DILIP S SWAMr Land and Credit Reforms in India PART ONE AGRARIAN structure is the axis of future changes in India. Therefore, agrarian relations and associated policies regarding the provision of credit and inputs to the agricultural sector continue to be the matter of debate among social scientists as also among those who are in the forefront of organized struggle of the peasantry. Pressures for a change in the agrarian structure arise from time to time, but despite pious intentions and several legislations, the Indian government has conspicuously failed to bring about a redistribution of land and allocation of credit in favour of the weaker classes in rural areas. The non-implementation of reforms has assumed special significance in the context of technological progress in agriculture. Since ownership of land, by and large, continues to determine the creditworthiness of cultivators, the prevailing pattern of land ownership tends to be reproduced as a hierarchy of differential rights to institutional credit and thus of access to agricultural capital. Credit, especially to small farmers, is a necessary condition for realizing the potentialities of modern technological improvements in agriculture. Therefore, the position in that hierarchy becomes increasingly important as the flow of ipstitu-tional credit increases and technological changes spread in rural