Several factors have enabled certain groups to transform into new wealthy, entrepreneurial, dominant classes. Agricultural development since the 1960s played a crucial role, where medium and large farmers who adopted new technologies became enriched.

The consolidation of old landed or cultivating groups in areas of rapid agricultural development allowed them to transform into a dynamic entrepreneurial class. Well-to-do farmers belonging to dominant castes began investing their agricultural profits into other business ventures, leading to diversification.

The spread of higher education, particularly private professional colleges in rural and semi-urban areas, enabled new rural elites to educate their children. These children then joined professional or white-collar occupations or started businesses, feeding into the expansion of the urban middle classes.

State investment in rural infrastructure such as irrigation facilities, roads, and electricity, along with the provision of agricultural inputs and credit through banks and cooperatives, supported this transformation.

In states like Kerala, political mobilisation, redistributive measures, and linkages to an external economy (primarily the Gulf countries) brought about substantial transformation of the rural countryside. Similarly, in coastal Andhra Pradesh, western Uttar Pradesh, and central Gujarat, this process gave rise to new regional elites that became economically and politically dominant.