CASTE OPPRESSION IN THANJAVUR 15 and interdependence between the class structure and caste system in various specific contexts must be described in detail in order to grasp certain essential characteristics of the complex task facing a revolutionary movement in relation to the rural masses. This study seeks to explore the relationship, as well as the advance made in the formative years by the democratic agrarian struggle, in a significant agrarian region in South India. Part I attempts to characterise some of the essential aspects of a historically extensive and predatory landlordism and describes the condition of the peasantry in the district of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. Part II outlines the structure of the caste system specifically in Thanjavur and attempts to place it within a preliminary theoretical perspective. Part III details the growth of the agrarian struggle in the eastern part of the district—its development from spontaneous and sporadic actions to the level of an organised kisan movement under the leadership of the Communist movement. THE HISTORICAL SETTING : LANDLORDISM AND THE CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRT Thanjavur has traditionally been a source of surplus rice in Tamil Nadu. The land is extremely fertile, consisting as it does of the delta of the Gauvery. There are two natural divisions in the district—the Gauvery delta and the drier upland tracts in the southwest of the district, which consist of Arantangi, Pattukkottai and the south of Mannargudi and Thanjavur divisions. The delta area is a vast alluvial plain, predominantly of paddy fields, which constitutes the whole of Sirkali, Mayuram (earlier Mayavaram), Kum-bakonam, Nannilam, NagApattinam, almost all ofThiruthuraipundi and a part of Mannargudi and Thanjavur taluks. The irrigated land is almost entirely watered by the Gauvery. Irrigation for these lands is secured by the very advanced engineering construction of the Ghola period, the Grand Anicut, which prevents the waters of the ^river from escaping out of the district. The British further contributed to the irrigation system through the construction of minor irrigation works which support the basic engineering designed by the Cholas. Thanjavur is one of the most densely populated areas in India. During an earlier period handicrafts were highly developed, particularly silk weaving, but the craft declined under the blow of competition from foreign mill-made cloth under colonialism. Agriculture has been the mainstay of Thanjavur's economy and it is essentially in the agrarian relations of Thanjavur that social and economic transformation has occurred.