Mrunal Land Reforms

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] British Land tenure System: features, Consequences of Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari, Mahalwari 1. Prologue 2. What is land reform? 3. Players in Land tenure system? 1. The State 2. Owner 3. Superior tenants 4. Inferior Tenants 5. Share croppers 6. Landless laborers 4. Land Tenure System: British Legacy 5. Permanent Settlement: Features 6. Permanent Settlement: Consequences 7. Ryotwari System 1. Ryotwari System: Features 2. Ryotwari System: Consequences 8. Mahalwari System 1. Mahalwari System: Features 2. Mahalwari system: Consequences 9. Consequences of British Tenure systems 1. Land becomes a property 2. Panchayat lost Prestige 3. Food insecurity 4. Cash economy & indebted farmers 5. Serfdom 6. Rural Industry destroyed 7. Lack of Capitalist Agriculture 10. Mock Questions

Prologue  

General studies Mains Paper 3: Land reforms in India. But that is not ‗the end‘ of land reform. Same topic and points also relevant for

GS Mains paper land reform topic indirectly associated with  Freedom Struggle – its various stages and important contributors /contributions  Social empowerment  poverty and developmental issues 1  Post-independence consolidation

2

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Ministries and Departments of the Government; Pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity. Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States,

3

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Indian Constitution: significant provisions The role of NGOs in Development processes. Issues relating to poverty and hunger e-governance

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Linkages between development and spread of extremism

Besides, Land reform topic is also part of many optional subjects in UPSC Mains: Optional Subject Political Science Paper 1 Sociology Paper 2 Geography Paper 2 Economics Paper 2

History Paper 2

land reforms included in: Planning and Economic Development : Green Revolution, land reforms and agrarian relations Agrarian social structure – evolution of land tenure system, land reforms. land tenure and land reforms; Agriculture: Land Reforms and land tenure system, Green Revolution and capital formation in agriculture. 1. Land revenue settlements in British India: The Permanent Settlement; Ryotwari Settlement; Mahalwari Settlement; 2. Economic impact of the revenue arrangements; 3. Rise of landless agrarian labourers; Impoverishment of the rural society. 4. Land reforms

This [Land Reforms] Article series will (try to) cover following issues: 1. Three land tenure system of the British: Their features, implications 2. Peasant struggles in British Raj: causes and consequences 3. Land reforms, Before independence: by Congress governments in Provinces, their benefits and limitations 4. Land reforms, After independence: abolition of Zamindari, Land Ceiling and Tenancy reforms. Their benefits and limitations 5. Land reforms by non-governmental action: Bhoodan, Gramdan, NGOs etc. their benefits and limitations 6. Land reforms in recent times: Computerization of land records, Forest rights Act, land reform policy etc. their benefits and limitations.

Sources used for this [Land reform] Article series 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

IGNOU MA (Rural Development) Course code MRDE 003 Bipin Chandra: India‘s struggle for independence Bipin Chandra: Freedom Struggle, NBT Bipin Chandra: Indian since independence Sumit Sarkar: Modern India (1885, 1947) Rajiv Ahir, Brief History of Modern India, Spectrum Ramchandra Guha: India After Gandhi pib.nic.in, Indianexpress, TheHindu, PRSIndia etc. as and where necessary

What is land reform?   

Robin Hood took money from rich and redistributed among the poor. Similarly land reform involves taking away land from rich and redistributing among landless. Although land reform involves not just about ‗redistribution of land‘. It involves many other reforms, example:

Static (50s to 80s)

current (after 80s)

1. Abolish intermediaries, Zamindar, Jagirdar etc. 2. land ceilings- redistribute surplus land 3. Tenancy reforms 1. computerize land records 2. forest rights act 3. land consolidation

Formal definitions definition Land reforms mean: #1 Improving land tenure and institutions related to agriculture.  redistribution of property rights  For the benefit of the landless poor. #2   

#3

integrated program to remove the barriers for economic and social development Caused by deficiencies in the existing land tenure system.

Observe that word ―tenure/Tenancy‖ keeps reappearing. So what does that mean? Tenancy:  

Tenancy in derived from the word ‗tenure‘ = ‗to hold‘. Tenancy= Agreement under ―tenant‖ holds the land/building of the original owner.

Players in Land Tenancy system? The State

Owner

Superior

1. enforces tenancy contracts 2. Maintains law and order. Earns revenue for doing 1+2  The owner: the guy who owns land  They pay Revenue to the State.  Rich farmers, Zamindars etc. own hundreds of acres of land. Can‘t cultivate it on their own.  Similarly minors, disabled, widows, soldiers, fishermen may also own land but they can‘t cultivate for one reason or another.  So these people ‗lease‘ their land to other farmers (tenants). 

They cultivate on land leased from the ^owner.

tenants

Inferior Tenants

Share croppers Landless laborers

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These are hereditary tenants. Meaning they cultivate same land generation after generation. They pay rent to the owner. They have almost the same rights as the owners. They can sell, mortgage or rent out the land. They cannot be evicted against their will.

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Other names: tenants at will, subordinate tenants, temporary tenants, subtenants. They till the land leased from other tenants/owners. They pay rent to the owners/superior tenants. They have limited rights over the land. They cannot sell or mortgage the land. They can be evicted easily.

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Sharecroppers= cultivate other person‘s land (Owner, Superior/inferior tenant) They get share from the produce, and remaining goes to the tenant/owner. The equipment and inputs items may be provided owner/tenant They have no rights whatsoever on the land. They cannot sell, rent or mortgage the land. Can be evicted easily.

1. They get paid in cash or kind by the owners (or tenants) 2. Sometimes work under begari/bonded labour.

Ok well and good. So far we know: what is land reform and who are the players in a land tenancy system. We have to study land ‗reform‘. Meaning some badass thuggary was going on, otherwise if everything was well and good, then there was no need for ‗reforms‘! So what was the cause of thuggary/grievance/resentment? Ans. Land tenure systems of British.

Land Tenure System: British Legacy In the initial years, East India company faced following problems: 1. Demand for British goods in India=negligible. (Because East India company was yet to destroy our handicraft and artisans) 2. Under the Mercantilism policy of British: one country‘s gain required another country/colony‘s loss. Therefore, British Government prohibited East India company from exporting gold and silver from England to pay for Indian goods import. 3. Company needed truckload of ca$H to maintain an army for defeating and subjugating native rulers. East India company came up with following solution: 1. start collecting revenue from Indians 2. Use that Revenue to buy Indian raw material- export to England 3. Import finished goods back to India=> make profit.

But this solution had a problem: the revenue system under Mughals and Native rulers=too complex for the British to understand, and there were no coaching classes or Wikipedia to help white men understand this complex system. Lord Cornwallis comes with a novel idea: just ‗outsource‘ the tax collection work to desimiddlemen: Zamindars, Jagirdar, Inamdars, Lambardar etc. Consequently, British introduced three land tenure systems in India:

Tenure system

Presidency

Features:  

Permanent settlement

1. Bengal 2. Bihar

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(BeBi)

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Ryotwari

1. Madras, 2. Bombay 3. Assam

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(MBA)

Mahalwari

1. Gangetic

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Who? Cornwallis + John Shore. In Bengal + Bihar. 1793 Company ‗outsourced‘ the revenue collection work to Zamindars Very exploitative. Led to many revolts. Hence British didn‘t implement it in other parts of India. In Awadh/Oudh, Lord Delhousie wanted to implement Mahalwari but then 1857‘s munity broke out. Later Lord Canning introduced Talukdari system-similar to Permanent settlement. Who? Thomas Munro and Read in Madras. (1820) Who? Wingate and Goldsmid in Bombay (1835). In 1820 it was tried in Poona but failed. Later Wingate and Goldsmid start Bombay Survey System in 1835 for individual settlement system. Company directly collected revenue from farmers. Madras was initially under Permanent settlement type system but Thomas Munro convinced the directors of East India company to convert this area under Ryotwari / direct settlement system. Company ‗outsourced‘ revenue collection work to Village

valley 2. north-west provinces, 3. parts of central India 4. Punjab

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community itself. –Technically village headman (Lambardar) was made responsible for tax collection North West Provinces initially had Permanent settlement but transformed to Mahalwari system by Holt Mackenzie.(1822)

Overall coverage Tenure system Zamindari Ryotwari Mahalwari Total

% of Agri.land in British Provinces 57 38 5 100%

Permanent Settlement: Features 1. Cornwallis + John Shore. In Bengal + Bihar. 1793 2. All the land belonged to the state and was thus at their disposal. 3. British designated zamindars (local tax collectors) , as owners of the land in their district. This system was adopted in several forms such as Zamindari, Jagirdari, Inamdari, etc. 4. These zamindars had to collect revenue from farmers and deliver to the British. 5. Converted Zamindars into landlords. The right to the land conferred on the zamindars was 6. Revenue amount was fixed at the beginning and remained the same permanently. 7. Zamindar were given freedom to decide how much to demand from the cultivators. Stiff penalties on defaulters. 8. there was a provision of keeping a portion of taxes for the zamindar himself. 9. Zamindar‘s right over land was 1. Alienable: meaning British could take it away and give it to another Zamindar, if first Zamindar did not meet the Revenue collection ‗targets‘. 2. Rentable: meaning Zamindar himself could further outsource his work among more smaller zamindars 3. Heritable: meaning Zamindar dies, his son/brother etc would get it. 10. Farmers became tenants. Two types 1. Tenants-at-will: farmers who cultivated on Zamindar‘s land. They had no rights. They could be evicted as per whims and fancies of Zamindar. 2. Occupancy Tenants: farmers who owned land. Their occupancy rights were heritable and transferrable and were not tampered with as long as they paid their taxes.

Permanent Settlement: Consequences #for British

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gave financial security for the British administration. Cost of running administration decreased. Because British had to collect Revenue from only a few Zamindars instead of lakhs of farmers. British got new political allies (Zamindars). They would keep their own militia to suppress peasant revolts, and act as ‗informers‘ and remained loyal to British rule.

#learning from mistake   

Permanent settlement system led to many agrarian revolts. Government‘s income declined over the years, Because Revenue was permanently fixed + number of intermediaries kept increasing. Hence, British learned from the mistake and did not extent this permanent settlement/Zamindari system to the whole of India. Instead, they established Ryotwari and Mahalwari systems in the remaining parts.

#Farmers lose bargaining power  

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Textile industry was the driver of industrial revolution in Britain. = raw cotton imported + finished textile exported to India. To prevent any ‗competition‘ from Desi textile industries, the British imposed variety of taxes and tariffs on them=>desi textile business collapsed. Lakhs of weavers became unemployed, migrated to villages in search of work. Since they did not own any land, they had to become tenants-at-will for Zamindars. Now Zamindars had the monopoly of controlling livelihood of thousands of people. They extorted more and more taxes. Moreover, the ―begar‖, unpaid work which the tenants were forced to perform on the zamindar‘s land, took larger proportions. On the average, it amounted to 20-25 % of the lease. Western Bengal: Farmers got divided into two categories i) Jotedars (Rich farmers) ii)Bargadar (Sharecroppers) Eastern Bengal: Jute cultivation. Independent farmers with small to middlesize land holdings

#More outsourcing 

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Permanent settlement system created landed aristocracy for the first time in India. Zamindars used to chow down part of the land Revenue collected. Thus they became wealthy and lazy. They ‗outsourced‘ their work to more intermediaries / sub-tenants. It became quite common to have 10 to 20 intermediaries, more or less without any specific function, between the government and the farmers, And they all had a share in the cultivation yield + other illegal taxes. As a result, 70-80% of farmer‘s produce went to just Revenue and commissions only=> poverty, debts.

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None of these middlemen or Zamindars invest money in agricultural improvement or new technology. They just kept increasing rents. Hence traditional agriculture did not shift to capitalist agriculture, unlike other economies.

Ryotwari System By Sir Thomas Munro at first in Madras State and then adopted in Bombay, and Assam. But Why? 1. In permanent settlement areas, land Revenue was fixed. But over the years, agriculture prices/exports should increase but government‘s income did not increase. (Because middlemen-zamindars chowed it down) 2. Zamindars were oppressive- leading to frequent agrarian revolts in the permanent settlement areas. 3. In Bihar, Bengal, there existed Zamindar/feudal lords since the times of Mughal administration. But Madras, Bombay, Assam did not have Zamindars / feudal lords with large estates. So, hard to ‗outsource‘ work, even if British wanted. 4. No middlemen in tax collection=> farmer has to pay less taxes=>increased purchasing power=>will improve demand for readymade British products in India. Consequently, all subsequent land tax or revenue settlements made by the colonial rulers were temporary settlements made directly with the peasant, or ‗ryot‘ (e.g., the ryotwari settlements). This model was based on English yeomen farmers.

Ryotwari System: Features 1. government claimed the property rights to all the land, but allotted it to the cultivators on the condition that they pay taxes. In other words, It established a direct relation between the landholder and the government. 2. Farmers could use, sell, mortgage, bequeath, and lease the land as long as they paid their taxes. In other words Ryotwari system gave a proprietary rights upon the landholders. 3. IF they did not pay taxes, they were evicted 4. taxes were only fixed in a temporary settlement for a period of thirty years and then revised. 5. government had retained the right to enhance land revenue whenever it wanted 6. Provided measures for revenue relief during famines but they were seldom applied in real life situation.

Ryotwari System: Consequences 

Farmers had to pay revenue even during drought and famines, else he would be evicted.

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Replacement of large number of zamindars by one giant zamindar called East India Company. Although ryotwari system aimed for direct Revenue settlement between farmer and the government but over the years, landlordism and tenancy became widespread. Because textile weavers were unemployed= they started working as tenant farmers for other rich farmers. In many districts, more than 2/3 of farmland was leased. Since Government insisted on cash revenue, farmers resorted to growing cash crops instead of food crops. And cash crop needed more inputs=>more loans and indebtedness. After end of American civil war, cotton export declined but government didn‘t reduce the revenue. As a result most farmers defaulted on loans and land was transferred from farmers to moneylenders.

Mahalwari System  

Location: Gangetic valley, north-west provinces, parts of central India and Punjab. But why? In North India and Punjab, joint land rights on the village were common. So, British decided to utilize this utilize this traditional structure in a new form known as Mahalwari system.

Mahalwari System: Features 1. unit of assessment was the village. 2. taxation was imposed on the village community since it had the rights over land. 3. The village community had to distribute these tax collection targets among the cultivators 4. Each individual farmer contributed his share in the revenue. 5. Everyone was thus liable for the others‘ arrears. 6. Farmers had right to sell or mortgage their property. 7. The village community did not necessarily mean entire village population. It was a group of elders, notables of high castes. 8. A village inhabitant, called the lambardar, collected the amounts and gave to the British 9. British periodically revised tax rates.

Mahalwari system: Consequences   

Since Punjab, Northern India = fertile land. So British wanted to extract maximum Revenue out of this region. Land Revenue was usually 50% to 75% of the produce. As generations passed- fathers would divide land among sons=> fragmentation=>farms became smaller and smaller and productivity declined. But still British demanded Revenue in cash. So, farmers had to borrow money to pay taxes in the case of crop failures.

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As a result, more and more farms passed into the hands of moneylenders. When farmer failed to repay debt, Moneylender would take away his farm but he has no interest in self-cultivation so he‘d leasing it to another farmer. Thus, sub-leasing, indebtedness and landlessness became more and more common in Mahalwari region

Why is it called Modified Zamindari system? 



Because in Mahalwari areas, the Land revenue was fixed for the whole village and the village headman (Larnbardar) collected it. Meaning theoretically Village itself was a landlord/zamindar. Other names for this system: Joint rent, „joint lease‟, „brotherhood‟ tract (mahal) holding and „gram wari‟ etc.

Result of British Land Tenure system: Perpetual indebtedness, exploitation. When we gained independence, picture was following: Farmers 7% villagers (richest, Zamindar and other intermediaries) 48% of villagers (tenants, sub-tenants) 45% of villagers Total 100%

Agro-land of India Owned 75% of fertile land Owned 25% of fertile land. (=imagine the land fragmentation and size of landholdings) Owned no land. Worked as farm laborers, petty traders, craftsman etc. Total 100%

Consequences of British Tenure systems Land becomes a property Before British   

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During British rule  Introduced private ownership of land private ownership of land did not exist  This divided village into 1) landlords 2)tenants land belonged to the village 3)labourers community  This this material transformation the agrarian Land was never treated as the property society in India witnessed profound social, of the kings -benevolent or despotic, economic, political, cultural and psychological Hindu, Muslims or Buddhist. change. Land was not treated as individual  with generations- land kept dividing among cultivator‘s property either. sons=>land fragmentation, diseconomies of scale, lower production.

Panchayat lost Prestige Before British Land matters and civil disputes were adjudicated by Panchayat within the village.

During British rule  Farmer had to approach British courts for matters related to Revenue, property attachment, debt-mortgage etc.  Panchayats lost their power and prestige

Food insecurity Before British

During British rule  Since British demand revenue in CASH, farmers resorted to growing cash crops: indigo, sugarcane, cotton=> Area under foodcrop cultivation declined  Then, Lacks of People would die of starvation during famines.  Even after independence, and before green revolutionIndia was not self-sufficient in grain production.

