Which of the following are examples of such landowning groups in the…

Ramesh, a college student, spends a month in his grandmother's village in Karnataka for a field project. He finds that one caste group owns most of the farmland around the village and also forms a large part of its population. Members of this group head the gram panchayat, run the milk cooperative and lend money to smaller farmers. Families of other castes usually seek their backing before any important village decision. Older residents tell him that the same group has held this position for several generations.

Which of the following are examples of such landowning groups in the state where Ramesh is doing his project?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 3

The correct answer is Option (3) → Vokkaligas and Lingayats

Option (1) Kammas and Reddis — Incorrect. The Kammas and Reddis are dominant landowning groups of Andhra Pradesh. Ramesh's project is in Karnataka.

Option (2) Jats and Rajputs — Incorrect. The Jats and Rajputs are dominant landowning groups of Uttar Pradesh. Ramesh's project is in Karnataka.

Option (3) Vokkaligas and Lingayats — Correct. Ramesh is in Karnataka, where the Vokkaligas and Lingayats are the dominant landowning groups. They own much land and are large in number, like the group he observes.

Option (4) Jat Sikhs and Rajputs — Incorrect. The Jat Sikhs are the dominant group of Punjab and the Rajputs of Uttar Pradesh. Neither belongs to Karnataka.

NCERT (2026-27): “4.1 Agrarian Structure: Caste and Class in Rural India …
In rural areas, there is a complex relationship between caste and class. This relationship is not always straightforward. We might expect that the higher castes have more land and higher incomes. And that there is a correspondence between caste and class as one moves down the hierarchy. In many areas this is broadly true but not exactly. For instance, in most areas the highest caste, the Brahmins, are not major landowners, and so they fall outside the agrarian structure although they are a part of rural society. In most regions of India, the major landowning groups belong to the upper castes. In each region, there are usually just one or two major landowning castes, who are also numerically very important. Such groups were termed by the sociologist M.N. Srinivas as dominant castes. In each region, the dominant caste is the most powerful group, economically and politically, and dominates local society. Examples of dominant landowning groups are the Jats and Rajputs of U.P., the Vokkaligas and Lingayats in Karnataka, Kammas and Reddis in Andhra Pradesh, and Jat Sikhs in Punjab.”