The book explores the pattern of rural development in contemporary India from a multidisciplinary and historical perspective. The essays overcome the limits of disciplinary approaches to provide a comprehensive analysis of the processes of change and growth at work in the Indian countryside and to review the social and cultural dynamics that have led to the contemporary situation. Providing an analysis of the economic, political and social changes experienced in rural India, they examine the interactions between actors and institutions at different levels. Some contributions focus on the impact of state policies on rural development and on the rationale of capitalistic expansion in the Indian countryside, while others analyse how the changes are promoted, adopted and resisted at the local level.The general issue raised in the book refers to the assessment of the nature and working of contemporary Indian rural economy. In order to analyse the complexity of the rural economy and the forms it takes in different Indian contexts, this issue has been deconstructed considering, in turn, the process of rural change, the impact of rural growth on working and living conditions, and finally the categories of the inhabitants of rural areas and the construction of their identities in colonial and post-colonial rural India.