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farmers usually grew foodcropswheat, maize, paddy, jowar, bajra and pulses

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at independence India was faced with an acute food shortage near-famine conditions in many areas. Between 1946 and 1953 about 14 million tonnes of foodgrains worth Rs 10,000 million had to be imported = this was nearly half of the total capital investment in the First Five Year Plan (1951–56).

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Canals Before British

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During British rule  British did construct new canals  Positive: more area brought under cultivation, particularly in Kings constructed ponds, Punjab. canals and wells to improve  but most canals caused salinity and swamps=>declined agriculture productivity over the years irrigation taxes were  Taxes on Irrigation were quite high. Therefore Canal irrigation moderate. was used to grow sugar, cotton and other cash crops, instead of food crops=>food insecurity, starvation and death during famines.

Cash economy & indebted farmers Before British

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Land Revenue was paid in kind. Village was a self-sufficient economy with cooperative units. e.g. blacksmith would make farmtools, would get yearly payment in grains/kind. Moneylending, mortgaging were negligible.

Collective village life based on common economic interests and

During British rule  British obliged the farmers to pay revenue in cash and not in kind.  The land revenue was increased arbitrarily to finance British wars and conquests. But The farmers had no right to appeal in the court of law.  Farmers had no understanding of cash economy + frequent droughts and famines  Hence they had to borrow money from unscrupulous grain traders and money-lenders=> compound interest rate, perpetual indebtedness.  Eventually, the typical Indian villager was stripped of all savings, caught in debt trap, mortgaging almost everything-whether personal jewelry, land and livestock, or tools and equipment. 

A new village came-where existence was based on competition and struggle among independent

resultant cooperative relations

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individuals.

Farmers shifted from food crop to Cash crops. But cash crops need more inputs in terms of seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation, hence farmer had to borrow more. This brought moneylenders, Shroff, Mahajan, Baniya, into limelight- they were in control of village land without any accountability. Thus British land revenue system transfered ownership of land from farmer to moneylender. towards about the end of the colonial period, The total burden on the peasant of interest payments on debt and rent on land could be estimated at a staggering Rs 14,200 million According to RBI‘ss survey in 1954:

credit supplier moneylenders government cooperative societies commercial banks

gave ___% of farmers‘ loan requirements 93% 3% 3% 1%

Serfdom Before: slavery/bonded labour/Begari almost non-existent. But During British raj    

Zamindars gave loan to farmers/laborers and demanded free labour in return. This practice prevented farmers/laborers to bargaining wages. Begari, Bonded labour, or debt bondage became a common feature in large parts of the country. Even in ryotwari areas, upper caste controlled the land. Lower caste was reduced to sharecroppers and landless laborers.

Rural Industry destroyed Before British

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India was steadily becoming more urbanized, Significant portion of the Indian population living in large or small towns.

Even in Villages, there was skilled artisans like weavers, potters, carpenters, metal-workers, painters etc.

During and After British rule  de-urbanization and de-industrialization of India  This led to even greater pressures on agriculture since large categories of highly skilled artisans and non-agricultural workers were thrown out of work.  When the British left, India had become a villagebased agricultural economy.  With an enormous population pressure on agriculture and an adverse land–man ratio of about 0.92 acre per capita at independence. 

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Trade tariffs and excise duties were set so as to destroy Indian industries, and squeeze domestic trade. Bihar and Bengal: severe restrictions were placed on the use of inland water-ways — causing fishing

and inland shipping and transportation to suffer.

Lack of Capitalist Agriculture In most economies, the evolution is traditional farming=>capitalist farming methods. But in India, it did not happen, why? 1. Large landowners in zamindari and ryotwari areas leased out their lands in small pieces to tenants. 2. Small tenants continued to cultivate them with traditional techniques= low productivity. 3. Rich farmers/ zamindars lacked the riskbearing mindset for capitalist mode of production (i.e. invest more money in seeds, fertilizer, animal husbandry, contract farming, large-scale capitalist agriculture using hired wage labour under their direct supervision. etc). 4. Even if they wanted to take ‗risk‘, government did not give any agricultural support, credit, insurance etc. yet demanded high taxes. 5. It is not surprising, therefore, that Indian agriculture, which was facing long-term stagnation, began to show clear signs of decline during the last decades of colonialism. farming technology in 1951 wooden ploughs iron plough Use of improved seeds, artificial fertilizers, etc

% of farmers 97% 3% rare

some more points Drain of Wealth Social Banditry

Independent Farmer / tenant was hardly left with any money to re-investment in agriculture. Most of his ‗surplus‘ income/profit went into paying taxes. These taxes were used for exporting raw material from India to Britain. = Drain of wealth. when individuals or small group of farmers couldnot organize a collective action against Zamindars/government, they started robbery and dacoity.

When India got independence, the situation was: VILLAGERS ASSOCIATED WITH FARMING 7% villagers (richest, Zamindar and other intermediaries) 48% of villagers (tenants, sub-tenants) 45% of villagers Total 100%

Mock Questions

AGRO-LAND Owned 75% of fertile land Owned 25% of fertile land. (=imagine the land fragmentation) Owned no land. Worked as farm laborers. Total 100%

5 marks 1. Important features of Munro settlement. 2. Mahalwari Settlement. 3. Superior and Inferior Tenants 12 marks: comment on following statements 1. British land tenure systems were moulded by greed and desire to encourage certain type of agricultural exports. 2. Absentee landlordism was a consequence of Bengal‘s permanent settlement. Comment 3. Though the permanent settlement had serious defects, it gave tranquility to the countryside and stability to the government. 4. Permanent settlement disappointed many expectations and introduced many results that were not anticipated. 15 marks 1. What the impact was of early British land tenure policy on the villages of North and Western India? 2. Examiner the major factors shaping British Land revenue policy in India. How did affect Indian society? 3. Describe the impact of British Policy on agrarian society. 4. What were the consequences of British rule on Indian villages? 5. What were the three kinds of land settlement during British rule in India? Briefly discuss their features and implications. 6. What do you understand by Commercialization of agriculture? Discuss its impact on rural India. In the next article, we‘ll various peasant revolts because of these oppressive land tenure systems.

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] Post Independence: Abolition of Zamindari, Reasons, Impact, Obstacles, Limitations, First Amendment 1. Prologue 2. What is Land reform? 3. Land reforms: broad vs narrow sense 1. What are the objectives of Land reforms? 2. Increase production 3. social justice 4. Economic development 5. Improve standard of living 4. Post-Freedom: Towards land reforms 5. Why Abolish Zamindari? 6. First Amendment, 1951 1. #1: SEBC 2. #2: Freedom of Speech 3. #3 Freedom of Profession 4. #4: Land Reforms 5. #4 Minor modification 7. Timeline of Zamindari Abolition by States 8. Zamindari Abolition Acts: Salient Features 1. #1: Compensation 2. #2: Common Land/resources 3. #3: Ownership transfer 4. #4: Personal Cultivation 5. #5: Direct payment of land revenue 9. Zamindari Abolition: Limitations/Obstacles/Negative points 1. #1: Land reform Delayed= Land reform Denied 2. #2: Personal cultivation 3. #3: New form of Zamindari 4. #4: Not much for Ryotwari 10. Zamindari Abolition: Benefits/Positive points 1. #1: Agro Production increased 2. #2: Emancipation 3. #3: Changed rural power structure 4. #4: Towards an Egalitarian Society 5. #5: Rise of middleclass 11. Mock Questions 12. Appendix: the 9th Schedule

Prologue So far in the [Land Reform] series, we‘ve seen:

1. Three land tenure system of the British: Their features, implications. 2. Peasant struggles for land reforms in British Raj: causes and consequences. 3. Land reforms, Before independence: by Congress governments in Provinces, their benefits and limitations.

Now we look into land reform measures after the independence. But first, Let‘s once again recap the meaning and importance of land reforms.

What is Land reform? Agro productivity is affected by two type of factors: INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS 1. land tenure system 2. size of land holdings 3. land distribution

TECHNICAL FACTORS 1. climate, soil, rainfall 2. farm mechanization 3. farming techniques: use of hybrid seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation methods

Reforms related to ^institutional factors are called land reforms. Let‘s check some more definitions def1 Land Reforms is a planned and institutional reorganisation of the relation between man and land def2 Land Reforms mean deliberate change introduced into system of land tenure and the farming structure Land reforms imply such institutional changes which turn over ownership of the farms to those who def3 actually till the soil, and which raise the size of the farm to make it operationally viable.‖ Land reforms mean, such measures as, abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reforms, ceiling on land def4 holdings, consolidation and cooperative farming etc. def5 Improving land tenure and institutions related to agriculture.  redistribution of property rights def6  For the benefit of the landless poor.

def7

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integrated program to remove the barriers for economic and social development Caused by deficiencies in the existing land tenure system.

Ya but why learn so many definition? Ans. UPSC may directly give you a definition and ask you to ‗comment‘ on it-just like they do in public administration paper I. Example Mock Questions: 1. Land Reforms is a planned and institutional reorganisation of the relation between man and land. Comment. 2. Land reform is not confined to just redistribution of property rights among the landless poor. Comment. 3. Examine the change introduced into system of land tenure and the farming structure during first five year plan.

4. Define Land reforms. Examine its role in removing the barriers for economic and social development in India.

Land reforms: broad vs narrow sense broad sense concerned with land rent, land ownership, land holding, land revenue+ credit, marketing, abolition of intermediaries, etc.

narrow sense Concerned only with land ownership and land holdings.

What are the objectives of Land reforms? or Why do we need land reforms?

Increase production 

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Tenant farmer has no motivation to improve agricultural practices because o He doesn‘t own land=can‘t get loans through banks / formal institutions. o He doesn‘t own land=why bother? o He has to pay heavy rent to the landowner=hardly any surplus income left to invest in hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery etc. In other words, the agrarian structure that we inherited from the past (Zamindari, landlessness etc.) obstructs increase in agricultural production. Land reforms will remove these obstructions. Land ownership/ tenure security will motivate farmers to work harder, invest more and thus produce more =more income=standard of life improved + poverty decreased. For Development of Indian agriculture the importance of land reforms is greater than that of technological reforms. (according to Nobel prize-winner Gunnar Myrdal and K.N. Raj, etc.)

social justice

1. Zamindari abolition= also eliminates Begari (forced labour) 2. Land ceiling = reduces the inequality of income and land ownership among villagers. Provides land to landless labourers. 3. Tenancy reforms= reduces rents. Landowner cannot evict a tenant farmer as per his whims and fancies. 1+2+3= Rural power structure changed. Upper caste domination decreased. Empowerment of SC/ST/OBC farmers, agri.labourers.

Economic development

Improve standard of

Thus land reform=> Social justice + Egalitarian society. 1. on one hand: land reform increase production 2. on the other hand, land reforms will also provide social justice. 3. Abolishing intermediaries (Zamindar, Talukdar, Jagirdar etc)= the State directly comes in contact with farmers. This direct relation will help in rural Development and agri. Development as per five year plans. 1+2+3=long term economic development. When, 1. agro production increased

living

2. social justice given 3. Economic development achieved. 1+2+3= villagers‘ standard of living automatically increases.

Mock Questions 1. ―Land reforms have been treated as an integral part of eradicating poverty, and increasing of agricultural production.‖ Comment. 2. Explain the role of Land reforms in providing social justice and moving towards an egalitarian society.

Post-Freedom: Towards land reforms At this time, we had two set of victim-farmers 1. Those refugee-farmers who migrated from Pakistan. 2. Those exploited by zamindars, landlords and moneylenders. So first question: what was done for those refugee farmers?  

 

Government settled them in Eastern parts of current Punjab (because from this area, muslim farmers had migrated to Pakistan so land was available) First, each refugee farmer family given 4 ht. of land, irrespective of how much land they owned in Pakistan. Government also gave them loans to buy seeds/fertilizers, so they can start temporary cultivation. Later, each refugee family was asked file application regarding how much land they owned in Pakistan. These claims were verified by village assemblies and each family was allotted proportional land in Punjab. by 1950 this work was finished.

Now moving to the second type of victim-farmers: those exploited by zamindars, landlords and moneylenders. What was done for them?    

November 1947: the AICC appointed a special committee to draw up an economic programme for the Congress. name of this committee= Economic Program committee Chairman= Nehru. Other members: Maulana Azad, N.G. Ranga, G.L. Nanda, Jayaprakash Narayan etc.

For land reforms, committee recommended that: 1. All intermediaries between the tiller and the state should be eliminated 2. Maximum size of holding should be fixed. The surplus land over such a

aka Zamindari abolition. Covered in this article. aka Land ceiling. Covered in next article.

maximum should be acquired and placed at the disposal of the village cooperatives.

3. Present land revenue system to be replaced by progressive agricultural income tax.

Not covered in any article. because income from agriculture is exempted from income tax. And therefore, many filmstars use fake papers to claim they are ‗farmers‘. (and then they dance in Dawood‘s Party @dubai, earn money, manipulate the account books to show that cash coming from their ‗agriculture‘ income and thus evade tax.)

4. All middlemen should be replaced by non-profit making agencies, such as cooperatives. aka Cooperative farming. Will be covered in future article. 5. Pilot schemes for cooperative farming among small land holders 6. Consolidate small land holdings and prevent further land fragmentation.

Aka consolidation of land holdings. Will be covered in future article.

Let‘s start with Land Reform Method #1: Zamindari Abolition. But first question:

Why Abolish Zamindari? 

in the first article under [Land reform], we saw the three land tenure system of BritishZamindari, Ryotwari and Mahalwari.





In Zamindari areas (BeBi: Bengal, Bihar), the British government outsourced the land Revenue collection work to Zamindars. Similarly in the Princely states had Jagirdars. These ‗intermediaries‘ would:

1. Force the tenants to provide demand free labour (Begari) 2. evict tenants as per their whims and fancies = no tenure security 3. Enjoyed lavish lifestyle, did not add anything to agriculture productivity, yet charged high rent – they were like today‘s Middleman @APMC Mandi that we saw under [Food processing] article series.

Therefore, it was necessary to remove these intermediaries, 1. Because Art. 23 prohibited Begari. But at the grassroot level, Begari couldnot be stopped unless Zamindari itself was abolished. 2. Because Art. 38 wanted to minimize inequality of income, status and opportunities. When Zamindars control ~40% of India‘s cultivated land, there was no opportunity / status for tenant farmers working under them. 3. Because Art. 39 wanted equitable distribution of the material resources of the community for common good. But in villages, these Zamindars control ponds, lakes, forests, grazing lands etc. and didn‘t allow others to freely access them.

4. Because Art.48 wanted to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modernscientific lines but Zamindars were orthodox rent-seeking mindset, and tenant farmer had neither the money nor the motivation to ‗scientific farming‘. 5. Because First Five year plan also asked for abolition of intermediaries/zamindars to increase agro. Production, farmer‘s income, to provide social justice and move towards an egalitarian society.

First Amendment, 1951 

 

You already know that First amendment =>9th schedule, whatever laws listed this schedule, courts cannot inquire into them. But first Amendment is not just about 9thSchedule /Zamindari abolition. It dealt with many other issues as well. Microsoft released Windows 8 Operating System. Later, they realized limitations, problems with Win8, so recently they released an upgrade Windows 8.1 to fix it. Similarly, Constitution came into force from January 1950. But from January 1950 to May 1951 (=~15 months), government realized variety of deficiencies/problems with Constitution. So, cameup with First amendment to fix those issues in 1951.

#1: SEBC Before Amendment Art. 15: State cannot discriminate against any citizen….. So according to this (original) provision, if government provided reservation or any welfare scheme for SC/ST/OBC/PH, then general category could approach court saying we‘re ‗discriminated‘ against and hence our fundamental right is violated. Another Angle: DPSP Art.46: State should promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and protect them from social injustice. But this Directive principle cannot be implement because of Art.15 so, government had to fix this inconsistency with Art.15.

After the 1st Amendment 



Article 15 shall NOT prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC) of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. In other words, if government makes law for SEBC/SC/ST, they cannot be challenged in courts on the grounds that Art.15 is violated.

#2: Freedom of Speech

Some courts held the 19/1/a (freedom of speech) so comprehensive and sacrosanct that before Amendment

 

Even if a person advocated murder, violence or hatred against any caste/religion/person/nation, he could not be convicted. What if an ACIO leaked national security related data to a journalist? Both could still claim immunity on the grounds of freedom of speech.

State can make law to put ―reasonable‖ restriction on freedom of speech, with respect to:

after

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

National security friendly relations with foreign countries public order, decency or morality contempt of court Defamation or incitement to an offence.

#3 Freedom of Profession BEFORE 1ST AMENDMENT Art. 19(1)(g): The citizen has right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. Now suppose 1. A person without MBBS degree, starts a clinic. 2. A person without doing any pharmacy course, opens a medical store But if the State authorities tried to stop him, he could approach courts saying my fundamental right is violated! Another angle: According to Industrial licensing policy, atomic energy is reserved for public sector. But an entrepreneur could challenge this in court and start his own private nuclear plant. (=risky and dangerous from national security point of view)

AFTER 1ST AMENDMENT 1. The State CAN make laws to prescribe professional or technical qualifications necessary for practicing any profession or carrying on any occupation, trade or business. in other words, if you open a clinic without doing MBBS, you can be jailed and you cannot claim protection under Art.19 2. The State can make laws to carry out any trade/business/service by itself or thru its corporations. And can exclude any businessmen, citizen or private industries from carrying out those activities. In other words, if state reserves atomic energy or railways for public sector only then private entrepreneur cannot approach court saying his fundamental right under Art.19 is violated.

