Village Studies in India: A Case of Bihar

"The book presents a proper understanding of the nature of rural social formation in Bihar for the author analyses its three levels of structure in terms of all encompassing categories of caste and class. For an analysis of the economic structure, he deals with the ownership of various forces of agrarian production and the economic relations. The study of political structure details various political institutions and practices such as faction, village panchayat and voting behavior. For the ideological structure, the author pays attention to one ideological entity, viz., the caste system. He also makes empirical analysis of many caste-based organisations, institutions and practices. Reconceptualising the concept of class for carrying out this work, various well-established concepts like caste, faction, sanskritisation, dominant caste, hierarchy, jajmani system, sharecropping, etc., have also been examined and reformulated."