This book, edited by Madhura Swaminathan and Arindam Das, is a report based on field surveys of three villages in Karnataka. The villages – Alabujanahalli in Mandya district, Siresandra in Kolar district, and Zhapur in Kalaburagi district – were surveyed under the ongoing Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI) in the year 2009. Census surveys were conducted in the study villages. A team from the Foundation for Agrarian Studies revisited the three villages in 2014 to conduct case studies.

The book is a compendium of the results from these surveys. It therefore draws from the work of field investigators, data entry assistants, data analysts, and social scientists. It studies the distribution of a range of variables across socio-economic classes in the three villages.

The variables include literacy and schooling, landholdings and irrigation, asset ownership, cropping pattern and yields, incomes from crop production and other sources, indebtedness, and condition of housing and access to basic amenities.

In addition the book also deals with some specific issues, including farmer suicides and rural banking, at the state level. It also gives a broad description of the agrarian economy of Karnataka.

Contents of the volume can be found here.

Some reviews of the book are provided below:

1. Review by M. V. Nadkarni, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics.
2. “Understanding Land, Labour And Caste Relations,” by A. Kalayaiarasan, The Book Review Literary Trust website.