#4: Land Reforms

BEFORE 1ST AMENDMENT    

by 1949: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Madras, Assam and Bombay states introduced Zamindari abolition bills. They all used the report of the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition Committee (chaired by G.B. Pant) acting as the initial model. but Zamindars approached courts, raising issues like ‗our right to property‘ has been violated or we‘re not given fair compensation etc. Hence Union government came up with provisions to prevent courts from entertaining such pleas.

AFTER 1ST AMENDMENT Added three things to the constitution 1. two new articles (31 A and B) 2. one schedule (9th Schedule) Art 31A:      

State can make laws to acquire any estates / rights related to estates. Estate =also includes any jagir, inam or muafi or other similar grant; Rights= also includes rights of any proprietor, sub-proprietor, under-proprietor, tenure-holder or other intermediary- with respect to land revenue. And courts cannot declare such law void, on the ground that it violates fundamental rights. (But) if such law is made by a state legislation, then it cannot claim immunity under Art.31A, until it receives assent from the President of India. Sidenote: later Fifth Amendment added more laws that cannot be challenged in courts.

Art31B:  

The Acts and regulations listed in 9th Schedule of the constitution = cannot be challenged in courts on the ground that they are violating fundamental rights. Meaning, courts are prohibited from doing any judicial review of the items listed in 9th Schedule.

9th Schedule: 



The first Amendment act listed 13 acts and regulations in 9th schedule. all meant for abolishing Zamindari. Meaning Zamindars could not approach courts against those laws. (boring list given @bottom of this current article) Later 14th Amendment, 34th Amendment etc. also added more laws related to land reforms in this 9th Schedule. You can read more about them in Laxmikanth‘s appendix for constitutional amendments.

#4 Minor modification A few minor amendments in respect of articles 341, 342, 372 and 376. Anyways we digressed much from the Zamindari abolition topic so let‘s come back. So far we‘ve seen: 1. 2. 3. 4.

what is land reform what are the objectives of land reform post-independence, how we moved towards land reform we saw how first amendment 1951 o modified freedom of speech o modified freedom of profession o Protected Zamindari abolition/law reform laws via Art 31A, 31B and 9th Schedule.

Now let‘s talk about the actual Abolition of Zamindari:

Timeline of Zamindari Abolition by States Era 1948 to 50s 1951 1952 1953 1954

States that abolished Zamindari Madras, Bombay and Hyderabad states Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam Orissa, Punjab, Swarashtra and Rajasthan Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi

Zamindari Abolition Acts: Salient Features Since land = falls under State list, so state legislatures had to enact the zamindari abolition. Meaning no uniformity. Different states have different provisions. But let‘s check the common features of all such state acts.

#1: Compensation    

Ownership and land revenue related rights of the zamindars = abolished. Lands transferred to the (superior) tenants. State governments gave compensation to Zamindars ~670 crore rupees. Some states created ―Zamindari Abolition fund‖ and gave ―Bonds‖ to Zamindars as compensation. These bonds could be redeemed after a period of 10 to 30 years. (why long term bonds? why not pay all cash upfront? think about the fiscal deficit angle!)

State Jammu Kashmir

Compensation to Zamindar No compensation paid to them. And this also led to Hindu-Muslim bitterness because Almost all Zamindars were Hindu (in Jammu region).

Compensation according to Zamindar‘s income.  

Uttar Pradesh

Small Zamindar= Annual income times 20 Big Zamindar= Annual income times (2 or 4)

In other words- compensation formula inversely related to Zamindar‘s income during British raj.

#2: Common Land/resources  



Example wasteland, grazing land, ponds, wells, forest area surrounding the village. earlier Zamindars controlled such common land/resources and o charged fees from villagers, if they wanted to use it. o did not allow SC/ST to full access these common land/resources. These Zamindari Abolition acts, transferred the ownership of such common land/resources to Village Panchayat. And Forest area= gone to Forest department.

#3: Ownership transfer #4: Personal Cultivation #5: Direct payment of land revenue

 

Bhumidhar=tenant farmers, who cultivated Zamindar‘s land. In Uttar Pradesh, Bhumidhar can become owner of the land after paying 10 times the annual rent to his Zamindar.



Land which was cultivated by the zamindar himself = exempted from purview of these acts. Zamindar was permitted to keep this land.

Now Farmer was made directly liable for paying land revenue to the state government. (Because Zamindar is no longer the ‗middleman‘ in land revenue hierarchy.)

Zamindari Abolition: Limitations/Obstacles/Negative points #1: Land reform Delayed= Land reform Denied After laws were passed, Zamindars went to SC/HC to stay the law implementation. This greatly reduced the effectiveness of these legislations. ^to understand this, let‘s check the #Epicfail of Bihar: 1946 Bihar government passed resolution to abolish Zamindari. Act was passed State assembly but landlords approached the courts and the government too felt it 1949 necessary to repeal the legislation. 1950 State legislature passed New Act, with some amendments. But Zamindars again approached courts. Union government brings 1st Amendment, gives immunity to all such Zamindari abolition acts/ 1951 regulations from judicial review.

But Even, after the law was finally implemented, the Zamindars refused to cooperate with the revenue authorities and tried all means to scuttle it implementation. The petty revenue officials at Village and Tehsil level, either turned blind eye or actively sided with Zamindars for bribes. Thus many years had passed by for the intention of Zamindari abolition became a reality.

#2: Personal cultivation 



Most state laws permitted Zamindars to keep part of land for personal cultivation. But the definition was vague. Zamindars misused this loophole to evict tenant farmers and keep most of the land with themselves. (Counter argument: Zamindar started capitalist farming in the area- led to increase in Agro-productivity)

#3: New form of Zamindari 

  

Main beneficiaries of zamindari abolition were the occupancy tenants or the upper tenants or superior tenants- They had direct leases from the zamindar, and now they became virtual landowners. But now these new landowners leased the same land to inferior tenants/sharecroppers- based on oral and unrecorded agreements. These inferior tenants/sharecroppers could be evicted as per the whims and fancies of the new landowner. Thus, even after the abolition of Zamindari, the system of ‗intermediaries‘ and exploitation continued.

#4: Not much for Ryotwari 



At the time of freedom, less than 50% of cultivated land was under zamindari tenure. The remaining areas (ryotwari/Mahalwari) did not have Zamindari system but they too had system of ‗intermediaries‘ i.e. big farmer/moneylender leasing land to small farmers- then charging excessive rent and exploiting them. The Zamindari abolition did not bring much relief to these people.

Overall 

 

the Main objective of Zamindari abolition = there should be no ‗intermediary/middleman‘ between the State and the land Revenue payer (farmer). But this objective was not achieved. Therefore, many economists do not attach much significance to Zamindari abolition. They opine Zamindari abolition merely changed the hierarchy of land revenue administration, but did not bring any change in the method of farming nor in the nature of agricultural units.

Anyways, enough of negative points, let‘s check some positive points:

Zamindari Abolition: Benefits/Positive points 1. ~1,700 lakh hectares of land was acquired from the intermediaries (zamindars) and as a consequence, about two crore tenants were brought into direct relationship with the government.

2. Many millions of cultivators who had previously been weak tenants or tenants-atwill were became superior tenants= virtual owners. =DPSP Art. 39 fullfilled (right to adequate means of livelihood for all citizens) 3. Many absentee zamindars actually started direct ‗personal cultivation‘ (so the State cannot take away their land). They had money to buy high yielding seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, machineries=agro productivity increased. 4. The entire process occurred in a democratic framework 5. virtually no coercion or violence was used (unlike the land reforms in China, Russia or Cuba.) 6. Finished in remarkably short period. Perhaps because Zamindars were isolated during and after freedom struggle due to their soft corner for the British.

#1: Agro Production increased BEFORE Zamindar collected Revenue.

neither the zamindars, nor the cultivators took interest in improvememt of agriculture land

AFTER Government directly collects land Revenue from farmer. 1. Cultivators have got ownership rights and hence take keen interest in land improvement and increase in agriculture production. 2. Government created an enabling atmosphere- agri. cooperative society, regional rural banks etc. to provide cheap credit. Subsidy on fertilizers, cheap electricity, irrigation etc. =DPSP Art. 48 fullfilled (modern and scientific agriculture and animal husbandry)

#2: Emancipation  

After abolition of Zamindari, the agricultural laborers no longer forced to give free labors=Begari, Bonded labour declined. Art. 23 fullfilled. Bargaining power of agri. laborers increased=>higher wages=>declined poverty.

#3: Changed rural power structure 



Public land such as village ponds, grazing grounds, village streets etc. which was used by the Zamindar‘s as personal property, have been declared as community property. =DPSP Art. 39 full filled (material resources of community). This disarmed the Zamindars of economic exploitation and dominance over others. Thus, Transferred power from Zamindars to peasants.

#4: Towards an Egalitarian Society    

Abolition of intermediaries=> asset distribution=> egalitarian society. The Planning Commission estimates that after Abolition of Zamindari, at least twenty million tenants were brought into direct relationship with the governments. empowerment of those who have out of the development process. = DPSP Art.38 fullfilled. (securing a social order, minimize inequality of income, status, facilities and opportunities.)

#5: Rise of middleclass 



Since the intermediaries were removed=>farmers don‘t have to pay heavy rent=>these farmers could generate profit=>could sent their kids to school and colleges. So in a way, land reforms helped in expansion of Indian middleclass.

Mock Questions 1. Zamindari abolition merely changed the hierarchy of land revenue administration, but did not bring any change in the method of farming nor in the nature of agricultural units. Comment 2. Critically evaluate the signification of Zamindari abolition as a measure of land reforms. 3. Analyse the impact of Zamindari abolition on rural power structure. Do you agree with the opinion that it didn‘t really benefit the marginalized sections of rural society? 4. Explain how Zamindari abolition helped fullfilling the directive principles of state policy. 5. Land reforms could not have been initiated without enactment of the First Amendment. Comment. 6. ―Land reforms have been treated as an integral part of eradicating poverty, and increasing of agricultural production.‖ Comment. 7. Explain the role of Land reforms in providing social justice and moving towards an egalitarian society. 8. Land Reforms is a planned and institutional reorganisation of the relation between man and land. Comment. 9. Land reform is not confined to just redistribution of property rights among the landless poor. Comment. 10. Examine the change introduced into system of land tenure and the farming structure during first five year plan. 11. Define Land reforms. Examine its role in removing the barriers for economic and social development in India. In the next article, we‘ll the second measure of land reform: ―Land Ceilings‖.

Appendix: the 9th Schedule the first amendment had added 13 laws in the 9th schedule. And Art.31B prohibited courts from doing judicial review on them. Here goes the boring list only for information: 1. The Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950 (Bihar Act XXX of 1950). 2. The Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (Bombay Act LXVII of 1948). 3. The Bombay Maleki Tenure Abolition Act, 1949 (Bombay Act LXI of 1949). 4. The Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition Act, 1949 (Bombay Act LXII of 1949).

5. The Panch Mahals Mehwassi Tenure Abolition Act, 1949 (Bombay Act LXIII of 1949). 6. The Bombay Khoti Abolition Act, 1950 (Bombay Act VI of 1950). 7. The Bombay Paragana and Kulkarni Watan Abolition Act, 1950 (Bombay Act LX of 1950). 8. The Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1950 (Madhya Pradesh Act I of 1951). 9. The Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (Madras Act XXVI of 1948). 10. The Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Amendment Act, 1950 (Madras Act I of 1950). 11. The Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950 (Uttar Pradesh Act I of 1951). 12. The Hyderabad (Abolition of Jagirs) Regulation, 1358F. (No. LXIX of 1358, Fasli). 13. The Hyderabad Jagirs (Commutation) Regulation, 1359F. (No. XXV of 1359, Fasli).

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] Ceiling on Land holdings: Reasons, Impact, Obstacles, Limitations, Achievements 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Prologue What is Land Ceiling? Why Ceiling on Land holdings? Land Ceiling in India Ceiling Phase 1: Freedom to 1972 Salient Features 1. Limitations/Failures of Land Ceiling (‗47-‗72) 2. Negative#1: No redistribution 3. Negative#2: Family vs Individual 4. Negative#3: Land ceilings too high 5. Negative#4: Exempted land categories 6. Negative#5: Delay in Law Making 7. Negative#6: History repeats 7. Second stage: 1972 onwards 8. 34th Amendment 9. Land Ceiling: problems/ limitations/obstacles 1. #Epicfail in UttarPradesh 2. Land reform Delayed is land reform denied 3. Hardly any ‗redistribution‘ 4. Lack of Auxiliary Support 5. Lack of Political Mobilization 6. Lack of Administrative will 7. FYP did not give direction 8. Land fragmentation=Low GDP 9. Post-LPG: Changed priorities 10. Land Ceilings: Benefits/Advantages/Positive Points 1. With political Will 2. Production increased 3. Employment increased 4. Naxal reduced 5. Social Justice 6. Growth of New political parties 11. Land Ceiling: Pro and Anti arguments 12. Mock Questions

Prologue So far we‘ve seen 1. Three land tenure system of the British: Their features, implications. 2. Peasant struggles for land reforms in British Raj: causes and consequences.

How the British had difficulty learning the land Revenue system of Desi Nawabs. So, they came up with Permanent settlement, Ryotwari and Mahalwari systems. But the British tenure systems caused much pain and anguish among Indian peasants and led to numerous revolts.

3. Land reforms, Before independence: by Congress governments in Provinces, their benefits and limitations. 4. Land reforms, After independence: Abolition of Zamindari, Reasons, Impact, Obstacles, Limitations.

After the Provincial elections of 1937, Congress ministries took measures to protect tenant farmers. But by and large shied away from zamindari abolition. After freedom, State Governments enacted Zamindari Abolition Acts. As a result erstwhile (superior) tenants became virtual owners of their land. =>This is First tool of Land reform.

Now comes the new problem: 1. After abolition of Zamindari, the (superior) tenant farmers became virtual owners of the land. They owned tens and hundreds of acres of land. While other (inferior tenants/sharecroppers/landless laborers) owned nothing. 2. Many Zamindars themselves kept lot of land in pretext of ‗personal cultivation‘. Therefore, State governments enacted land ceiling acts. E.g.an individual farmer cannot own land beyond say 10 acres. Thus, if a farmer owned 12 acres, government would take away 12-10=2 acres of surplus land from him, and ―distribute‖ it to some landless laborers. This is Second tool of Land reform. before going further let‘s again recap the players in a tenancy system

What is Ceiling on Land Holdings?    

It means fixing maximum size of land holding that an individual/family can own. Land over and above the ceiling limit, called surplus land. if the individual/family owns more land than the ceiling limit, the surplus land is taken away (with or without paying compensation to original owner) This surplus land is a. distributed among small farmers, tenants, landless labourers or b. handed over to village panchayat or c. Given to cooperative farming societies.

Why Ceiling on Land holdings? 1. Because DPSP Art.38 seeks to minimize the inequalities of income, status, facilities and opportunities. Land ceiling minimize inequality in the land ownership and thus reduces inequality of income. 2. Because DPSP Art.39 wants to ensure that the operation of economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth. In a village, land=wealth, hence land ceiling is necessary to prevent concentration of wealth in the hands of few. 3. Because DPSP Art.39 wants to give right to adequate means of livelihood for all citizens. Land ceiling (and subsequent land redistribution) provides self-employment opportunities to landless agricultural laborers. 4. If there is no land ceiling, rich farmers will buy all the land of entire village and tehsil. But since they cannot cultivate all the land by themselves- they‘ll ‗lease‘ it to small farmers (tenants). Small farmer (tenant) doesn‘t have any ‗motivation‘ to work harder because he doesn‘t own the land and he has to give 30-50-70% of the produce to that rich farmer, as ―rent‖= exploitation.

5. So, After abolishing Zamindari, IF State Governments had not implemented Land ceiling, then rich farmers/superior tenants would have become the new de-facto/virtual Zamindars of Modern India. Although, economists who believe in free market / capitalism, donot like land ceiling. We‘ll see their anti-land ceiling arguments at the end of this article. But for the moment, let‘s continue with the assumption that land ceiling is beneficial.

Land Ceiling in India WE can study it in two phases: 1. From independence to 1972 2. After 1972

Ceiling Phase 1: Freedom to 1972 1946 1947

1949

First FYP

(just before freedom) All India Kisan Sabha demanded a maximum limit of landownership of 25 acres per landholder Economic Program committee headed by Nehru, Recommended, ‗The maximum size of holdings should be fixed. The surplus land over such a maximum should be acquired and placed at the disposal of the village‟  Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee, chaired by J.C. Kumarappa.  Recommended a ceiling on landholding which was to be three times the size of an economic holding.  An economic holding was defined as that which would give a reasonable standard of living to the cultivator and provide full employment to a family of normal size and at least to a pair of bullocks.  

