SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

Sunilarly, Kannappan in Seripura (Case no. 1 in Appendix I) who holds a similar
posiuon and enjoys social reputation is only a small land-holder.
These are exceptions as for E N Pura where the medium farmers
dominate the scene.
Sericulture is only one of the several cash crops for the affluent
and capitalist categories. They hardly gain any mobility because of
sericulture. Instead, it operates to retain their already high economic
status. They take up sericulture purely for commercial motive or due to
. class envy'. Class envy is in operation, when someone above, in the
class hierarchy, threatened by the one below attempts to overtake his
position through adoption of an economically vibrant device, adopts the
same device to re-establish one's supremacy. In some cases, it could also
be a 'class rivalry' in which the motivation for taking up a particular
enterprise emerges from a person belonging to a same class category. A
similar process is the 'sibling rivalry', which takes place when one of
the brothers adopts an enterprise, in the present case sericulture, because
his brother has adopted it and seemed to fare well. In all three cases,
what operates in the adoption of the enterprise is not a positive
inclination towards the enterprise but a diametrical motivation.
From the pomt of VIew of mobility, the first two groups of
sericulturists in both categorisation, need greater attention here. In more
than one way, the respective groups in each categorisation correspond
with each other. Both these groups attribute their mobility to sericulture.
Along with them come the labourers who benefit from sericulture,
because of its employment potentiality if nothing else. The progressives
constitute a separate category of their own. The subsistent., clientele
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