Font Size: 

This study analyses agricultural tenancy relations in two villages belonging to an eastern Indian state—Bihar. The prime concern of this study is to analyse the existing forms and patterns of tenancy in these two villages in relation to the socio-economic structure of lease market participants. The broad objective is to understand the relation between socioeconomic status of tenant households and its impact on land lease contract in an agrarian economy, in the contemporary Indian context. The two villages, even though they are in a similar agro-climatic setting, differ historically in terms of tenurial arrangements and distribution of land, across socio-economic groups.

Agricultural tenancy; Rent; Caste; Class; Peasant differentiation.