Providing evidence that more than 90% of those whom R Vijay construes as "new landlords" are really owners of marginal and smallholdings of land, this article argues that it is important to distinguish classes on the basis of surplus and insufficient means of subsistence to understand the displacement of cultivators to the non-farm sector. It further argues that a rise in non-cultivating landed households and declining tenancy is not a paradox, but consistent with the trends in agriculture that eliminate marginal cultivators.
