Breaking down the question

This is a short-note question carrying ten marks, so the reward goes to a compact, well-structured account rather than an exhaustive survey. The single term Green Revolution asks the candidate to define the phenomenon and, crucially, to read it sociologically — as a source of social change rather than merely as an episode in agricultural policy.

The trap is to write an economics answer about yields, fertilisers and high-yielding varieties alone. The examiner wants the social consequences — how the new technology reshaped rural stratification, class relations and regional balance.

Threads to develop:

  • What the Green Revolution was, in brief.
  • Its impact on agrarian class structure and social relations.
  • Its uneven regional and social spread, and the tensions it generated.

How to approach it

Open with a one-line definition — the technology-led rise in foodgrain production from the mid-1960s — then move quickly to its sociological significance. The bulk of the answer should trace consequences: commercialisation, the strengthening of the rich and middle peasantry, the widening of inequalities, and regional concentration.

Draw on the note on the Green Revolution and social change for the analytical framework. Close with a balanced verdict that acknowledges both the achievement of food security and the new fault lines it opened.

Model answer

The Green Revolution refers to the sharp rise in agricultural productivity in India from the mid-1960s, achieved through a package of high-yielding variety seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, assured irrigation and mechanisation. Though conceived as a technological and economic strategy to secure food self-sufficiency, its deepest effects were social, and sociologists have studied it as a major force of agrarian transformation.

Its foremost consequence was the accelerated commercialisation of agriculture. Farming shifted from subsistence towards production for the market, and land, labour and produce were increasingly governed by monetary calculation. This favoured cultivators with capital, and so reshaped the agrarian class structure. The chief beneficiaries were the rich and middle peasantry — owner-cultivators with enough land and resources to adopt the costly new inputs. Francine Frankel and others documented how this class consolidated its economic and, in turn, political power, giving rise to a confident stratum of capitalist farmers.

The gains, however, were unevenly distributed. Small and marginal farmers, unable to afford inputs or bear the risk, often fell behind or lost land, while agricultural labourers, though sometimes better paid, remained propertyless. The result, many scholars argued, was a differentiation of the peasantry and a widening of rural inequalities rather than their reduction. Mechanisation in places displaced labour, and the spread of wage relations weakened older patron-client ties, producing sharper class antagonisms and, in the following decades, organised farmers' movements.

The revolution was also regionally selective. It concentrated in well-irrigated, resource-rich tracts — Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh — while dry and eastern regions lagged, deepening inter-regional disparities. Environmental costs, from falling water tables to soil degradation, later became apparent.

The Green Revolution therefore stands as a double-edged transformation. It secured national food self-sufficiency and modernised farming, yet it also intensified class and regional inequalities, making it a classic instance of technology-driven social change whose benefits and burdens were unequally shared.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners reward candidates who treat the Green Revolution as a sociological phenomenon, not an agronomic one. The line that separates an average script from a good one is the shift from yields and inputs to social consequences — stratification, commercialisation and regional imbalance.

Naming a scholar such as Francine Frankel and organising the impact along clear axes — class, region and social relations — signals command of the field. A measured conclusion that weighs food security against deepening inequality gives the answer the balance a ten-mark note demands.