This article analyses the role of peasant production within the larger process of capitalist accumulation in India. It engages with two distinct theoretical positions — Kalyan Sanyal's formulation of the ‘need economy’ which is driven by an objective of need fulfilment outside the domain of capitalist production, and Henry Bernstein's thesis on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital as discussed by Jens Lerche in the particular context of India. The article extends the category of the ‘need economy’ from the present focus on the non‐agricultural informal sector to include smallholder or peasant agriculture. In doing so, the analysis demonstrates that the position of Bernstein and Lerche on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital and its replacement with a new agrarian question of labour is consistent with Sanyal's conceptualization of the ‘need economy’. Further, by providing evidence in support of the key function of food provisioning undertaken by small and marginal farmers in India, the article highlights how both the positions above fail to incorporate the food linkage of agriculture that is vital for the continuation of capitalist accumulation.

中文翻译：

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印度的农民生产：“需求经济”如何促进积累

本文分析了农民生产在印度资本主义积累的更大过程中的作用。它涉及两个不同的理论立场：卡扬·桑雅尔（Kalyan Sanyal）对“需要经济”的表述，这是由在资本主义生产领域之外实现需求的目标驱动的；亨利·伯恩斯坦（Henry Bernstein）关于詹斯所讨论的农业资本问题的不相关性的论点。在印度的特定背景下的勒什。本文将“需要经济”的类别从目前对非农业非正规部门的关注扩展到包括小农或农民农业。在这样做，分析表明，伯恩斯坦和勒什在农业资本问题的无关紧要和用新的农业劳动问题替代问题上的立场与桑雅尔对“需求经济”的概念化相吻合。此外，通过提供证据支持印度的小规模和边际农民承担的粮食供应的关键职能，该文章强调了上述两种立场如何未能纳入对继续资本主义积累至关重要的农业粮食联系。