TWO KINDS OF GREEN REVOLUTION 49 Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu state lies on the coastal tip of south-east India, and Thai Binh province on the coast of North Vietnam, about 20 kilometres south-west of Haiphong. Thanjavur is a larger region and has a population of about four million; Tamil Nadu, the state of which it is a part., has about 48 million., almost as many as the whole of Vietnam. Thai Binh is only one-fourteenth the size of Thanjavur, but has a population of L400.000. Two Rivers and the Sea The two regions are ecologically similar. Thanjavur forms the main part of the Gauvcry River delta; Thai Binh, that of the Red River delta. Both areas concentrate on wet rice cultivation, which occupies about 70 per cent of their cultivated acreage. Both areas export a great deal of rice to other provinces with food deficits, and import manufactured goods. In both cases the crops are mainly watered from a network of irrigation channels issuing from the main river. They have rich alluvial soils inland, but are clayey and saline near the coast, and suffer from periodic floods and droughts. Both areas had late harvests because of drought last autumn. While both regions have the potential of growing two and even three paddy crops a year, they also grow subsidiary vegetables, root crops and fruit trees. In Thanjavur where the climate is hotter these crops are chiefly coconut, palmyra, bananas, sugarcane, pulses and groundnuts; in Thai Binh, potatoes, tapioca, bananas, citrus fruits, tomatoes, sugarcane and green vegetables. Both areas use cattle and buffaloes for ploughing and to draw country carts, but their numbers are declining with the introduction of tractors. Chickens and goats are very common in Thanjavur; chickens and pigs in North Vietnam. The people fish in ponds and lakes as well as in the sea. Both Thanjavur and Thai Binh are more densely populated than most areas in their countries. Both have about eighty per cent of their people living in the countryside, and about 70 per cent engaged in agriculture. Thai Binh's density is, however, much greater than Thanja-vur's. Thai Binh has 1095 to the square kilometre, a phenomenal density for a predominantly agricultural society, while Thanjavur's density is 395. Thanjavur's population has increased by only about 21 pfcr cent since 1961, as many white-collar and service workers having left the district to work in India's major cities. Thai Binh's population has increased by about 50 per cent in the same period, and the government is only now encouraging some peasants to migrate to the highlands to form new agricultural communities.1 Both Thanjavur and Thai Binh have ancient civilizations, the one Hindu and the other Buddhist, going back more than 2000 years. Both have suffered exploitation and distortions of their economies and social structures under western colonialism. Until 30 years ago both had steeply stratified rural societies consisting of big and small landlords,