Jan Bremen's "The Poverty Regime in Village India:.."

reviewd by D. Narasimha Reddy in Frontline: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20080201506207600.htm
Concluding paragraphs of the review:
"The idea of undeserving poor has taken root in the minds of those who are rich, more in these years of reforms. The rich, thus, neither feel guilty nor are afraid of any mobilisation by the poor in acute destitution because of the absence of solidarity among them. The result is that the landless, footloose rural proletariat lead a nomadic existence, following the seasonal, sectoral, and local fluctuations in the economy with occupational multiplicity. This, according to Breman, is not a temporary imbalance but a structural crisis, of which the enormous reserve army of land-poor and landless are the victims (page 206).

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

In the last chapter of the book, Breman engages in the present debate on “inclusive growth”. He believes that one of the critical inputs in making the rural landless poor move out of the present state is access to land. “Making land accessible to households which had been made landless in the near or more distant past would put an end to their exclusion from right to property” (page 414). He shows how Dhodias, another tribal group with access to land, though marginal, are able to achieve a little more of stability, gain access to education, and experience improvement in living conditions. The present stirrings and mobilisation of the rural poor in all parts of the country, one hopes, marks the beginning of the second wave of land reforms, which becomes imperative.

The book shows that the expectation that the landless would leave the village seeking better life in non-agricultural and urban occupations and relieve pressure on land did not happen. On the contrary, it shows the irrational phenomenon of people having land acquiring skills and moving to lucrative non-agricultural occupations without leaving their hold on their land. The landless poor thus suffer “double denial”.

The book, which is a product of long years of dedicated, unparalleled fieldwork , has been brought out with a great deal of care, supported by valuable photographs to drive home the message in a telling manner. It would be a difficult, but eye–opening, reading for policymakers, and rewarding in method and substance to students trying to understand poverty in all its dimensions. "