usury requires agrarian reform and major public investment, a decisive change in banking policy is essential for the very survival of the working people in rural India

Agrarian Studies: Essays on Agrarian Relations in Less-Developed Countries

Edited by V.K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan,
New Delhi: Tulika Books. 2002. ISBN 81-85229-57-0

Table of Contents:

Introduction V.K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan

Section I: Some theoretical perspectives
Chapter 1    Poverty and the distribution of land/ Keith Griffin, Azizur Rahman Khan and Amy Ickowitz
Chapter 2    Paths of capitalist Agrarian transition in the past and in the contemporary world/ Terence J. Byres
Chapter 3    Globalization of capital and terms of trade movements/ Prabhat Patnaik
Chapter 4    Deflation and Deja Vu: Indian agriculture in the world economy/ Utsa Patnaik

Section II: Agrarian relations, human development and neoliberal land reform:
Chapter 1 Agrarian transformation and human development: instrumental and constitutive links/ Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Chapter 2    Land and Agrarian reform in South Africa: contemporary challenges and perspectives/Richard Levin
Chapter 3    Agrarian transition in Russia/ Nirmal Kumar Chandra, note by Venkatesh Athreya
Chapter 4    The politics of partial reform in the Philippines/ James Putzel
Chapter 5    The land market approach to rural development/ M. Riad El-Ghonemy
Chapter 6    Agrarian reform in Brazil: victories and challenges in the era of globalization/ Marcos Kowarick

Section III: Latin America: country experiences:
Chapter 1    Mexico: peasant agriculture and food in a global context/ Kirsten Appendini
Chapter 2    The neoliberal transformation of Chilean agriculture in the era of globalization/ Cristobal Kay

Section IV: South Asia: production, employment and poverty:
Chapter 1    Agrarian relations in contemporary West Bengal and tasks for the left/ Surjya Kanta Mishra and Vikas Rawal
Chapter 2    Presentation land relations in contemporary Kerala: a survey/ P. K. Michael Tharakan. Discussion
Chapter 3    Changes in Agrarian relations and livelihoods in rural Bangladesh: insights from repeat village studies/ Mahabub Hossain, Manik L. Bose, Alamgir Chowdhury and Ruth Meinzen-Dick
Chapter 4    Agriculture, employment and poverty: recent trends in rural India/ Abhijit Sen
Chapter 5    Agricultural workers in rural Tamil Nadu: a field report/ V. K. Ramachandran, Madhura Swaminathan and Vikas Rawal, Note by K. Nagaraj

Section V: Some socialist experiences:
Chapter 1    Economic and social vulnerability in rural China: current situation and some emerging policy issues/ Zhang Xiaoshan
Chapter 2    Presentation dealing with Agrarian relations in the process of rural development: experience of the communist party of Vietnam/ Nguyen Tan Trinh
Chapter 3    Cuba: an experience of rural development/ Victor Manuel Figueroa Albelo

From the jacket:

The transformation of rural societies in the third world in the era of Globalization is one of the most significant processes of social change in the contemporary world. The majority of the people of less-developed countries are still rural, their lives and work bound up with the relations of production in rural economies. The accelerated introduction of policies of stabilization and structural adjustment in the 1980s and 1990s have had wide-ranging and profound implications for the third world countryside--for agrarian relations and the development of capitalism in the countryside, for programmes of local government and, ultimately, for the conditions of life and work of hundreds of millions of people in less-developed countries.

The development and planning department of the government of West Bengal organized a three-day international conference in Kolkata, from January 3 to 6, 2002, in order to provide a forum for debate and discussion on new theoretical and empirical research in the field of agrarian relations in less-developed countries, and in order to advance our understanding of what is happening in rural societies as a result of the most recent phase of global capitalism. The papers brought together in this volume were first presented at this conference.

The papers cover a wide range of theoretical issues and empirical experiences. Some of the theoretical papers address the question of the effectiveness and reliability of different types of land reform; others focus on the macroeconomic context of liberalized trade and mobile financial flows. Of the country case studies, some (on Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Cuba, China and Bangladesh) are concerned with changes in agrarian relations in the context of globalization; others (on South Africa, the Philippines and Sub-Saharan Africa) identify the nature of and constraints on land reforms in the contemporary period. The discussion on the Indian experience ranges from macroeconomic trends and statewise patterns to a study of a particular village over two decades. While the specific concerns and historical processes of each country and region are indeed different, the papers also reflect common concerns and worries, especially with regard to the impact on the rural working people of new policies of globalization and liberalization.

The next two books in the series will be:

Dalit Households in Village Economies

Edited by V. K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan
Tulika Books, forthcoming

In view of the need for rigorous village-level micro-studies by economists of different aspects of Dalit households in village economies that has been recently stressed by leading scholars of Dalit studies, the Foundation for Agrarian Studies has brought together academics and activists to study this subject, and is currently in the process of publishing a book in its Agrarian Studies Series on this subject.

Chapters and contributors will include:

Section I: Introductory
Chapter 1     Introduction
Chapter 2     Status of Dalits in the Rural Economy: An Overview/ S. K. Thorat
Chapter 3     Introduction to the Village Studies

Section II: Movements for Socio-Economic Rights: Two Case Studies
Chapter 4     Peasant Movement and Dalit Rights in East Thanjavur/ G. Ramakrishnan
Chapter 5     Socio-Economic Transformation of Dalit Labour Households in a Malabar Village/ R. Ramakumar

Section III: Education and Household Amenities
Chapter 6     School Education and Persistence of Discrimination/ Madhura Swaminathan and Paramita Ghosh
Chapter 7     Access to Basic Household Amenities among Dalit Households/ Aparajita Bakshi

Section IV: Assets and Indebtedness
Chapter 8    Aspects of Land Ownership and Redistribution in West Bengal Villages/ Aparajita Bakshi
Chapter 9 Inequalities in Land and Asset Ownership in the Study Villages/ Vikas Rawal, K. Nagaraj, Niladri Sekhar Dhar, and Partha Saha
Chapter 10 Debt Profiles of Dalit Households/ Pallavi Chavan and R. Ramakumar

Section V: Employment, Earnings and Incomes among Dalit Households
Chapter 11    Wages, Employment and Earnings among Dalit Manual Labour Households/ V K Ramachandran
Chapter 12    Dalits in the Industrialising Countryside of Coimbatore/ Judith Heyer
Chapter 13    Tenancy and Crop Incomes in the Thanjavur Region/ V. Surjit
Chapter 14    Tenancy and Crop Incomes in Andhra Pradesh/ Vikas Rawal and Niladri Sekhar Dhar
Chapter 15    Incomes and Income Diversification: Results from Village Surveys/ Vikas Rawal and Madhura Swaminathan