Paper short abstract:

This paper uses a unique data set from the Project on Agrarian Relations in India to investigate patterns of land holding, distribution of ownership and operational holdings of land across regions, castes and classes, and to analyse different forms of land tenure and types of tenancy relations.

Paper long abstract:

Land is the primary prerequisite for production in agriculture and the distribution of land between households is an important indicator of their position in the system of agricultural production and in the social hierarchies of rural India.

This paper is a cross-sectional study of the ownership and distribution of operational and ownership holdings of land in rural India. The structure of ownership and distribution of land, is of course, sensitive to local conditions -- to agronomic and ecological conditions, to farming systems, to local social relations, to the history of land tenures, and to what Lenin called the "scale and type of agriculture" in different agrarian regimes. Our paper uses a unique data set to investigate patterns of land holding, and the distribution of ownership and operational holdings of land across regions, castes and classes. It argues that relatively high concentration continues to characterise land ownership in rural India, though the absolute size of large holdings varies with the scale and type of agriculture in different agrarian regimes. The paper will also describe and analyse different forms of land tenure and types of tenancy relations.

The paper will use data from village surveys conducted by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies as part of the Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI). PARI surveys were conducted from 2005 to 2012 in 22 villages across nine States. Together, these 22 villages cover a wide spectrum of agrarian regimes in the country.