The Indian peasant is born in debt, lives in debt and bequeaths in debt," Darling's still remains true for the great majority of working households in the countryside.1 It is well known that the burden of indebtedness in rural India is very great and that despite major structural changes in credit institutions and forms of rural credit in the post-independence period, exploitation of the rural masses in the credit market is one of the most pervasive and persistent features of rural life in India