Pakistan, sixth most populous country in the world, has not gone through systematic and effective land or agrarian reforms in sixty-three years of its existence. Almost 67 per cent of its 167 million inhabitants still live in rural areas and directly or indirectly rely on agriculture for their livelihood. In spite of centrality of the village in the country s political-economy there is little by way of theory informed rigorous village studies. As a result, there is abundance of myths about economic, political, and cultural aspects of the life in rural Pakistan

The main...