In my next chapter I shall invert prevailing orthodoxy by insisting that rural stagnation in Hausaland and Karnataka results from the twentieth century withdrawal from the countryside; I shall show that the countryside, which was once the matrix within which most economic activity in these regions was set, has now become a backwater – a forgotten land. When urban factories in both continents started producing vast quantities of manufactures, such as textiles, which destroyed local craft industries, ‘exploitation’ was the key word; but just as that irreversible process is now ‘defunct history’ in this context, for no village lady wishes to wear a homespun sari, so we should examine contemporary rural/urban relationships without brooding on these homespun themes. Before starting the discussion I must briefly summarise some of my relevant conclusions up to this point.

First, we have conclusively shown (Chapter VI) that the essential basis of rural inequality is the ownership of farmland, which is very unevenly distributed between households. Second, it has been shown (Chapter V) that under-employment is one of the greatest scourges, which particularly affects poorer households. Third, it has been demonstrated (Chapter VII) that cultivators aspire to limit their dependence on dry grains by means of diversifying their farming and non-farming activities and that richer households do this very much more successfully than poorer households. Fourth, is our commonsense (though contentious) supposition, strongly developed in Chapter VIII, that the relationship between scale of production and yield is generally positive for dry grains – so that richer farmers have a greater capability of intensifying, as well as diversifying, their agriculture.