About the Author

The Foundation for Agrarian Studies is a charitable trust based in India and established in 2003. Its major objectives are to facilitate and sponsor multi-disciplinary theoretical and empirical enquiry in the field of agrarian studies in India and elsewhere in less-developed countries. It does so in association with a wide section of people interested in the agrarian question, including persons associated with academic institutions, social and political activists, members of mass organisations working in the countryside, and other professionals and scholars. Since 2005, a major activity of the Foundation has been an India-wide programme of village studies, titled the Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI). The Project has covered 22 villages across 10 States. It involves description and analysis, and the creation of a detailed database on village India in diverse agro-ecological and socio-economic regions of the country.