There should be an upper limit to the amount of land that an individual may hold. Exact upper limit was to be fixed by each State, having regard to its own agrarian history and present problems.



AICC Agra session: State Governments should take immediate for the fixation of ceilings on land holdings, with a view to redistribute the land,



National Development Council (NDC) adopted a decision to complete the imposition of ceilings by the end of 1960.

  

Nagpur session of Congress. Passed resolution that All states should complete land ceiling by 1959 Surplus land should be given to Panchayats and Cooperatives of Landless laborers.

1953

1957

1959

Salient Features During this phase, Land ceiling reform ran on following principles/features: 1. States were given freedom to fix land ceiling based on soil conditions, irrigation facilities, agrarian history of the region etc. 2. States had to conduct census of landholdings and classify agriculture land into two parts:

Classification of land 1. Land held by Tenants (i.e. after Zamindari abolition, these Tenants who had become virtual owners of the land.)

What to do here? 1. States had to make law, that‘ll enable Tenant to take over this land with ―patta‖ (i.e. document showing possession). 2. Subject to maximum land ceiling in acres. i.e. surplus land from tenant will be taken away. 3. Owner could keep part of this land for his personal cultivation (subject to maximum land ceiling in acres)

2. Land held by Landowner himself 4. State will give remaining ‗surplus‘ land to those agricultural labourers, with or without paying compensation to the original land owner.

Sounds good on paper? Yes. But Land Ceiling during this phase=EPICFAIL. Why?

Limitations/Failures of Land Ceiling (‘47-‘72) Negative#1: No redistribution by the end of 1961

most states passed land ceiling Acts 

by the end of 1970





by the end of 1970



Not a single acre was declared surplus in large states like Bihar, Mysore, Kerala, Orissa and Rajasthan! In Andhra Pradesh, a mere 1,400 acres was declared surplus but no land was distributed. Overall India: only 2.4 million acre declared surplus. Barely 50% of that surplus land was redistributed among landless. This amounted to ~0.3% of total cultivated land of India in that era.

So why did this happen? Why didn‘t land ceiling acts achieve desired result? Because of following reasons:

Negative#2: Family vs Individual

 

Initially States imposed the land ceiling on individual and not on family. So big farmers transferred their land to sons, daughters, wives, relatives (sometimes even non-existent/dead family member) to avoid crossing the ceiling.





Many states provided extra-ceiling if family exceeded five members. Example Andhra Pradesh had allowing 6 to 72 acres (depending on the nature of land) per ‗extra‘ member of the family. In these day, there was no family planning= large sized family=very few families ‗crossed‘ the land ceiling.

Thus, land ceiling definition itself defeated the noble purpose of land distribution.

Negative#3: Land ceilings too high During this era, more than 70% of the landholdings were below 5 acres. Yet the ceilings were fixed too high, example: State Andhra Pradesh Assam Kerala Punjab West Bengal Maharashtra

land ceiling 27-312 (depending on land quality) 50 acres 15 to 37.5 acres 30 to 60 acres 25 acres 18 to 126 acres

Result? Very few people crossed the land ceiling. Hardly any surplus land taken away.

Negative#4: Exempted land categories 2nd Five year plan recommended following categories of land be exempted from ―ceiling‖ laws: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

tea, coffee and rubber plantations, orchards, specialized farms engaged in cattle breeding, dairying, wool raising, etc., sugarcane farms operated by sugar factories Efficiently managed farms on which heavy investments had been made. Land belonging to charitable trusts.

2nd Five year plan‘s intention was good- it wanted to promote capitalist/progressive farming and make foundation for the future green revolution. But State government implemented this policy in letter and not in spirit. Result? 1. ‗Efficiently managed farm‘ was vaguely defined. So many farmers evaded the ceilings by simply getting themselves declared ‗efficient‘. 2. Tamilnadu exempted land held by cooperatives from land ceiling act. So, Landlords transferring their lands to bogus cooperatives. 3. Many rich farmers setup bogus charitable trusts in connivance with state officials, then transferred land to charitable trust and avoided ceiling.

Negative#5: Delay in Law Making  

State governments took lot of time to pass the land ceiling legislation. This gave big farmers enough time to sell their excess lands, or to transfer it to their relatives and even make benami transfers.



 

Landowners evicted tenants and resume cultivation by themselves (on paper) claiming they had shifted to ―Efficient‖ farming (so the land ceiling cannot apply). But in reality they just hired sharecroppers/landless labourers to do all the work. Thus, by the time the ceiling legislations were in place, there were barely any holdings left above the ceiling and consequently little surplus land became available for redistribution. Third Five year plan also admitted this limitation.

Negative#6: History repeats 



Recall that during Zamindari abolition, the Zamindars tried all tricks to resist government‘s attempt. At that time, superior tenants/rich farmers supported government (with hope of getting land) Now as governments tried to put land ceiling on these superior tenants/rich farmers=they tried all tricks to resist land ceiling o using their vote bank clout over political parties at state level=bills passed with lot of delay. o conniving with petty revenue official at village and tehsil level to transfer land to family members and benami persons to avoid ceiling o filling flimsy court cases to delay the implementation

Thus history repeated itself – those who sought land reform earlier, now became opponents of land reforms themselves. Anyways, so far first phase: 1947-1972, land ceiling is epicfail. Now let‘s check the second phase:

Second stage: 1972 onwards 1970: Indira Gandhi says following The land reform measures implemented have failed to match the legitimate expectations which were first fostered among millions of cultivators during the national movement . . . In short, we have yet to create institutional conditions which would enable small farmers, tenants, and landless labourers to share in the agricultural New Deal. Soon, a conference of Chief Ministers @Delhi. They conclude: 1. Landlessness among rural poor=main cause of Naxal problem and agrarian tensions. 2. At present, Land ceiling varied anything between 10-54 acres. This has to be reduced because thanks to High Yield Variety Seeds +intensive cropping = even small sized farms of 1-2 hectares became economically viable. So there is no need for big ceilings. 1972: Union government gave following guidelines 1. New ceiling Type double-cropped perennially irrigated land single-cropped land inferior dry lands

ceiling in acres 10-18 27 54

2. land ceiling will be applied to family (husband+wife+three children) and not on individuals

3. While distributing surplus land, first priority to landless agricultural workers, particularly SC/ST. 4. Land owner will be compensated for his surplus land- but this compensation will be fixed below market price (so that new owner i.e. landless laborer can afford to buy it) 5. mechanised farms, land belonging to private trusts etc. should not be given exemption from land ceiling. Result? After this 1972 guideline, most states revised their land ceiling acts- except some northeastern states and Goa which had no ceiling laws. (table just for information, may be outdated right now.) States Andhra Pradesh Bihar Gujarat Haryana Himachal J&K Kamataka Kerala

Ceiling fixed(in hectares) 4.05 to 21.85 6.07 to 18.21 4.05 to 21.85 7.25 to 21.85 4.05 to 28.33 3.60 to 9.20 4.05 to 21.85 4.86 to 6.07

States Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh West Bengal

Ceiling fixed(in hectares) 7.28 to 21.85 7.28 to 21.85 4.05 to 18.21 7.00 to 20.50 7.28 to 70.82 4.86 to 24.28 7.28 to 28.33 5.00 to 7.00

But rich farmers still continued to evade the ceiling by filling court cases on flimsy ground. In Andhra Pradesh alone ~500,000 pending cases pertaining to land ceiling were filed!

34th Amendment  

Since rich farmers continued to evade land ceiling by flimsy courtcases, the Union government came up with 34th Constitutional amendment in 1974. This amendment put most of the revised ceiling laws (of state governments) in the Ninth Schedule of the constitution so that they could not be challenged in the courts on constitutional grounds. (according to Art.31B)

Result? Some progress in surplus land being redistributed, but overall results were still far from satisfactory. early 80s 1885

~2 million acres land redistributed (but rich farmers wilfully dispersed more than 30 million acre land to avoid ceilings) ~4 million acres land redistributed.

So far we‘ve seen 1. what is land ceiling and why do we need land ceiling 2. land ceiling in two phases: freedom to 72 and from 72 onwards. Now let‘s check the overall positive/negative points:

Land Ceiling: problems/ limitations/obstacles

#Epicfail in UttarPradesh 1. U.P. Imposition of Land Ceiling Act was passed in 1960. The Act put the ceiling limit at 40 acres. It defined family in a liberal manner and allowed a large number of exemptions. 2. When ceiling came in effect, Zamindars connived with local officials. As a result, they kept the best fertile land and mostly unlevel, wasteland, waterlogged or sandy/salty land was declared as surplus and given to landless. 3. Poor Beneficiary had to face irregular power supply, absence of government tubewell, high charge of water, etc. 4. The Village Pradhan and Lekhpal will not give Patta (possession document) to the poor, unless they paid bribes. 5. Many poor who got land, resold it back to the original owner under Benami transectionsunder greed, threats and coercion. Thus, Land Ceiling Act hardly made an impact on the land distribution in UP. Former zamindars retained large tracts of land and converted themselves into large landowners which did give them political power.

Land reform Delayed is land reform denied   

The states took four to nine years to formulate the proposals, discuss them in the assembly and finally pass them. This lengthy time period was enough for the intermediaries to prepare for the eventual implementation of the Land ceiling Act. They registered surplus/excess land under relatives‘ names and or even fictitious persons, manipulating land records and reclassifying land under different heads. In short most of them managed to evade land ceiling acts.

Hardly any ‘redistribution’    

Overall, the land which has been declared surplus and distributed among landless= less than 2 percent of the total cultivated land. Hence, we cannot say land ceiling was a game changer. But only positive thing= It prevented further concentration of land in the hands of few rich people. In other words, land ceiling didn‘t change the ‗existing‘ land holding pattern but merely prevented concentration of land in few hand in the ‗future‘.

Lack of Auxiliary Support    

More than 6 million hectares of wastelands were distributed among the landless. But it was #epicfail as states did not give any assistance to transform the wasteland to make it fit for cultivation. Lack of Structural changes @village (education, transport, healthcare etc.) Many a times, even after a landless get land, he doesn‘t get credit (loans) easily to buy seeds, fertilizer. So he ‗leases‘ his land to a bigger farmer and himself migrates to city in search of jobs or works as labourer in someone else‘s farm.

Lack of Political Mobilization

   

After Abolition of Zamindari, the superior tenants (mostly rich to middle income farmers belonging to General/OBC group) acquired a higher social status. They economic strength also increased because of green revolution. Subsequently these landowners wielded great authority in rural India and bitterly opposed to a ceiling on agricultural holdings. They are able to have their way because political parties made no serious efforts to mobilize small/marginal farmers or landless laborers to enlist their support in favour of ceiling and other land reforms.

Lack of Administrative will   

Mere passing a law= insufficient. It must be implemented with full vigor and efficiency. During this era (60-70s), the small/marginal farmers or Landless labourers are not organized politically. 73rd Amendment for Panchayati Raj is not even passed yet. So, there was no pressure/compulsion on district-tehsil level officials to perform efficiently. They were corrupt and inefficient as ever.

FYP did not give direction 

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First Five Year Plan identified small and uneconomic holdings as the root cause of many difficulties in the way of agricultural development. But still did not pay much attention to land ceiling. Meaning, First Plan (secretly) did not want to disturb the big farmers or land owners who were crucial to increased agricultural growth. Second five year=gave the concept of ‗exempted‘ categories of land (tea plantation, efficiently managed farms etc.) and we saw how this exemption was misused. Third and Fourth Plans=War, stoppage of aid, famine, food-insecurity, fiscal deficit etc. So they had very little to say (or do) on the issue of land reforms in general and land ceiling in particular. by the time we reach fifth five year plan (74-79) there is emergency, Indira-Hatao, Morarji trying to hold a coalition government => land ceiling reform did not figure in priorities- be it planning, policies, legislation or grassroot mobilization of peasants. 6th FYP onwards (80s), the focus shifts to poverty removal, self-employment, watershed etc. and land ceiling became as obsolete to five year planning, as Vivek Mushran, Rahul Roy and Kumar Gaurav are for today‘s Bollywood.

Land fragmentation=Low GDP   

  

Between 85-92, number of beneficiaries increased more than the increase in area distributed=> new beneficiaries received very tiny plots. As generations passed- more and more land division among sons=>smaller and smaller farms=no economies of scale, disguised unemployment, low productivity etc. These small farmers could have stopped uneconomic farming, and picked up some financially rewarding non-agro job e.g. factory worker, rickshaw driver etc. But that did not happen because other rich farmers couldn‘t buy their land due to land ceiling laws. Thus in the long run, Land ceiling killed the rural land market, and prevented land consolidation. Economists agree that if country wants to progress from developing=>developed nation, then people must move from agriculture to manufacturing/service sector. But that is not happening in India. Thus, land ceiling being one of the reason why majority of population continues to depend on agriculture.

Post-LPG: Changed priorities 

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Therefore, today government is more focused on industrial sector and the service sector growth, self-employment generation type schemes. Land reform-Land redistribution doesn‘t form priority. Whatever land redistribution was to be done, has been done by 80s. Today there is no ‗new‘ land to cultivate. Infect, urbanization putting more pressure on existing agriculture land. So, if you (government) want to redistribute land, there is only one way: amend land ceiling e.g. no one can own more than 1 acre, then take away surplus land from farmers who own more than 1 acre, and redistribute among landless. But this policy is impractical for governments because o It‘ll increase land fragmentation. Small sized farmers= lower economies of scale, mechanization not possible=lower productivity o It‘ll annoy the existing vote bank of small-medium farmers because their surplus land will be taken away.

In short, land reform is no longer in the priority list of Government policies. Today Government gives priority to food security, direct cash transfer, as far as rural India goes. Anyways, enough of negative points about land ceiling. Let‘s check some positive points

Land Ceilings: Benefits/Advantages/Positive Points With political Will States with political will in favour of land ceiling=showed great progress. Example 1. Jammu and Kashmir, Land ceiling laws fully implemented and by the middle of 1955 about 230,000 acres of surplus land had been handed over to tenants and landless labourers, that too without having to pay any compensation. 2. West Bengal had less than 3% of total cultivate land in India. Yet more than 25% of the total surplus land that was distributed throughout India, belonged to WB.

Production increased 1. Earlier large tracts of wasteland belonging to big zamindars/farmers remain uncultivated. Now this given to landless laborers= increases area under cultivation=food security. 2. More Production: Equal distribution of land will encourage intensive cultivation resulting in increased agricultural production. 3. Some Farm management studies conducted in India testified that small farms yielded more production per hectare. It is so because family members themselves cultivate small farms. 4. Even one hectare of land is also an economic holding these days on account of improvement in agricultural technique. Hence, small size of holding due to ceiling will not have any adverse effect on agricultural production. 5. Atleast some of the Land owners shifted to direct ‗efficient‘ farming in order to get ‗exemption‘ from land ceiling.

Employment increased

1. Landless laborer= gets employment only during sowing and harvesting season but now he given land ownership = he is 24/7 self-employed farmer. 2. Even if he did not get land, still other farmers got land=> more demand for agri.labourers= wage bargaining power increased.

3. In other words, land ceiling increased employment opportunities.

Naxal reduced

1. With reduction in inequality among the villagers, possibility of class struggle will be minimised. 2. They will live with perfect peace and harmony and not join Maoists/Naxals movements any longer. (atleast in theory)

Social Justice

3. In a rural economy, whoever controls land, controls the power. 4. Land ceiling Reduced this power inequality among villagers. 5. Promoted spirit of cooperation among villagers. Will help develop cooperative farming later on (atleast in theory).

Growth of New political parties  

1959: N.G. Ranga, C. Rajagopalachari and Minoon Masani setup the Swatantra party. Because they were against land ceiling, compulsory cooperativization, nationalization of private industries etc. policies of Congress government.

1967 Charan Singh formed BKD 1974 BKD+ Swatantra Party + other parties merged=>BLD BLD was major component of Janta Government under the great Morarji Desai who defeated Indira 1977 Gandhi.

Thus, in a way land ceiling helped destroying Congress monopoly / One party rule in Indian politics.

Land Ceiling: Pro and Anti arguments Like I said in the middle of the article- the economists believing in free market / capitalism- they don‘t like land ceiling. So let‘s hear their arguments Anti-Land Ceiling  Land ceiling should be abolished. even corporate sector should be allowed to buy agri. land.  This will enable the enterprising farmer to enlarge his holding by buying or leasing lands of small farmers.  Although landlessness will increase but these small farmers could find employment in agri. and allied sector as a result of capitalist mode of production. 



Capitalist mode of agriculture=>more surplus income=> invested back into the agriculture=economic growth. if corporate sector is allowed to enter in agriculture=> Agri. exports will increase=>more foreign exchange incoming=>Current Account deficit gone,

Pro Land Ceiling  Agricultural income= exempted from income tax.  So, if land ceilings are removed, the rich people will rush to buy farm land.  Thus land prices will soar. A new ‗intermediary‘ group of Agri.land mafia will emerge.  But millions of small and marginal farmers will be pushed off their land.  Hence, the time is not yet ripe to bring forth such drastic reforms (of removing land ceilings). 



Capitalist mode of agriculture uses more machines, less laborers=>unemployment increased. Yes, Economic growth will be achieved but at the cost of unemployment and subsequent fall in human development.

rupee will strengthen.   

