Note that Jatabs are the onlycaste group with a considerable increase in the total cultivated area: from 254 bighas in 1983/4 to 399 bighas in2008/9. As our analysis of economic mobility elaborated in Chapter 8 suggests, it is plausible that the increaseof land leased-in for cultivation by the Jatabs is a consequence of their ‘upward mobility’ over the years
The authors emphasize that their analysis covers «over seven decades ». This long term view uniquely reveals how Jatabs used non farm income to increase land leasing. Does this mean that in some cases, economic development can work through traditional land rental arrangements, instead of replacing them? What crucial insights about caste mobility would be missed with only cross sectional or short term data?