ABSTRACT
India, and even more Pakistan, will remain predominantly agrarian countries; and over the millennia they have evolved an indescribably complex mosaic of tenures and techniques which defies generalization. Nearly all agrarian societies developed beyond subsistence level are debt-ridden, since the farmer's resources are liquid but once or twice a year, often with peaks around sowing-time and at the harvest itself. The agriculture of India differs fundamentally from that of Japan and most of China in that it is firmly based on the use of draught animals. Paradoxically enough, no branch of Indian agriculture is worse managed than animal husbandry. Except for the fundamental taboo against taking the life of the cow, this is not so much the peasant's original sin as the result of strictly geographical conditions. The manifold inefficiencies of Indian agriculture are probably less the responsibility of the peasant than of nature and of society.