 

small farms are not productive because they hinder mechanised farming Small farmers have limited capital to invest in improving agro. Production.

Land ceiling and distribution => poverty and disguised unemployment continues. Some people need to be shifted from agricultural sector to manufacturing/service sector. There is no need to give land to each and every landless person.

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 

large farms tend to prefer monoculture (single crop), because they can be easily managed with heavy machinery. = more susceptible to pest attacks, not good from soil fertility point of view. Small farmers usually have mixed crops (intercropping), they combine and rotate crops and livestock, with manure => soil fertility improves.

Villagers should be kept self-employed, even if on small and marginal farms. This fits with Gandhian ideas of village republics.

In the next article, we‘ll see the third measure of land reform= Tenancy reform acts.

Mock Questions 12 marks: 1. Land ceiling is more of an impediment than a catalyst for economic growth. Comment 2. Evaluate the significance of Land ceiling as a measure of land reforms. 3. The positive impacts of Land ceiling did not trickle down below the middle rung of peasantry. Comment. 4. Evaluate the Impact of land Ceiling and distribution of surplus land on rural power structure post-independence. 5. Examine the reasons behind dismal performance of land ceiling reforms in India. 6. Define Land ceiling. Why was it necessary to enact land ceiling acts in post-independent India? 7. Write a note on the land ceiling reforms before 1972. Why were they unsuccessful? 8. Briefly comment on the progress of ceiling on land holdings in India.

Published on 31/10/2013 @ 2:28 pm under Category: polity URL to article: http://mrunal.org/2013/10/land-reforms-ceiling-on-land-holdings-reasonsimpact-obstacles-limitations-achievements.html

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] Tenancy Reform, Tenancy protection Acts in India, features, benefits, obstacles, limitations, impact, evaluation 1. Prologue 2. Land Reform Tool #3: Tenancy Reforms 1. Element1: Landowner‘s right to lease 2. Element2: Landowner‘s right to Personal Cultivation 3. Element3: Tenant‘s right against eviction & high rent 4. Element4: Tenant‘s right to surrender 5. Element5: Tenant‘s Right to ownership 6. Misc. rights to Tenants 3. Tenancy Reforms: Obstacles/Limitations 1. #1: Women did not benefit 2. #2: SC/ST did not benefit 3. #3: Green Revolution=land grabbing 4. #4: Personal Cultivation 4. Tenancy Reforms: Benefits 1. #1: Rise of New Politics 2. #2: Social Justice 3. #3: More investment 5. Land Reforms: Overall Negative 1. Jurisdiction 2. Outdated Land records 3. Problem in North East 4. Lack of budgetary $upport 5. Bureaucratic apathy 6. Lack of Votebank 7. Powerless Panchyat 8. Lack of Civil Society/NGO action 9. The Naxal Angle: 10. Appu 6. Land reforms: Overall Positive 7. Mock Questions

Prologue 1. Three land tenure system of the British: Their features, implications. 2. Peasant struggles for land reforms in British Raj: causes and consequences.

How the British had difficulty learning the land Revenue system of Desi Nawabs. So, they came up with Permanent settlement (Zamindari), Ryotwari and Mahalwari systems. But the British tenure systems caused much pain and anguish among Indian peasants and led to numerous revolts.

3. Land reforms, Before independence: by Congress governments in Provinces, their benefits and limitations.

After the Provincial elections of 1937, Congress ministries took measures to protect tenant farmers. But by and large they shied away from zamindari abolition.

4. Land reforms, After independence: Abolition of Zamindari, Reasons, Impact, Obstacles, Limitations.

After freedom, State Governments enacted Zamindari Abolition Acts. As a result erstwhile (superior) tenants became virtual owners of their land. =>This is First tool of Land reform.  After abolition of Zamindari, the (superior) tenant farmers became virtual owners of the land. They 5. Ceiling on Land holdings: Reasons, owned tens and hundreds of acres of land. While other peasants owned hardly any land. Impact, Obstacles, Limitations,  So, State governments enacted land ceiling acts and Achievements distributed surplus land to poors and landless. This issecond tool of Land reforms.

Now comes the third tool of land reforms:

Land Reform Tool #3: Tenancy Reforms   

Various State governments have passed the laws to protect the land owners and (superior+inferior) tenants. Collectively these are called tenancy reform acts. Such tenancy reform acts, usually have five elements: two for land owners + three for tenants but first, let‘s once again check the players in a tenancy system, to get a better grip over this tenure/tenancy reform acts:

The State

Owner

1. enforces tenancy contracts 2. Maintains law and order. Earns revenue for doing 1+2  The owner: the guy who owns land  They pay Revenue to the State.  Rich farmers, Zamindars etc. own hundreds of acres of land. Can‘t cultivate it on their own.  Similarly minors, disabled, widows, soldiers, fishermen may also own land but they can‘t cultivate for one reason or another.  So these people ‗lease‘ their land to other farmers (tenants).  

Superior tenants

Inferior Tenants

   

They cultivate on land leased from the ^owner. These are hereditary tenants. Meaning they cultivate same land generation after generation. They pay rent to the owner. They have almost the same rights as the owners. They can sell, mortgage or rent out the land. They cannot be evicted against their will.

  

Other names: tenants at will, subordinate tenants, temporary tenants, subtenants. They till the land leased from other tenants/owners. They pay rent to the owners/superior tenants.

Share croppers Landless laborers

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They have limited rights over the land. They cannot sell or mortgage the land. They can be evicted easily.

     

Sharecroppers= cultivate other person‘s land (Owner, Superior/inferior tenant) They get share from the produce, and remaining goes to the tenant/owner. The equipment and inputs items may be provided owner/tenant They have no rights whatsoever on the land. They cannot sell, rent or mortgage the land. Can be evicted easily.

1. They get paid in cash or kind by the owners (or tenants) 2. Sometimes work under begari/bonded labour.

Tenacy reform acts by and large protect only superior and inferior tenant. Sharecroppers/Laborers get nothing. Anyways, let‘s check the salient features of such Acts in various states:

Element1: Landowner’s right to lease 

   

You own land, but you don‘t have the time/money/mood/intention to cultivate by yourself. So you lease it to another farmer and extract ‗rent‘ from him (=25-30-4060-75% of the produce). This Land leasing, again leads to system of Intermediaries (middlemen who don‘t cultivate) and exploitation of tenants (farmers who actually cultivate). Therefore, in an egalitarian/socialist/communist society: Agri.land leasing=undesirable. But what is the land owner is a defense personnel, widow, minor, student or physically disabled person – they cannot cultivate land by themselves. Hence, leasing is permitted in such exceptional categories of land owners.

Let‘s check some examples

Tenancy Reform Provisions (may be outdated) Act in Two types of leasing are practiced. Andhra

 

In the Andhra region: leasing is permitted In Telengana region: large landholdings cannot be leased, but small holdings can be leased

Land can be leased in futureBut sub-leasing forbidden. (meaning tenant cannot lease the land further to third party)  In Future, agri.land cannot be leased except when owner is a person with disabilities.  Sub-leasing forbidden in any case  sub-lessee does not acquire the right of occupancy of the land.

Assam

Bihar

Gujarat Haryana Himachal Karnataka Madhya Pradesh Orissa Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh West Bengal

Leasing is prohibited except for Defense personnel. Leasing permitted. Agri land cannot be leased. Except when landowner is a minor or unmarried or a widow or divorcee or disabled or defense personnel. Agri.Land cannot be leased except when landowner is seaman or soldier. No ban on future lease, but all the past leases have been abolished- to remove the nuisance of Zamindar/Jagirdar in Malwa, Gwalior, Indore and Vindhya Pradesh Doesn‘t allow leasing or sub leasing of land yes, owner can lease the land to Tenant (5 years)Tenant can further lease the land to sub-tenant (1 year) Agri. cannot be leased. Except when landowners are widows, unmarried women, military persons, students and disabled persons. Leasing is prohibited, but share-cropping is allowed with some restrictions.

Element2: Landowner’s right to Personal Cultivation  

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As we saw in Element#1: Many states permit agri.land leasing (at least when landowner is a soldiers, widows, minor, physically disabled). But what if landowner himself wants resume cultivation later on? e.g. soldier comes back to village after retirement, or the minor student becomes an adult, or the widow gets remarried. Therefore laws permit the landowner to takeback the land from the tenant, IF he (landowner) wants to resume personal cultivation. let‘s check:

State Law Andhra Bihar Bengal Kerala, Orissa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Tripura Uttar Pradesh

Can Landowner take back land from Tenant, for personal cultivation? Yes but not more than 75% of the leased land. 50% of landholding or 5 acre, whichever is less 50% of landholding or 2.5 acre, whichever is less Yes but not more than 50% of the leased land. No, landowners cannot take back land for personal cultivation

So far we saw two elements that protect the rights of landowner viz (1) right to lease and (2) right to personal cultivation. Now let‘s check the rights of tenants.

Element3: Tenant’s right against eviction & high rent   

If landowner can evict the tenant according to his whims-fancies=>this system leads to exploitation. Hence there should be fixed term and fixed rent. Meaning as long as the teant is within that xyz years lease limit and keeps paying that xyz amount of rent, you (landowner) cannot evict him.

Tenure security 

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Insecurity of tenure is a big hurdle in the improvement of agriculture. Tenant pays little attention to the soil improvement, digging of well or tube-well and construction of embankment etc. This negatively affects agro productivity. Security of tenure is must for social justice as well. Hence, Most state made laws to provide at least 5 years tenure security. (meaning once you lease your agri-land, you cannot take it back within 5 yearsexcept for personal cultivation as we saw in element #2. but even there, you can only take back ~50% of land for personal cultivation.) Anyways, let‘s check with examples:

Assam Manipur Orissa

Rajasthan

Landowner cannot evacuate tenant, IF that tenant has been tilling the land for 3 years or more. A tenant could not be removed from a minimum area of 1.2 acres of the land, until he is given an alternative land. tenants who is lawfully cultivating any land cannot be removed.Fixed tenure for half of the area held by Tenant  yes, to both tenants and sub-tenants are given term security: (5 years and 1 year respectively)  But tenant can be removed from the land if he fails to pay rent for two years or more OR if he transfers holdings to third party without permission OR damages the land. Landowner cannot evict the tenant except

Tamilnadu

1. If he wants to resume personal cultivation. 2. tenant is not paying rent tenant and Sharecroppers (bargadars) cannot be evicted, except

West Bengal

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Rent Security

They stop cultivating land. They lease the same land to third party. They refuse to give share/rent to the owner

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During British Raj, there was no law to protect farmers against high rents. The Zamindar/ landowner used to determine rent according to their discretion. Often, rent would be ~50-70% of the total produce. Result? Tenant farmer has hardly any surplus income left=>can‘t buy hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, in short he cannot invest in agri.improvement. Therefore, after freedom, most state government passed laws to fix maximum rent in the range of 25-33% of the produce. maximum rent that an owner can charge from tenant

State

Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (coastal 33-40% of the gross agri.produce areas) remaining states 20-25%

Additionally, if a tenant cannot pay rent on time, the landlord cannot approach court to get his cattle, farm-tools and standing crops. (In other words, tenant given protection against attachment even if he defaults on rent payment.) Limitation: Although states had fixed Maximum rent in 20-50% range, but in most cases, the tenants had to pay rent in the range of 50-70%- especially in the areas with high productivity under green revolution. Corrupt District officials failed to enforce the rent limits. 6th Five year plan suggested the state governments to pass laws to bring down rents to ensure rents are not above 33% of the produce.

Operation Barga    

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by Leftist government in West Bengal In the late 70s. Provided following registration of Sharecroppers (known as Bargadar) Fixed rent: 25% of the produce. Meaning landowner (Jotedar) can only get 25% or 1/4th of the produce. While Sharecropper (Bargadar) gets 75% or 3/4th of the produce. gave security of tenure: permanent and heritable

Element4: Tenant’s right to surrender  

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Ok so far, tenant is given term-security (you cannot evict him before xyz years) and rent security (you cannot charge beyond xyz% of the produce). But what if tenant himself wants to stop farming on that land. For example, a. he bought his own land at a different place, or b. his son gets a decent job in the city and asks him to relocate or c. He joins politics and becomes a telecom/coal minister to mint truckload of cash. Therefore, most state laws also allow the tenant to voluntarily surrender the land back to the original owner.

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Challenge: Sometimes landowner might use bullying/coercion/gun-power to make tenant sign stamppapers declaring his surrender. Solution: Some states also have ‗verification‘ procedure. e.g. in Andhra, after Tenant surrenders the land to owner, the Tehsildar will verify whether surrender was genuine or not. But then again- thinking in Bollywood terms: evil Landowner might kidnap Tenant‘s family and order him not to complaint to Tehsildar. 4th Five year plan recommended: the Land Voluntarily surrendered by a tenant =>should goto state government and then state government should allot it to eligible poors. But very few states implemented this recommendation

So far we‘ve learned 1. 2. 3. 4.

Owner‘s right to lease Owner‘s right to personal cultivation tenant‘s right against eviction tenant‘s right to surrender

Now to the fifth and final element under Land Tenancy reform acts:

Element5: Tenant’s Right to ownership Many state laws permit tenant to acquire the land IF he pays 10-20-50times the annual rent to the landowner. Let‘s check: States that permitted tenants to acquire land after paying money to original landlord States that permitted tenants to acquire land without paying money to original landlord States reduced rent of the tenants without giving them ownership rights

Bombay (now Mahrashtra+Gujarat), Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Hyderabad, Mysore and Delhi Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Bhopal and Vindhya Pradesh Andhra, Madras, Rajasthan, Saurashtra, Madhya Bharat, Hyderabad (jagir areas) and Ajmer

Let‘s check some specific provisions of Tenant‘s right to acquire/purchase land Andhra

Bihar

Tenant can buy after paying 8 times the annual rent.  If Tenant cultivated the land continuously for 12 years, can acquire right of occupancy from the landowners  without paying money to original landlord.  Limitation: Many small farmers had been tilling land on ‗oral agreements‘, did not have paper records to prove 12 years.

Gujarat

Tenant has right to buy land, if he had been tilling continuously for 1 year. But he has to pay to owner. In 1975, Gujarat ~0.8 out of 1.3 million tenants got ownership rights after paying to their respective land owners. (=more than 50% of tenants benefit)

Madhya Pradesh

Yes, if tenant pays 15 times the annual rent to the owner.

Maharashtra

  

Tenant has right to purchase land within one year of the commencement of tenancy. in 1975, ~1.1 out of ~2.6 million tenants acquired ownership rights. (=less than 50%) Challenge: Many tenants could not afford the large sum of money to purchase the

land. Manipur Orissa Tamilnadu

yes, if tenant pays 30 times the annual rent to owner Yes, if tenant pays 10 times the annual rent to the owner. Government Abolished intermediaries but did not facilitate tenants to purchase land from the landlord.

Limitation of Right to ownership: In above examples, we saw how ~50% of tenants in Gujarat and Maharahstra, got ownership rights after paying to landowner. But why didn‘t every tenant bought land from his land owner? Because: 1. State laws already gave rent reduction + permanent occupancy rights= these superior tenants were for all practical purposes virtual owners. 2. Hence there was hardly any motivation to try and acquire full ownership. 3. Besides to get full ownership=> need capital (money) and legal complications.

Misc. rights to Tenants Some states also made laws for: 1. Compensation for tenant, if he made permanent improvements to the land such as, digging of well, planting of trees, construction of farm house, embankment, etc. 2. During natural disaster/flood/drought etc. if government remits land-revenue to the landlord, the latter too will have to remit rent to the cultivator. 3. Landlord cannot receive gift from the tenant and cannot ask tenant to provide him free services. (In other words, Begari removed, Art.23)

Tenancy Reforms: Obstacles/Limitations 1. Land reform delayed, is land reform denied: The inordinate delays in law making=>Landowners evicted potential beneficiaries (tenants) before the law came into force. 2. Underground: These laws pushed tenancy to underground = in concealed form, through oral agreements without anything on paper. The tenants were now called ‗farm servants‘ though they continued to work in exactly the same status. 3. Oral: Most tenancy agreements were oral and informal, hence tenants could not prove anything in court to assert their rights. 4. Creamy Layer: Didn‘t provide security to tenure to all tenants. Only the upper stratum of the farmers – who had the knowledge and means to fight court cases, benefited from these laws. 5. Sharecroppers did not benefit: In many state laws, Sharecroppers don‘t enjoy same rights as a tenant. Therefore, landowners converted tenants into sharecroppers.

#1: Women did not benefit

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Women in India have traditionally been deprived of property rights and their property rights still meet with strong social opposition. During the heydays of land redistribution (60-80s) – males were given the ―patta‖ (document showing ownership right over land). But their wives got nothing.

Result? Women have been working in farmland without any title/paper documents. It leads to following negative consequences 1. Women cannot get loan/credit, subsidy on irrigation-fertilizer-seeds etc. 2. Women become destitute in case of desertion, divorce, or widowhood. In North India, widows often found working as agricultural laborers on the farms of their well-off brothers or brothers-in-law. 3. Women have no bargaining power o @household decision making o @labour market for wages. This is new form of Zamindari exploitation because farm operation (by female) is divorced from farm ownership (by female). Thus, tenancy reforms/land reforms have failed to bring gender equity in rural areas.

