Synopsis This volume is an outcome of the study sponsored and appreciated by the Planning Commission, Governemnt of India. It attempts to analyse the ground realities of changing agrarian structure in the areas of permanent settlement of rural India. It examines whether semi-feudal landlord-tenant relations of production persist in backward agriculture which remained responsible for under performance of agriculture that resulted into wide spread poverty. This study covers not only the theoretical underpinnings but also the changes in productive forces and emergence of market in this sector of rural economy. Labour absorption, productivity with diversification of agriculture and introduction of non-agricultural activities are the points of attraction for the readers who are really interested in the minute details of change through castes and class based analysis of the process of rural transformation. Problems of rural indebtedness, migration and consumption deficiency have been discussed with new angles and dynamics.