M. L. Darling and the Punjab peasant in prosperity and debt: A fresh look

Abstract

More than half a century ago M. L. Darling contended that the volume and burden of debt in the Punjab province of British India were higher for the more prosperous farmers or areas. This thesis has enjoyed considerable intellectual respect over the years. The present article attempts a closer inspection of Darling's data and argues that though the prosperous farmers had a larger volume of debt its incidence was lower. The findings of the All‐India Rural Credit Survey (1951–52) corroborate this contention.

Notes

Professor Islam teaches History at Dhaka University, Bangladesh. The article was written when he was working at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University on a research fellowship of the A. V. Humboldt Foundation. He would like to thank Professor Dietmar Rothermund, Mr T.J. Byres and Ranajit Guha for their comments on an earlier version of this article.