State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020: Rethinking Productivity and Populism through Alternative Approaches

This book has been prepared by the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS), an all-India network of scholars, researchers, civil society practitioners, farmers, students, and activists engaged in issues related to rural and agrarian India. The book is born out of a recognition of the urgent need to address the extant erasure of rural livelihoods, depletion of natural resources and the pauperization of rural communities, which current policies and ideas continue to perpetuate. It is an attempt to provide a critical review of the key structural factors and especially mainstream policies and programmes that have contributed to rural India’s current economic, social and ecological situation. By developing a critique of these approaches, this book attempts to put forward alternative ideas, paradigms and methodologies to address these entrenched and recurring problems. The key questions raised and the responses analysed in this book would contribute significantly to the emergence of an alternative vision for the development of rural India. NRAS encourages the use, reproduction, and dissemination of material in this book. Material in this book may be copied, downloaded, and printed for private study, research, and teaching purposes, or for use in non-commercial products or services, provided that appropriate acknowledgement of NRAS as the source is given and that NRAS’s endorsement of users’ views, products, or services is not implied in any way.