Abstract

The Indian peasant is proverbially poor, ignorant, illiterate, improvi- dent, depending on the vicissitudes of precarious monsoons and subject to disease and famines. Chronic poverty leads to low agricultural pro- duction and low agricultural production leads in turn to poverty. This, in general, is the case of the 73 per cent of the population living in the 700,000 villages throughout India. The miserable position of the Indian is very deplorable with his average life of 224 years and average income of Rs. 46 per year. The agricultural indebtedness of the peasantry is appal- ling and the mortgage indebtedness of India has been computed by experts at 600 crores, so much so that it has reduced the Indian cultivator to the position of one who is no better than a serf.

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