Synopsis This study provides the framework for the structure, ideology and change of the rural power elites in the Panchayati Raj system and their relationship amongst themselves, a key to the understanding of rural development. Unlike most village studies carried out solely in terms of the traditional model of stratification system, this study for the first time places the political ideology at the centrality of the scheme of variables. At one level, it is an attempt to study the rural power elites and at another, an examination of how the power elite fraternity operates keeping their subjective orientation in abeyance contributing to the unraveling of “inter-intra-caste-class” consensual-conflictual aspects of Indian social structure depending on the situation.