I feel hesitant to write about an academic interest which has been with me in various ways for about a decade and a half, despite many changes in the world of historical scholarship. I began with an intense feeling for agrarian history, to research about a region academically least covered and personally unfamiliar to myself. I thought much could be achieved if considerable quantitative and qualitative data about some of the crucial aspects of agrarian life can be collected, related to and interpretated. In the process I could possibly highlight some, became more familier to the region but at the same time got exposed to complexities unforeseen altogether. In the years that followed, my academic interest underwent significant changes, to pass through periods of involved research work, distraction and simple inaction, by dint of rethinking, redirection and revision. I now understand that my interest is a long-drawn-out process, leading me to a different cultural milieu, attendant with its joy and pangs, success and failures, my very desire to build grand projects and the limitation of my ability. The Agrarian Ecomomy of Tamilnadu is a half-way house between my present imagination and my initial expectation in research.
The scheme of the research work has had to accommodate significant publications on the related areas in the last eight years; none of them, I hope, has replaced it. Though it is for the readers to judge its academic relevance, the book may probably legitimately claim some credit in the handling of materials (hitherto unused) and the areal coverage (not attempted at this level) in connection with a set of question not posed in this way. Admittedly, the scheme has its reservations; but its strong points may not be ignored.
One consequence of the research to me is the feeling of a manifold indebtedness that I owe to many. The debt that I owe to Professor Binay Bhusan Chaudhuri, my teacher and supervisor, is the greatest. He introduced me to agrarian history, guided this research with unusual interest, patience and affection, and has always been a source inspiration to me for dedicated research and study. Here I should add that with a rare sense of dignity Mrs Tripti Chaudhuri has always withstood all inconveniences due to my prolonged sittings with Professor Chaudhuri, even when I have taken much of their personal time. I am, therefore, grateful to her also.
It has become almost customary to begin an agrarian history of colonial India with an introductory note on its pre-colonial developments. For an analysis of the south Indian agrarian economy in the early nineteenth century, such an attempt is more important, both because of the recency of the colonial rule as well as the various 'internal' and 'external' dimensions of the influences that shaped the rural society in the region. It is not, however, an easy task materials are scarce, often difficult to arrange, and not-withstanding the notable publications of some related works in the last few years, the gaps are, admittedly, many. Particularly, sources which deal directly with the history of the south Indian rural society and economy, are not available, and consequently, dependence on the "political and religious sources from which inferences about social organization and economic trends can be made is heavy. Moreover, in order to interpret the pre-colonial agrarian developments in the wider historical perspective, the period generally taken for consideration is fairly long almost a millenium prior to the establishment of British rule in the region. Seen through the works of Burton Stein, Christopher Baker and David Ludden, it is a stimulating exercise in terms of historical imagination, but for a sketchy introduction of a study primarily concerned with the early colonial period, such an attempt if at all possible - is bound to be cursory and over-simplified. The thematic considerations also may vary. To avoid repetition and to make the comparison of the pre-colonial agrarian developments with the colonial ones more fruitful, I like only to identify three distinct approaches from the extant literature here, leaving the more detailed, thematic discussion of these to the relevant sections of the subsequent chapters of the present study. The first approach, initiated by Professor Burton Stein more than twenty years ago, views the long-term pre-colonial period in terms of the state of agrarian integration" i.c. as a kind of relatively stable agrarian regime in terms of the relationship amongst dominant groups in society, a kind of relationship which may be achieved several times in a long-term period. For Stein, there were at least two such "agrarian integrations" in the millenium before the nineteenth century the Pallava-Chola integration of the ninth to the twelfth centuries and the Vijaynagar integration of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, both of which took place in the context of two unchanging elements the state of technology and the persistent forms of human organization. As far as technology was concerned, irrigated agriculture based primarily on tank storage and secondarily on riverine sources remained stable, and the bullock-drawn ploughs, with the utilization of additional animals in a few areas continued. As regards forms of human organization, the tripartite division of south Indian castes into Brahman, non-Brahman and low-caste groups with a dual division of right hand (valangai) and left hand (idangai) castes took shape by the beginning of the period. In this unchanging socio-economic context, the Pallava-Chola integration was highlighted by the development of small regions by well-established, often highly organized villages called nuclear villages, the establishment of an entirely voluntary, mutually beneficial alliance between the Brahmans and the high-status Sat-Sudra. peasant castes, and the beginning of two well-operated corporate bodies, respectively controlled by the Brahmans and Sat-Sudras. The Vijaynagar integration was marked by the establishment of the local and regional power in the wake of Muslim incursion in the North, by a group of local warriors whose power was based on the balance of two contradictory factors. The first was the primacy of force as established by the local overlord, both in defence and extension of his authority. However, the second modifying factor in this system was the need of local and even great overlords to deal with corporate groupings with caution, as the threat of the flight of the peasant and artisan population from the villages was always there. Of the important consequences of the agrarian integration of the new warrior regime were included the destruction of the integrity of the older nuclear area, the gradual decline of the older corporate institutioins, the establishment of the nayaka (Vijayn-agar viceroy) system with a more direct management of agrarian resources, and the substantial growth of urbanization.
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