This paper focuses on three decades of agrarian reform policies and the resulting peculiarity of the
development trajectory in Bangladesh. I interrogate the ways in which the reforms have led to a
paradoxical situation consisting of partial protelarianization in attempting to promote a marketbased
economy. I contend that the particular positioning of the state is central to understanding
this dialectic between proletarianization and the persistence of small peasants amid a huge rush
towards the formation of a capitalist market economy. I conclude that the partial nature of
agrarian transformation that we now experience in Bangladesh may not be resolved in favour
of a complete proletarianization of small peasants in the foreseeable future.