The book documents the ambiguities and limitations of applying rigid theoretical concepts in defining labour, particularly in the context of a South Asian agrarian economy. The author demonstrates that sources of labour are not uniform, and that labour in the rural context is not a homogeneous commodity.

Identification of labourers or groups with a common interest does not necessarily fit into the formal definition of labourers based on relationships of possession and separation from the means of production. On the contrary, based on empirical research, the study suggests that defining and identifying the class of labourer demands a critical analysis of the economic and political relations which bind them into the same procession of production and reproduction.