Identification of agrarian classes: A methodological essay with empirical material from South India

This article is primarily methodological. It contains a discussion of the concept of agrarian class, and an attempt to develop a method for class analysis, that is, for identifying the class status of individual households, and thereby to develop a tool for assessing the numerical strength of various classes. The article is part of a wider study of production relations in parts of Tiruchy District in Tamil Nadu, and the impact of these relations on agrarian change. After the introductory sections on the concept of class, on the study area, and the relations of production prevailing there, two methods of classification are discussed and evaluated, Patnaik's exploitation index and our own surplus criterion.