class divisions. Thorner, it seems, incurred the displeasure of his friends when in 1973 instead of the built-in descerned, he discerned some signs of dynamism in Indian agriculture. Though he quoted official statistics of foodgrain produc- tion to support his contention' some-' what unusual for him , once again, the change in the vision was the outcome of his visits to the villages. In , his words "my earlier characterisation of therural scene had to he seriously qualified: there are new forces at work. The most striking of these [noted in his Statesman article] was the distinct emergence of a nationwide class of capitalist producers/' As in 1953, Thorner's 1973 assessment of India's agrarian scene was derived from his village tours, or what he calls his "hit and run raids into the countryside''. Perhaps he relied more on what he saw than on what he read. But his flair was for vignettes, and the sight of gentlemen farmers joining the gold rush was too fascinating for him to ignore. "What attracted them were the smashing profits to be made from direct cultivation