Agrarian Change and Accumulation in Central India: Revisiting the Agrarian Question of Capital

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the relevance of the agrarian question of capital and provide evidence of the dynamism in agriculture and its spillover on the non-agrarian accumulation dynamics based on an empirical enquiry. We study the possibilities, channels and patterns of agrarian accumulation in an agriculturally advanced region lying in central India. Our data points to the possibilities of accumulation within agriculture in rural India. . Based on this empirical study, we posit that the agrarian question of capital remains important at the regional level, and agrarian capital remains important for the processes of agrarian change as well as accumulation. By bringing the focus back on the question of capital, the contemporary agrarian change processes can be contextualised as being linked to the process of generation, transformation and movement of agrarian surplus and the important role it plays in facilitating economic diversification. Against the claims that the agrarian questions have been resolved or bypassed or resolved, the paper argues for the continued relevance of the agrarian question of capital at a regional scale in India and contributes to the debate on the relevance of the agrarian question of capital in the global south.