Agricultural Labor Shortage in Punjab:A Case Study of Muktsar District

The book deals with the emerging patterns of agricultural labor shortage in Punjab and its impacts on the socio-economic conditions in the State. Punjab is primarily an agricultural state where landowners and landless agricultural workers, popularly called Dalits, are engaged in a power struggle. Over the years, Dalits in Punjab have improved their life due to constitutional affirmative action, socio-political movements, occupational diversification and ventures abroad. This empowered many of them to dissociate from their traditional manual labor jobs in the agricultural sector. Consequently, this has led to the problem of shortage of agricultural labor in the villages. However, the Dalit dissociation has been interpreted by the landlords as a challenge to their long established supremacy in Punjab. This has led to sharpening of the contradiction between them. This study, in a modest way, helps to understand the emerging trends of agrarian crises in contemporary Punjab.