Any newcomer to rural Punjab who is otherwise acquainted with rural South Asia is likely to be struck by the appearance of prosperity evident in the towering mansions dispersed throughout the flat, green countryside and by the suburban appearance of the well-to-do areas in the villages. This impression is likely to be reinforced when visiting nearby market towns bustling with economic activity and traffic, where sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and fashionably clothed young men displaying their state-of-the art touchscreen mobile phones are a common sight.

Beyond their upgraded physical infrastructure, the fact that these villages are well connected by road to Punjab's dense network of urban centers allows their inhabitants to commute to work in town and gives them a suburban commuter belt feel. The wealthiest villagers—farmers owning 10 or more acres—drive their SUVs or Bullet motorcycles to town to run shops and commission agencies and, often, also to participate in politics. Some even move to town for their children's education and only visit their villages on weekends during peak periods of the agricultural cycle. Laborers, when they are not working the fields, share motorcycles, take buses, or cycle into town to obtain daily wage labor on construction sites, in workshops, at wedding halls, or in the grain markets, where they are paid to carry heavy sacks of grain at harvest time.

In the 1960s, Punjab was the first Indian state to undergo the Green Revolution, a state-led initiative that brought about a transformative change in the region's agrarian economy.