#2: SC/ST did not benefit    

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Recall the hierarchy of players in a tenancy system: landowner=>superior tenant =>inferior tenant=>sharecropper=>landless laborers. Major beneficiaries of land reform laws = superior tenant, who mostly fall in OBC category. But impact of land reform measures on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were not significant. Landowners- large, medium, small or marginal- all vehemently resisters tenancy reforms. No political party could dare to lose their vote bank. Hence Tenancy reforms didn‘t trickle down. The rural strata at the bottom of land-ownership and caste hierarchy, continued to be exploited by the old and new elite.

In other words, tenancy reforms merely replaced the old elite (upper caste) with new elite (Backward castes). But have not trickled down below that.

#3: Green Revolution=land grabbing   

The Green Revolution made agriculture profitable, thus led to role reversal among tenancy players. Before=: big farmers would lease land to small farmers. After=: big farmers would take land from small/marginal farmers on lease, and they‘ll cultivate with hybrid seeds, machines, fertilizers etc. (doubt: but why would small farmer lease his land? Because he lacks the ‗capital‘ to buy all those hybrid seeds n fertilizer- hence for a small farmer, it is less risky and more profitable to lease land to big farmer).

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But, eventually many of these big (tenant) farmers grabbed the land using loopholes in tenancy laws. In other words, rich farmers using big capital and modern technology, have converted agriculture into a capitalist mode of production. In such cases tenancy laws have harmed the small and marginal farmers => Green revolution has been detrimental to land reforms.

#4: Personal Cultivation   

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Most State Acts allow landowners to takeback land from tenant for ‗personal cultivation‘. On paper the term ‗personal cultivation‘ looked reasonable, but when applied in the field, was confusing and subject to multiple interpretations. Does personal cultivation mean he himself has to plough the field? or can he hire a landless labourer for ploughing and irrigation? ….. Concept was vaguely defined, there were no definite answers in the various state laws. Thus, ex-zamindars/landowners evicted the tenants from the land claiming that they (owner) intended to cultivate the land personally. In Punjab alone, more than 500,000 tenants were evicted in pretext of Personal cultivation.

Some more negative points stem from bureaucratic apathy (explained in later part of this article). Anyways, enough of negativity, let‘s check some positive points:

Tenancy Reforms: Benefits #1: Rise of New Politics After freedom but before land reforms (50-60s)

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The political process dominated by the “client patron model.” In this model, the rural elite (upper caste) would persuade or force the lower caste villagers to vote for their (upper caste) leader. Hence political parties mainly focused on pleasing those rural elite. And did not care much for SC/ST/OBC

After land reforms (60-70-80s)  Paved the way for the rise of new political forces in the country.  Particularly Superior Tenants / Bullock Capitalists / middle Shudra castes (=Yadav, Jat and Ahir)  Tenancy reforms+Green revolution= gave them money power and freedom to assert themselves politically.  First they became a pressure group, later a political group  No government could afford to ignore their demands for subsidized electricity, fertilizer, irrigation etc.

Thus we can say, 1. 2. 3. 4.

Land reforms helped new classes/castes to gain political power directly/indirectly. The participation of the backward classes deepened Indian democracy. Indian democracy became more inclusive. Political system became more competitive and complex.

#2: Social Justice Before land reforms

after 

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Upper castes owned most of the land In Village. While the lower castes lived as tenants and agriculture labourers. This Landlessness and insecure tenancies forced the majority of the rural population to be dependent on the upper caste=>often lead to exploitation.

  

These laws gave the lower castes the security of tenure over farmland +land ceiling+zamindari abolition+ Panchayati Raj reforms. Result: Influence/domination of upper caste declined in village power structure Thus, Constitution‘s promise of giving justice — social, political and economic, became a reality.

#3: More investment   

In the ryotwari areas of Bombay state (MH+Guj), ~50% of the tenants became landowners- including inferior tenants. Even in former zamindari areas such as West Bengal, nearly half the sharecroppers got occupancy rights under Operation Barga. Now the tenants and sharecroppers who got occupancy rights=> they had the motivation of becoming progressive farmers, use high yielding variety, invest more capital etc.

So far, we learned three ‗major‘ land reforms measures in post independent India 1. Zamindari abolition 2. land ceiling 3. tenure reforms Let‘s check their overall impact: negative+positive.

Land Reforms: Overall Negative Jurisdiction  

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‗Land‘ is a State subject under the Constitution=> different States have evolved differently in the field of land management. The Union can play only a limited role to play in this regard. At most they can frame policy, release funds –but implementation rests in the hands of State Government. Some states have moved quickly by passing necessary legislations, while other states have adopted a slower and piecemeal approach in this regard. Consequently there are considerable variations in the results achieved by different states. Even in the same state- different regions show different rate of progress.

UN report says: ―In India there seems to be great inequality in different states regarding the land reforms.…these land reforms are not implemented in the true spirit.‖

Outdated Land records In Ryotwari areas (Bombay State, Madras State and Assam) 

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Before independence, the government directly collected land revenue from farmer. So, district officials kept up to date land records for purpose of assessment and collection of land Revenue. Village Accountant (VA) had to update the entries every year. The superiors in the hierarchy closely supervised the work of the VA. The records showed who owned the different plots of land in the village, the area and boundaries of each plot, who cultivated it, what crops were grown and how much was payable to the government as land revenue. But after independence, this system fell into disarray.

Permanent settlement areas & Princely states: There was no practice of the annual updating of records. But after independence, state government did not pay attention to land records.  

Gradually In most States, villages and field maps, records of rights and land measurement records have become obsolete. Tenancy reforms can only be implemented if there is proper written records of tenancies and land ownership. This was not always available because most of the time land leased on oral agreement- nothing on paper.

Outdated land records = land disputes, land grabbing, court cases, landowners evade ceilings=> Land reform remains #EPICFAIL

Problem in North East    

The system of land records and land administration are entirely different in the hilly and tribal tracts of north-eastern States. In some of these areas, there was no legislation regarding land and land related matters. Therefore, accurate land records do not exist. Jhuming or shifting cultivation is practiced. There is no record of the area or the boundaries of plots allotted to individuals. (+ the nuisance of illegal Bangladeshi Migrant farmers)

Lack of budgetary $upport 

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Cost of collecting land revenue (paperwork, staff-salary, electricity etc.)= higher than the actual cash received under land revenue. Therefore, many states don‘t even bother collecting land Revenue. Land revenue administration falls under ―non-plan‖ expenditure = doesn‘t get much budgetary allocation.

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As a result, administration suffers because department won‘t hire many officers/employees, won‘t bother building new offices, buying new photocopiers, GPS survey devices, jeeps etc. In many places, Village accountants don‘t have a separate office. Lack of photocopiers, computers= land records not maintained properly. Many Tahsildars didn‘t have telephones* and jeeps. So they were out of touch from day-to-day bribery and mismanagement by patwari @village level. (*we are talking about 50-90s era, when India had more toilets than mobile phones) Result? Land records are outdated => land disputes, land grabbing and frequent litigations in courts. Poor people suffer.

Bureaucratic apathy 

officers live in cities

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bogus training 

Today, many patwaris, village officers, Mandal officers, revenue inspectors etc. have settled in small towns/cities with their families. They sign files from home, run office through phone and rarely visit the villages. They write inquire reports without doing spot inspections in village. Villagers have to visit town to get their problem resolved=costly affair. Land mafia and rich farmers get things done by paying bribes. WB: In West Bengal there are no Village Accountants. The Circle Inspector is the functionary of the Land Administration Department at the lowest level. People have to go to his office for various purposes. Revenue officers are trained better in court procedures than in dispute-resolution in a humane manner. Hence they give more emphasis on form rather than content, on letter rather than spirit. They rely on documents, stamp papers, affidavits but don‘t bother to make field visit, talk with people to find the ground reality.

Today, District officers (namely DM & SDM) mainly focused on

Changed focus

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Conversion of Agri-land into industrial land SEZ/industrialization related matter law and order maintenance How to chow down money from MNREGA, IAY etc. (or prevent it)

Hence, land reform programs=low priority for senior officers @District level. They tend to ignore the Tehsildar/Patwari‘s inefficiency/corruption. Because of above reasons: a villager cannot get problem solved through village/tehsil level officer. He has to approach the court. But

Tarikh pe Tarik

no coordination

1. Majority of revenue courts continue to function in English language, but villagers don‘t know English. 2. Revenue Courts already choked with thousands of cases related to land. Poor litigant cannot afford making trips and hiring lawyers Result? In most cases poor litigant will compromise with the land mafia/rich farmer/exzamindar or just stop pursuing the matter. Many state departments keep their own land-database e.g. Agriculture, drinking water, irrigation, animal husbandry, forest etc. But there is no linkage amongst these different data base.

In short, land reform= low priority for state government. All the new initiatives (Computerization of records, Forest rights Act have come from Union.)

Lack of Votebank (From 50-90s) 

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Target audience for land reforms= tenants, landless agricultural labourers, SC/ST. But they were largely unorganized (Except WB and Kerala). They were unable to bring required pressure on the government for speedy implementation of the land reforms. For political workers at grassroots are indifferent to land reforms because it was easy to sway the ignorant voters on desired political line according to religion and caste. The Ignorance, poverty, illiteracy and inegalitarian system has favoured such petty politics. Therefore land reform was more of a rhetoric rather than real agenda of governments.

Powerless Panchyat   

Panchayats don‘t have sufficient revenue sources of their own. Money flow: Centrally sponsored schemes (named after you know who)=>DRDA+Line deparments @State government=>Panchayat. Result? Panchayats are too weak to do anything about land reforms. + The proxy influence of rural elites stonewall any land reform initiatives.

Lack of Civil Society/NGO action In the noteworthy movements by civil society/NGO for land reforms= Bhoodan/Gramdan, land satyagraha etc. But all these things happened before 90s. Today civil society/NGOs very vocal about transparency, anti-corruption, anti-rape laws, nuclear projects, mining rights etc. but land reforms hardly get any attention. Why? 1. It is easy to get national-international awards/funding, media-recognition, political attention in these new topics. 2. Just like ―secularism‖, the ―land distribution‖ also has lost its original meaning. So, if an NGO talks too much about land redistribution- he might be labelled as naxalsympethizer. 3. In land reform sector: (1) computerization of land records=done by district administration and (2) for forest rights act=>done through gram Sabha. So Jholachhap NGOs don‘t see opportunities for getting government projects/funds to mint ca$h, unlike in the schemes for under HIV/child-labour/education/SHG type activities.

The Naxal Angle: The present Left wing extremism (LWE) has roots at two places:

West Bengal (1967) @Naxalbari Andhra (1949) @Telengana and @Srikakulam.

At that time, main cause of these movement = exploitation by zamindar/landlords/forest contractors. But In the heydays of naxal movement, focus of the state governments shifted from agrarian/land reforms to law and order preservation. As a result: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Many villagers remained landless. Rise of upper caste militia/private armies like Ranvir Sena, Kunwar Sena etc. Within village, Lack of growth in non-agricultural sector. Tribal land alienation by mining mafia.

All these factors further helped the Maoists to recruit more cadres from villages. District officials don‘t goto Maoist affected areas, look @all villagers with suspicion etc.etc.etc. Ultimately, land reform cannot be carried out. Thus, Left wing extremism (LWE) and Lack of Land Reform (LLR) have formed a vicious cycle.

Appu Task Force on Agrarian Relations set up by the Planning Commission headed by P. S. Appu. (1972 )Made following observations 1. Lack of political will=no tangible progress 2. The decentralization of power to the rural sector was seen by the politicians as a threat to their national prominence. 3. The erstwhile superior tenants belonging mostly to the upper and middle castes have benefittd. 4. (but) A majority of the agricultural laborers =politically unorganized=could not benefit from the land reform measures. 5. Land reform Acts were poorly drafting= many loopholes and litigations. 6. Land records were outdated, most states didnot bother updating. 7. Five year plans only gave lip service for land reforms but didn‘t allot significant funds. 8. Land reform has practically disappeared from the agenda of most political parties. but This is an inevitable consequence of the far reaching changes that have taken place in social and economic fields;

Land reforms: Overall Positive 1. abolished exploitative the land tenure systems prevalent in agrarian society 2. Distributed the surplus land among the landless and the weaker sections of the society. 3. Provided security of tenure i.e. the tenants are assured that they can cultivate the land for long time period. 4. In some cases tenants even given ownership rights.

5. fixed rent in the range of 25-33% 6. Without use of violence. 7. The cumulative effect of abolition of zamindari, tenancy legislation and ceiling legislation= motivated the cultivators to invest and improve agricultural practices. 8. Even though these land reforms were met with limited success, they made a significant positive impact on poverty removal. 9. Land reforms+ Sanskritization + democratization + Panchayati Raj= lower castes have become more organized and assertive about their rights. 10. In areas where land reform has not been implemented, the inequalities have persisted, caste oppression is most acute and have generally experienced low socioeconomic development. (In other words where Land reforms were properly implemented- inequality is less, caste oppression is less and socio-economic Development is better). 11. Historically unique effort at transformation of agrarian relations within a democratic framework. 12. Brought fundamental changes in the agrarian economy, rural social structure, and rural power structure. Moved India society towards the egalitarian society. 13. Increased democratization of Indian polity and reduction in influence of the dominant sections of the society. Counter-argument: Impact was not so significant like China/USSR. To sum up, Land reforms are a major instruments of social transformation in a backward economy based on feudal and semi-feudal productive relationships. But in India, they met with limited success mainly because of the political and bureaucratic apathy.

Mock Questions 12/15 marks 1. Analyze the role of tenancy reform laws as a measure of land reforms. 2. Write a note on the measures taken by states to provide security of tenure to farmers. 3. Land reforms in early decades after independence, have failed to bring gender equity in rural power structure. Elaborate. 4. Critically examine the Green revolution as a reason for non-inclusive growth in rural India. 5. The blame for partial success of land reforms squarely falls on the local bureaucracy. Comment. 6. Only the upper stratum of the peasants have benefited from the land reforms. For the Landless, land reform remains an ‗unfinished business‘. 7. Evaluate the impact of Land reforms measures by the state governments in the early decades after independence. 8. Discuss, in brief, the contributions of land reforms in rural development. 9. Critically examine the impact of land reforms on Indian economy and society. 10. Critically examine the impact of social, economic and political power structure on land reforms in rural India.

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] Bhoodan, Gramdan, Jan Satyagraha 2012 & other Non Governmental Movements: Achievements, obstacles, limitations @All:Happy New Year, resolve to study hard, revise harder, crack the exams and get your dream jobs. 1. Prologue 2. Bhoodan Movement (Donation of Land) 1. Bhoodan: Mechanism/procedure/features 2. Bhoodan: Positive 3. Bhoodan: Obstacles, Limitations, Problems 3. Gramdan (Donation of the Entire Village) 1. Gramdan: Concept/Principles 2. Gramdan Mechanism 3. Gramdan: Benefits 4. Pardi Satyagraha, Gujarat, 50s 5. Great Land Struggle, 1970s 6. Land for Tillers Freedom (LAFTI), Tamil Nadu, 80s 7. Land Satyagraha, Chattisgarh, late 80s 8. Bhu-Adhikar Abhiyan, MP, 1996 9. Janadesh, 2007 10. Jan Satyagraha 2012 1. #1: General Demands 2. #2: PESA related Demands: 3. #3: Forest Rights Act (FRA) related Demands 4. Outcome of Jan Satyagraha 2012? 11. Mock Questions

Prologue 

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So far we‘ve seen: British Tenure system, peasant revolts and three main land reforms after independence viz. (1) Zamindari Abolition (2) Land ceiling (3) Tenancy protection Acts. In this article, we‘ll check some people‘s/NGO/Civil society movements for land reforms in India. Their achievements/limitations. by the Naxalbari related matter ignored here. You‘ll find neat coverage ot it under September competition under internal security folder click me In the next article we‘ll come back to government actions: cooperative farming, consolidation of land holdings and computerization of records.

@Mains 2013 Players: If running out of time and find this article too lengthy then just read Bhoodan+Gramdan+directly Jan Satyagraha 2012 and skip the topics in between.

Bhoodan Movement (Donation of Land) First Bhoodan in village Pochampalli, Nalgonda District, Andhra (the hotbed of Telengana movement)By local Zamindar V. Ramchandra Reddy to Vinoba Bhave. 1953 Jayaprakash Narayan withdrew from active politics to join the Bhoodan movement 1951

Bhoodan movement had two components: 1. Collect land as gift from zamindars and rich farmers. 2. Redistribute that gifted/donated land among the landless farmers.

Bhoodan: Mechanism/procedure/features 1. (Hierarchy) Vinoba: Sarvodaya Samaj=> Pradesh Bhoodan Committees in each region=> local committees and individual social workers @grassroot. 2. He and his followers were to do padayatra (walk on foot from village to village). Persuade the larger landowners to donate at least one-sixth of their lands. 3. Target= 50 million acres. (~1/6 of total cultivable land in India) 4. When a Zamindar/rich farmer gifts/donates a land, the Bhoodan worker would prepare a deed.

