Democracy and Economic Transformation in India

Peasant Society Today

The first volume of Subaltern Studies was published in 1982, twenty-five years ago. I was part of the editorial group that launched, under the leadership of Ranajit Guha, this critical engagement with Indian modernity from the standpoint of the subaltern classes, especially the peasantry. In the quarter of a century that has passed since then, there has been, I believe, a fundamental change in the situation prevailing in post-colonial India. The new conditions under which global flows of capital, commodities, information and people are now regulated - a complex set of phenomena generally clubbed under the category of globalization - have created both new opportunities and new obstacles for the Indian ruling classes.