Dharma Kumar (1928-October 19, 2001) was an Indian economic historian, noted for her work on the agrarian history of India. Her Ph.D at Cambridge on the agrarian history of South India was awarded the Ellen MacArthur Prize, and was published as Land and Caste in South India (Cambridge University Press, 1965).She is noted for the position that many of the social structures of agrarian India, particularly the large class of landless labourers pre-dated the British era.