5. These Deeds forwarded to Vinoba Bhave @Sevagram for signature. 6. Bhoodan Worker took help of Gram Panchayat, PAtwari (village accountant) to survey the beneficiaries and land fertility. 7. First preference given to landless agricultural laborers, then to farmers with insufficient land. 8. A date was fixed, entire village gathered and the beneficiary family was given land. 9. Those who receive the donation are asked to sign a printed application requesting for land, after which they are presented with certificates of having received land. 10. No fees charged from the beneficiary. 11. Beneficiary was expected to cultivate the land for atleast 10 years. He should start within three years of the receipt of land. 12. These Rules/procedures were relaxed by taking local conditions, cultures in account. Many state governments made legislation to facilitate donation and distribution of Bhoodan land. Example: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, U.P., Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. Subsequently, the movement was widened into Gramdan. States again passed special legislation for management of Gramdan villages.

Bhoodan: Positive      

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In the initial years the movement achieved a considerable degree of success, especially in North India- UP, Bihar. By 1956: receiving over 4 million acres of land as donation. By 1957: ~4.5 million acres. The movement was popularised in the belief that land is a gift of nature and it belonged to all. The donors of land are not given any compensation. This movement helped to reduce the gap in haves and have-nots in rural areas. This movement was un-official. The landlords were under no compulsion to donate their land, it was a voluntary movement. One of the very few attempts after independence to bring about land reform through a movement Promoted the Gandhian the idea of trusteeship or that all land belonged to God. Communist leader E.M.S. Namboodiripad o the Bhoodan and Gramdan movement stimulated political and other activity by the peasant masses o has created a favourable atmosphere for political propaganda and agitation o for redistribution of the land o for abolition of private ownership of land o for the development of agricultural producers‘ cooperatives.

Bhoodan: Obstacles, Limitations, Problems Slow progress

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After ‘56 movement lost its momentum. While nearly 4.5 million acres of Bhoodan land was available- barely 6.5 lakh

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Bribes Greed Donating bogus land

Disputed land

village leaders, or allotting authorities, demanded money from the poor for recommending their names for allotment. As a result, many underserving villagers also got land e.g those already having land/ those involved in trade-commerce. Bhoodan movement created land hunger among landless.Some of them applied multiple times in the name of wives, children etc. to get more and more free land. big landlords donated those land which were unfit for cultivation (or under court litigation). Such donations served no real purpose.  Sometimes Bhoodan workers would even accept disputed land as gift. Without verification.  Later the Matter would be stuck in court litigations and beneficiary would get nothing. 

Politicization

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Bribes

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Support

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bureaucratic apathy

Fragmentation

Marxist Criticism

Missed the bigger picture

acres was actually distributed among 200,000 families (1957) In some cases the donors took back their land from the Bhoodan workers for certain reasons. This created doubts in the minds of some people about the continuity of the movement.

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In the later phase, Bhoodan workers got associated with one or another political parties. Some of them tried to ‗use‘ the Bhoodan organization as a means to gain political clout and dividends at the time of election. Thus as the years passed, Bhoodan workers lost credibility and respect among villagers=>land gifts declined. Since Bhoodan workers became political agents, Some landlords / Ex-Zamindars donated land as ‗bribe‘ to Bhoodan workers- with hope of getting favourable returns e.g. ticket in local election, road-contracts, building contracts etc. And if they (landlords) were not given such favours- they‘d forcibly take back the Bhoodan land from the beneficiary later on. Mere allotment of land=insufficient. Because landless farmer also needed seeds, fertilizer, irrigation etc. Often the beneficiary couldn‘t arrange loans for these inputs. District officials were slow and inefficient in finishing the formalities of Bhoodan land transfers. donated land remained idle for a number of years and the revenue for it had to be paid by the donor.

1. The average size of land given to beneficiary=0.5 to 3 acres. 2. Result: land fragmentation + diseconomies of scale + ‗disguised unemployment‘ without any noticeable rise in agro-production. 3. Bhoodan‘s main purpose was to ‗serve as a brake on the revolutionary struggle of the peasants‘ 4. Thus idea of Bhoodan= reactionary, class collaborationist. 5. Bhoodan based on Gandhian idea of trusteeship. Some Socialists wanted this movement to realize the potential of trusteeship and launch mass civil disobedience against injustice. 6. The Sarvodaya Samaj, however, on the whole failed to make this transition: to build an active large-scale mass movement that would generate irresistible pressure for social transformation in large parts of the country.

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All these loopholes, slowly and steadily, made the movement dysfunctional. 1999: Bihar government dissolved the State Bhoodan Committee for its inability to distribute even half the Bhoodan land available over the past thirty-eight years. Thus, Vinoba‘s lofty ideal remained more as a philosophy and was never realized fully.

Gramdan (Donation of the Entire Village) First Gramdan 1952: by the village of Mongroth in U.P.1955: Orissa, Koratpur district.

At a later phase, this progamme was extended to other states in Bihar, Maharashtra, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Gramdan: Concept/Principles 1. Gramdan may be defined as an experiment in collective village living. 2. Original idea comes from Gandhi‘s reply to Jamnalal Bajaj: “it is far better for a hundred families in a village to cultivate their land collectively and divide the income therefrom than to divide the land any how into a hundred portions”. 3. Vinoba Bhave popularized ^this concept of Gandhi.

Gramdan Mechanism The villagers have to sign a declaration saying, ―We are vesting the ownership of all our land to the ―Gram Sabha‖ of the village. 1. This Gram Sabha/ Village council will unanimously nominate ten to fifteen persons who will form an executive Committee. 2. This executive Committee will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the village. 3. The decisions of the Committee will be ratified by the Council. In other words, Gramdan=A Gram Sabha like institution collectively owned and managed entire land/farms of the villagers.

Gramdan: Benefits 1. In an ideal gramdan village, there will be no landowners, and no absentee landlords. 2. The labourers will give all their earnings to the village community, which will then distribute it according to needs. 3. Thus, gramdan acts as the ideal unit for putting the principles in the practice, ―From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs‖. By 1960 Approx.Gramdan Villages Orissa 1900+ MH 600

Kerala Andhra Madras

550 480+ 250

Gramdan movement was considered superior to the Bhoodan movement because: BHOODAN land fragmentation, inefficient cultivation, distribution of poverty, decline in marketable surplus , donation of uncultivable land, legal and other difficulties of redistribution, etc. Nope Benefits only the person who gets the land

Nope

GRAMDAN Nope Economies of scale Sarvodaya of entire village. Everyone benefits.  possible to correlate with economic planning in the country.  2nd FYP recognized that Gramdan village have great significance for cooperative village development.

Limitation of Gramdan? Gramdan was successful mainly in villages where class differentiation had not yet emerged and there was little if any disparity in ownership of land or other property. E.g. Tribal villages. But didn‘t find cooperation from other villages in the plains or villages near urban centers.

Pardi Satyagraha, Gujarat, 50s 1. Socialist workers: Iswarbhai Desai, Ashok Mehta. 2. Kisan Panchayat: a non-political body with no affiliation to any political party. 3. Tribals from Pardi and Dharmpur Taluka

WHO

WHEN 1953-1967

Why? 1. 75% of the agro land was owned by 100 big landlords. 2. These landlords were not interested in farming. They kept the land as such- so grass automatically grew and sold profitably in Bombay fodder trade. 3. Local tribals would get labour work in such ‗fodder-farms‘ for only 1-2 months during harvesting. They remained jobless and starving for remaining months. While the landlords made decent profit with almost none investment or efforts. OBJECTIVES/FEATURES/ACTION:   

Redistribution of land was not on their agenda. (Themselves declared it) Satyagrahi would enter in the private land and start tilling to grow foodcrops and court arrest. Tribals to boycott grass cutting work. even outside labour would not be allowed do the work. Picketing. As a result, the grass dried up at many places.

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With time, movement found support from public and political parties Bhoodan and Gramdan movements also started but failed thanks to poor response from landlords.

Result? Almost #EPICFAIL because: 1. 1960, Gujarat created out of Bombay state. New state government made some promises=>Iswarbhai and other Satyagrahi joined the Congress party. Hence momentum/pressure was lost. 2. 1965: War between India Pakistan. The CM (Balwant Rai Mehta) died in plane crash. New CM (Hitendra Desai) did not show much interest in fulfilling promises made by previous CM. 3. Landlords went to Gujarat Highcourt court. Although HC rejected their plea, but state government did not show any urgency to implement the agreements. 4. 1966: Ishwarbhai Desai decide to quit congress and launch a new Satyagraha, but he died. And others were unable to provide effective leadership/direction to the movement. 5. 1967: A new agreement between the government, the landlords and the Satyagrahis. But the implementation carried out at a snail‘s pace.

Great Land Struggle, 1970s WHEN 1970s  

WHO?

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Bhartiya Khet Mazdoor Union, All India Kisan Sabha and Communist Party of India Nearly 15 lakh agricultural workers, poor peasants, the tribals, workers and the poor from the towns Trade unions and students, the youth and the women‘s organizations came forward and directly participated in the struggle.

militant mass movement to highlight the fact that land is concentrated in the hands of a few landlords, former princess, WHY? zamindars and monopolists and to alert public attention to the urgent need for radical agrarian reforms. TYPE

OBJECTIVES/ACTIONS 1. Occupy the government lands, forest lands, the land belonging to landlords, monopolist, black marketeers. 2. Start cultivating on ^above land 3. Landless fight for full ownership of land 4. Tenants fight to reduce rent 5. Tribals fight for tribal land grabbed by forest contractors and moneylenders from the plains. 6. Urban poors fight for vacant land for housing 7. Everyone fight to get radical amendments to the present ceiling laws and distribution of surplus land. TWO PHASES:

PHASE JULY, 1970 AUGUST, 1970

What Occupying government land and forest land Occupying huge farms of landlords, former princes, Monopolists like Birlas etc.

Who? all the states, except Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Manipur and J & K, all states, except Assam (due to heavy flood) and Kerala (due to Mid-term election) participated.

Overall, More than 2 lakh acres of land was occupied, more than lakhs of people arrested. OUTCOMES 1. While Bhoodan movement silently faded away from public memory and political arena silently, but the great land Satyagraha, created ripples in the public mind and ruling party. 2. Before the land struggle, the Union and the state governments never felt the urgency of solving the land problem. But now, Every state government came out with figures & plans to distribute wasteland among the poor. 3. For the first time, land distribution started in actual practice, and some landless people got Pattas of land. 4. Birlas were exposed as the biggest land grabber of India. Their farms in Uttaranchal and Punjab were distributed to farm labourers. 5. Government appointed Central Land Reform Committee to address agrarian inequalities in the country.

Land for Tillers Freedom (LAFTI), Tamil Nadu, 80s LAFTI was founded by Krishnammal and her husband Jagannathan in 1981. Features/Actions by LAFTI 1. Earlier we saw how rich farmers in Tamilnadu transfereed their land to fake trusts/charitable organizations/ schools, hospitals and dharrnashalas to avoid land ceiling. 2. LAFTI organized people against such illegal holdings and pleaded government to takeover such land and redistribute it among the landless poor. 3. Highlighted the loopholes in the land related acts. LAFTI petitioned the President of India about the weaknesses in the Benami transection ordinance and how landlords evaded ceilings. 4. Negotiated with banks and landlords for a reasonable price for the purchase of land. And then redistributed it among landless. 5. Generally, the nationalized bank charged a high rate of interest (14%) for offering loan for the land transfer projects. LAFTI appealed to the government of India to reduce interest rate to 4%. 6. Requested government to waive stamp-duty and registration fees for transferring land to landless.

7. Started its own banking scheme, titled ―LAFTI Land Bank‖, by involving 10000 landless families. These 10000 people deposited. Re. 1 per day or Rs. 10 per week or Rs. 500 per year for five years. 8. With this money and help from the government in the form of exemption of stamp duties and registration fees, LAFTI planned to transfer 500 acres of land per year to the landless families.

Land Satyagraha, Chattisgarh, late 80s CAUSES/REASONS: 1. Land ceiling act were not implemented because nexus between the land mafia, landlords, bureaucrats, politicians. 2. Under government‘s land distribution schemes- the landless were provided with Pattas (land ownership document) but landmafias / rich farmers / forest contractors did not allow them to physically occupy the land. 3. State Government made it mandatory for all the landlords to give back tribal land to the tribals. But these landlords would appeal in higher courts and matter kept pending for years. 4. The tribals lacked the money and means to fight such legal battles. State government didn‘t come to their help. 5. Most of the landless were SC/ST. They were forcibly pushed out of their ancestral land, working as bonded labour because of indebtedness to the rich landlords or village traders. 6. By 1980‘s, there were 4000 bonded labourers in Raipur district alone. PROGRESS/RESULT: 

1988: Land Satyagraha launched in Raipur district. Spearheaded by bonded labours

Slogan Zamin Ka Faisla, Zamin Par Hoga (All land issues will be settled on the land itself).

Zamin Do Ya Jail Do‖ (give us land or imprisonment). Chakka-Jam ―Jaun Khet man nagar Chalahi, wohi khet ke malik ho‖ (land to the tiller)

Action  

Staging dharnas (sit-ins), hunger strikes on the disputed land. All the concerned officials, including from police to Patwari, Tehsildar to magistrate should come the disputed land and settle the matter.

  

Peasants would court arrest and go to jail in a peaceful manner. 1993: thousands of villages courted arrest Finally government officials refused to arrest people as there was no room left in Jails.

Blocking traffic on the mains roads.  directly plough the fields with or without government intervention.  At almost all the places, the poor, landless, and small farmers went in large numbers with their ploughs and bullocks, to register their claim over the ancestral land.  At some places people were able to register their control over the land, whereas in other places the official, in connivance with the

landlords and the powerful politician, forcibly dispossessed the people from the land.

The land Satyagraha initiated a new dimension, a new movement, among the people to take control over their resources.

Bhu-Adhikar Abhiyan, MP, 1996 Ekta Parishad is an NGO from Madhya Pradesh (1984). On principles of ―Samvad, Sangharsh, Rachna‖ (dialogue, struggle and construction). They conducted survey in MP and found two main problems faced by SC/ST: 1. Land belonging to Scheduled tribe was illegally sold to outsiders thanks to land mafia, forest contractors and corrupt bureaucrats. 2. Non Occupant Patta Holder leased their land poor farmers (occupant cultivators) and exploited them via high rent and random eviction. Ekta Parishad has launched a people‘s movement with the following objectives. 3. Give Patta (land ownership document) to occupant cultivators. 4. To oppose the policy of inviting tenders from private companies, instead of giving land to the landless. 5. To enforce joint ownership of husband and wife on the property. (recall the lack of gender equity in land ownership) 6. Scrap the afforestation programmes funded by the World Bank. Because the money was misused. 7. To resolve the problems of settlement of revenue land. Result? Government appointed a Committee but it was meaningless eyewash.

Janadesh, 2007  

By Ekta Parishad and sister organization / civil society / NGOs ~25000 landless tillers, labourers, Dalits and tribals, who have been deprived of their land rights, marched from Gwalior to Delhi to assert the land rights of the poor.

Demands? 1. 2. 3. 4.

Enact national land rights act. setup national land authority. setup land reforms council fast track courts for land reforms

Result? These demands were met at least half-way by the government, but implementation and follow-up was poor.

Jan Satyagraha 2012 About Ekta Parishad (NGO) so far we‘ve seen: 

Ekta Parishad had been working for Land reforms in MP since the 80s.=>State government setup committee just for eyewash.



They organized Jansandesh. Government agreed but implementation was poor.



they consulted with many other NGOs/organizations to form a broader alliance for land rights. trained community leaders and activists from the weaker sections to run the next peaceful movement

80s 2007

200810





started ‗Jan Satyagraha Samvad Yatra‘ over 24 states to hold public meetings and dialogues with people.



Ekta Parishad founder P.V. Rajagopal started Jan Satyagraha Yatra (foot march) from Gwalior on 1st October 2012. Their plan was to reach Delhi with 1 lakh people by 28th October 2012. But Jairam (rural ministry that time), agreed with their demands and hence Yatra stopped @Agra.

2011

2012

 

Jan Satyagraha 2012 demanded following:

#1: General Demands 1. Bhoodaan Land= do physical verification again and take back land from encroachers/ineligible persons. 2. Womens Land Rights: To ensure that land owned by a family is recoded either in the name of a woman or jointly in the name of the man and the woman. 3. Revisit land ceiling laws- implement them effectively. 4. Identify of lands encroached by ineligible persons and restore it back to original owner. 5. Identify tribal lands alienated to the non-tribals and restore it back. 6. Use MNREGA etc. schemes to doing irrigation projects, land development, wasteland restoration etc. activities. 7. If government acquired land for industrial projects but it was untilized=>give it back to poors. 8. Written Records of tenancy to help tenant farmers get bank loans. 9. Protect/provide burial grounds and pathway to burial grounds, especially to the most vulnerable communities in the villages; 10. Land record management in most transparent manner 11. Statutory State Land Rights Commissions to monitor the progress of land reform.

