36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Within the group of households reporting capital expenditure stands out another subgroup in which proceeded the accumulation of capital: they comprised 23.8 per cent of all surveyed households in 1961-62 and 19.3 per cent in 1971-72. Thus, countrywide almost 20 per cent of the households have a potential for extended reproduction. This subgroup includes both households of the capitalist type and transitional entrepreneur-type households of the small-scale commodity structure. It is to be noted that the surveys of the Reserve Bank registered the isolation of the upper group of households which concentrated not only the bulk of all assets (47.5 per cent of all assets in 1971-72 fell on 8.8 per cent of the households with the largest size of assets), but also the lion's share of all material expenditures in agriculture (in 1971-72 10.3 per cent of all holdings accounted for 87 per cent of all accumulations). According to various sources, in the 1960s-1970s 10-20 per cent of all holdings in various parts of the country were based fully or mainly on hired labour (11 per cent in 1955). Proceeding from the above, the author proposes the following hypothesis of India's agrarian structure in the early and middle 1970s. 1. Consumer holdings (including the marginal groups of subsistence holdings and tenant farms of the semi-feudal type)—50-55 per cent of all holdings; 2. Holdings maintaining relatively stable simple reproduction (middle peasantry)—25-30 per cent of all holdings; 3. Entrepreneur-type holdings in transition to the capitalist type—8 12 per cent of all holdings; 4. Capitalist holdings—8-12 per cent of all holdings. It is necessary to underline that new classes are developing and growing inside the traditional caste structure. The bulk of bigger landlords and capitalist farmers (including so-called 'gentlemen farmers') belong either to agriculturist dominant castes, baniya-type castes and Brahmins. But to identify caste affinities of the mass of peasantry and agricultural labourers is much more complicated task. According to Peoples of India Project (1980s-1990), settled agriculture was pursued by members of 2483 communities, animal husbandry—999 communities, and wage labour—2483 communities, that is castes and tribes. Untouchables and tribals constitute the core of the class of agricultural labourers: in 1977-8 S.C. labourers formed 34.8 per cent and S.T. labourers-15.7 per cent of total agricultural labourers. It is difficult to estimate how far low caste status of S.C. and S.T. agricultural labourers contributed to the lowering of their wage-rates. The data supplied by various agro-economic surveys on village level is