To feed its industries, the British trans- formed the self-sufficient Indian agriculture into a commercial enterprise. This transformation, though ending isolation of the village social and economic life, proved disastrous as it resulted in the decrease of food grain production, unprecedented rents and compound interest rates coupled with natural calamites. It forced the peasant into the hands of money lenders. The legal protect-ion under British law gave a further boost to the usurer to squeeze the cultivator of his meagre income. Neither the government's credit policy nor the debt legislations helped the indebted peasant to escape form the clutches of the money- lender. The new land relations, rural indebtedness and the destruction of traditional handicraft and cottage industry by the British to save its own industry resulted in the growth of agriculture labour as there was no other means to survive. This in turn resulted in over-pressure on agriculture and during famines, this trend played have with millions of lives.
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