Classic political economists such as Terry Byres argues that a successful agrarian transition leads to dynamic national capitalist development and that such transitions are a result of specific agrarian class struggles. Decades of neo-liberal development has led to various challenges to this, including the view that today the struggle is between the "international food regime" and a "unified" peasantry. Another position is that of Henry Bernstein who argues that national-level agrarian transition is no longer necessary nor possible for capital. Here, this is investigated in relation to India, through an analysis of both the agrarian political economy debate in India and of the agrarian development in the country at present. It is concluded that while capitalist development does take place in India agriculture, this does not add up to a successful agrarian transition which had indeed been bypassed in most parts of the country, at least in the foreseeable future.
Keywords: Rarian question, international food regime, agrarian classes, peasantry, India, CPI (M)