Can Capitalism Develop in Indian Agriculture

In this paper we are concerned with the prospects of agrarian capitalism in India. To begin with, an outline of the Kautsky-Lenin laws and the limits of capitalism in agriculture is given in section I. The operation of these laws in a colonial or semi-colonial milieu is examined in section II. Then we come to India, in particular, in section III. It seems to us that the controversy about the extent of capitalist development in Indian agriculture has been marred by certain conceptual ambiguity. Section IV makes an attempt to help clear the air, The last section contains a few concluding remarks.