12. State governments need to run campaigns to give land to Nomads and settle them permanently. 13. Protect the land rights of following vulnerable groups       

Tribal Groups Single Women HIV Affected People Siddhis (Gujarat & Karnatka) Fisherfolks Slum inhabitants Hawkers

      

Leprosy affected people Physically /Mentally Challenged People Tea Tribes Salt/Mine/Bidi Workers Pastoral communities Bonded Labourers Internally Displaced People (due to infra.projects)

#2: PESA related Demands: 1. Harmonize state revenue laws with PESA 1996, to give gram sabha the power over land matters. 2. For any sale/mortgage of land in the village- Gram Sabha must be notified in writing. 3. For any changes in land records, Gram Sabha must be notified in writing. 4. authorize Gram Sabha to call for relevant revenue records, 5. conduct a hearing and direct the SDMs to conduct hearings and restore illegally occupied land 6. Expand the list of Schedule V villages to include more eligible villages under PESA 7. Enforce in letter and spirit, the ‗Samata Judgment‘ in all acquisition of tribal land for private companies 8. Governments need to make amendments in State laws that are in conflict with PESA within a period of one year.

#3: Forest Rights Act (FRA) related Demands 1. bank loan facilities for land grander under FRA 2. Give land rights to tribals who were earlier displaced due to National Parks and Wild life Sanctuaries 3. Settlement of Forest Rights before land acquisition related projects are started. 4. The primitive tribal groups don‘t have any documents/evidences to prove their occupation of land/residence. So they must be exempted from furnishing of evidence of residence as required under Forest Rights Act. 5. ‗Orange Areas‘ in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where large extent of land is under dispute between Revenue Department and the Forest Department =>settle this matter immediately.

Outcome of Jan Satyagraha 2012? Jan Satyagraha leaders agreed to discontinue their march, after Rural ministry agreed to setup Task Force on Land Reforms to implement the following agenda:

Agenda National land reform policy

laws

rights Tribunals PESA FRA Survey

Union government agreed that: Land reform is state subject but we will come up with a national land reform policywith inputs from state governments, civil society and public. like MNREGA and Forest rights act, we‘ll come up with new laws for 1. giving land to poors in backward districts 2. guarantee 10 cents of homestead to every landless poor household in entire India. we‘ll advice state governments to implement their existing laws to protect the land rights of SC/ST. we‘ll work with States to run Fast Track Land Tribunals/Courts for speedy disposal of land dispute related cases particularly involving SC/ST. Rural ministry with work with Tribal ministry and Panchayati raj ministry + state governments for implementation of PESA 1996. (but then why were you sleeping all these years?) Tribal ministry has issued revised rules for Forest rights Act 2006. We‘ll ask States to implement them quickly. we‘ll ask states to setup joint teams of forest+Revenue officials to do the survey of the forest and revenue boundaries to resolve disputes

Mock Questions 12/15m 1. Critically examine the philosophy, the concept and the working of Bhoodan and Gramdan movements in India. 2. It is far better for a hundred families in a village to cultivate their land collectively and divide the income therefrom than to divide the land any how into a hundred portions. Comment.

3. Write a note on the Lacunae in Bhoodan and Gramdan Movements. 4. Bhoodan was an experiment in Gandhian idea of trusteeship. Comment. 5. Evaluate the impact of Bhoodan and Gramdan movements as measures of land reforms. In what way Gramdan was superior to Bhoodan movement? 6. Discuss the significant movements initiated by people for land reforms in India after independence. 7. critically evaluate non-governmental initiatives in the area of land reform 8. Explain the four significant outcomes of the great land struggle 9. Write a note on the demands and outcomes of Jan Satyagraha 2012.

- Mrunal - http://mrunal.org -

[Land Reforms] Consolidation of Land Holdings, Cooperative Farming, Computerization of Land records: features, benefits, limitations 1. Prologue 2. Topic#1: Consolidation of Land Holdings 1. What is Consolidation of Land holdings? 2. Why do we need Consolidation of Land holdings? 3. What are the methods of Land consolidation? 1. #1: Voluntary Consolidation 2. #2: Compulsory Consolidation 4. (+ve) Land Consolidation: Benefits, Advantages, Positive points 5. (-ve) Land consolidation: Difficulties, Obstacles, Negative points 3. Topic#2: Cooperative Farming 1. What is cooperative Farming? 2. Why Cooperative farming? 3. India towards Cooperative Farming 4. Cooperative Farming vs Five Year Plans 5. Cooperative Farming: Limitations/Epicfail 1. Miscalculations and false hopes 2. Bogus farms and apathetic bureaucrats 3. Free riders 4. Topic#3: Computerization of Land Records 1. National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) 2. Funding pattern of NLRMP 3. Benefits/Potential of NLRMP 5. Mock Question

Prologue so far in the [Land reform] series, we‘ve seen following: 1. 2. 3. 4.

British Land tenure System Peasant Struggles for Land reforms during British Raj Role of Indian Congress in Land reforms during the British Raj Land Reform Tool#1: Abolition of Zamindari, Reasons, Impact, Obstacles, Limitations, First Amendment 5. Land Reform Tool#2: Ceiling on landholdings 6. Land Reform Tool#3: Tenancy Reform reform acts 7. Bhoodan, Gramdan, Jan Satyagraha 2012 & other movements for landreforms

In this article, we see three topics related to [Land reforms] 1. Cooperative farming 2. Consolidation of land holdings 3. Computerization of Land records. In the next article, we‘ll see forest rights act, draft national policy and few other misc topics. That‘ll be (most likely) the last article under [Land reform] series.

Topic#1: Consolidation of Land Holdings What is Consolidation of Land holdings? 1. Converting many small and fragmented holdings into one big farm. 2. Process by which farmers are convinced to get, one or two compact farms in place of their fragmented farms. 3. Process in which farmers‘ fragmented land holdings are pooled and then re-allotted them in a way that each gets a single farm of having same total size and fertility like his previous fragmented landholdings. 1750s: Denmark was the first country to start land consolidation.

Why do we need Consolidation of Land holdings? 1. Farms in India are not only small in size but also lie scattered. 2. Scattered farms=lot of time, energy and money wasted in moving men and material from one farm to another= sub-optimal use of resources. 3. Hence land consolidation = essential for progressive farming/ capitalist methods / mechanization of agriculture.

What are the methods of Land consolidation? #1: Voluntary Consolidation  

If the farmers themselves agree to voluntarily consolidate their land holdings. started in Punjab, in 1921

Positive negative  done by local co-operative societies.  very slow.  does not lead to any dispute  Zamindars usually create hurdles in its progress.  no pressure/coercion exerted on  Sometimes a few obstinate (Stubborn) farmers oppose anybody. the scheme.

Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and W.Bengal have passed laws for voluntary consolidation.

#2: Compulsory Consolidation When consolidation is made compulsory by law, it is called compulsory consolidation. Again two subtypes: Partial compulsory consolidation Complete Compulsion  If a majority of farmers in a village agree to get their  In this case, state government make holdings consolidated, then the rest of the farmers too law to compulsory land consolidation will have to get their fragmented holdings (irrespective of how many farmers consolidated. actually want it)  1923: MP passed first act.  1947: Bombay state (now  1936: Punjab passed act. according to this act: IF Maharashtra) was the first state to 66% of the farmers owning 75% of the village land, enact compulsory

agreed for land consolidation, then remaining farmers will have to compulsory agree.

 

1948: Punjab also passed similar act. Now many states have passed laws to this effect.

(2004 data) overall, more than 1500 lakh hectares land has been consolidated so far. High performer states: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh. Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Slow progress elsewhere.

(+ve) Land Consolidation: Benefits, Advantages, Positive points 1. Scientific methods of cultivation, better irrigation, mechanization = possible on consolidated holdings = reduces cost of production + increases income. 2. Saves farmer‘s time, energy and money in moving from one farm to the other. 3. Farmer feels encouraged to spend money on the improvement of his land. 4. No land is wasted in making boundaries between tiny farms. 5. Surplus land after consolidation can be used for construction of gardens, school, Panchayat Ghar, roads, play grounds and desi liquor dens for the benefit of entire village.

(-ve) Land consolidation: Difficulties, Obstacles, Negative points 1. Indian farmer has orthodox mindset. He does not want to part with the land of his ancestors, even if it the principles of modern agri.science/business management advocate land consolidation. 2. Rich farmers own large tracts of fertile land. They oppose consolidation fearing some other farmer will get part of their fertilize land. (And typical frog mindset: if I cannot climb out of well, no problem, but I‟ll not let any other frog to climb out of well either.) 3. In many areas, farming done on oral agreements, there are no paper records. 4. Land quality/Price within tehsil will vary depending on irrigation and fertility. So, one farmer will have to pay money (or receive money) depending on land quality, while they exchange their land with each other. 5. But this price determination is difficult because of lack of land surveys, agri.surveys and inefficient/corrupt revenue officials. 6. Revenue official @village / Tehsil level are inefficient and not trained in this type of technical work. 7. Recall Ashok Khemka (the IAS officer who exposed Raabert Vadra/DLF scam.) Earlier, Ashok Khemka was Director General Consolidation of Land holdings in Haryana. He exposed how land consolidation related provision were misused in Faridabad district of Haryaya. modus operandi was following: a. the real estate mafias/dalal type elements would first buy small patches of unfertile land scattered in Aravalli hills (using xyz farmers under benami transection.) b. then they would bribe local tehsildar, patwari to get fragment farms exchanged for consolidated big farms near the foothills where national/state highways are to be constructed in future=>can be sold at extremely high prices after 5-10-15 years=truckload of profit with minimum effort. Thus original purpose of land consolidation (to increase agro. productivity) is defeated. Anyways, enough of land consolidation, let‘s move to the second topic:

Topic#2: Cooperative Farming What is cooperative Farming?

Cooperative farming refers to an organisation in which: 1. 2. 3. 4.

each member-farmer remains the owner of his land individually. But farming is done jointly. Profit is distributed among the member-farmers in the ratio of land owned by them. Wages distributed among the member-farmers according to number of days they worked.

In other words, Cooperative farming= pooling of land and practicing joint agriculture. Cooperative farming is not a new concept in India. Since ancient times, Indian farmers have been giving mutual aid to each other in weeding, harvesting etc. Examples Traditional Cooperative Farming System Region Kolhapur Phad Andhra Gallashi

Why Cooperative farming? Because it gives following benefits/advantages/potential: 1. Economies of scale: a. As the size of farm increases, the per hectare cost of using tube-well, tractor comes down. b. Small farms=some land is wasted in forming the ‗boundaries‘ among them. When they‘re combined into a big cooperative farm, we can also cultivate on that boundary land. c. overall, Large farms are economically more beneficial than small farms. 2. Solves the problem of sub-division and fragmentation of holdings. 3. Cooperative farm has more men-material-money resources to increase irrigation potential and land productivity. Members would not have been able to do it individually on their small farm. 4. Case studies generally point out that with cooperative farming, per acre production increases.

India towards Cooperative Farming 

Gandhi, Nehru, Socialists and Communists agreed that cooperative farming will improve Indian agriculture and benefit the poor.

 

Cooperative farming is the only way to combat sub-marginal cultivation. Government should compel small/marginal farmers to undertake cooperative farming.

before independence

Bombay Plan‘44

Cooperative Planning Committee‘45

1. large scale cultivation is the only solution to increase agro-production permanently. 2. Suggested four types of cooperative farming societies viz. a. better farming b. tenant farming c. joint farming d. Collective farming society. headed by Nehru. Recommended that:

Economic Program committee‘47

1. All middlemen should be replaced by non-profit making agencies, such as cooperatives.

2. Pilot schemes for cooperative farming among small land holders in India. 3. We‘ll promote cooperative farming through persuasion, goodwill and agreement of the peasantry. 4. We‘ll not use any legal or administrative force/compulsion/coercion to make small farmers start cooperative farming. headed by Kumarappa recommended that:  

Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee‘49

 

Empower the state governments to enforce cooperative farming among peasants with uneconomic land holdings/extremely small farms. Use intelligent propaganda/awareness campaigns to promote cooperative farming. Give state aid/ subsidies to cooperative farms. Specially trained cadre/officials to train and motivate farmers in cooperative farming.

So, this is the first time, someone suggested the State to use ―Compulsion‖ to promote cooperatives.

Cooperative Farming vs Five Year Plans First Five Year Plan (1951-56)     

Apart from Cooperative farming, it also recommended ‗Cooperative Village Management‘ as a more comprehensive solution for rural development. Encourage small and middle farmers to form cooperative farming societies If majority of farmers agreed to start cooperative farming, then decision will be binding on the entire village. But did not talk about giving enforcement powers to States. Result? ~2000 cooperative farming societies formed during the First Plan period.

Second Five Year Plan (1956-61)    

1956: Indian delegations sent to China to study their cooperative farming. Recommended this system in to increase food grain production. Develop cooperative farming as soon as possible. Target: Setup atleast one cooperative farm in every National Extension Block, or about 5000 for the whole country. Hoped to convert substantial proportion of Indian farms into cooperative farming by a period of ten years.

Nagpur resolution of Congress, 1959 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Cooperative farming will be the the future agrarian pattern of India. farmers will continue to retain their property rights but their land will be pooled for joint cultivation. Farmers will get a share in the profit, in proportion to their land. Further, those who actually work on the land, will get wages, in proportion of their workcontribution (irrespective of whether they own the land or not.) = in other words, cooperative farming will give employment to landless labourers also. In a way, this was a solution to the

#epicfail of land ceiling (because so far governments could not takeover the surplus land from big farmers and redistribute it among landless laborers). 6. Start cooperatives related to agro-credit, marketing, seeds-fertilizer etc. Finish this stage within 3 years. Then focus entirely on cooperative farming.

Epicfail of Nagpur resolution After Nagpur resolution, Many people inside and outside congress, opposed the idea. who? 1. C. Rajagopalachari 2. N.G. Ranga 3. Charan Singh Nehru (clarifies in Parliament)  

said what?  Cooperative farming would lead to forced collectivization on the Soviet or Chinese pattern.  Nehru is imposing a totalitarian, Communist programme upon the country. we‘re not going to make any law/act to coerce anyone to start cooperative farming.

Later Chinese attack on Tibet and India. Critiques start pointing out how Nehru‘s policies are hurting India. Recall, earlier we sent delegations to China, to study their cooperative farming system. But now there is Anti-China mood in press and public. Hence, gradually Congress gives up the idea of cooperative farming.

Third Plan (1961-66)    

Observed that nearly 40% of the cooperative farms are not functioning properly. Advocated better implementation of community development program, credit societies, agrimarketing etc. for getting success in cooperative farming. ~300 pilot projects in selected district. Each project having 10 cooperative societies. Overall, Third Five year plan tried to put a brave face, again reaffirming the government‘s faith in cooperative farming, but overall, wishful platitude not a plan of action.

Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-74) 1. Observed that cooperative farming programs have not made any substantial progress. 2. (therefore) It is not been possible to propose any additional programmes for cooperative farming in this Plan 3. Instead, we should focus on development of agricultural credit, marketing, processing and consumer needs. 4. In co-operative farming, funding priority only for revitalizing of the existing weak societies. 5. But avoid setting up new cooperative farming societies, unless they have a potential for growth. So, overall we can see that by early 70s, Planning commission‘s faith/interest in cooperative farming is vanishing.

Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-79) 1. Made no mention of cooperative farming.

2. It did allot some ca$H under the heading ―Cooperation‖, but it was only meant for inter-farm co-operative service facilities e.g. seed-fertilizer-water supply, use of tractors/agromachineries etc. After this era, five year plans give more attention (and ca$H) to wasteland management, poverty removal etc. and cooperative farming loses its relevance.

Cooperative Farming: Limitations/Epicfail Miscalculations and false hopes Early planners and policymakers had hoped that 1. Village panchayat and (Congress) party workers will help implementing cooperative farming, but response was lukewarm. 2. Cooperative farming = government will have to spend less money on agriculture (+less leakage in subsidies). But the scenario didn‘t change. 

During 2nd FYP, the National Development Council proposed that in the next five years agricultural production be increased by 25-35% via cooperative farming. But most state government shied away from taking necessary initiatives.

Bogus farms and apathetic bureaucrats by and large Cooperative farming societies fell into two categories:

Type#1: by big farmers = bogus farms      

They‘d setup bogus cooperative farms by showing agri.labourers/tenants as bogus members. But in reality none of them owned the land individually. this was done to evade land ceiling and tenancy reform laws. Adding insult to the injury: government even gave them subsidies for seeds, fertilizers etc. At times, non-working members had been enrolled in order to fulfil the minimum requirements of registration. Even in legit/genuine cooperative farming societies, the rich farmers dominate the management positions. Sometimes societies setup with members of just one or two families to get various subsidies/support.

Type#2: by State sponsorship= apathetic bureaucrats    



State sponsored cooperative farms as part of pilot projects under FYP. Government would allot land to the landless, SC/ST, Displaced persons etc. but they did not get adequate support from government agencies for irrigation, electricity, seeds-fertilizer, extension services etc. these farms were run like government-sponsored projects rather than genuine, motivated, joint efforts of the cultivators. Result? These experiments were unsuccessful. No gain in productivity. Later, those farmers started cultivating land individual (though on papers, the land continued to be owned by the ‗cooperative societies‘.)

#Epicfail in Bihar:  

Cooperative farming societies were formed on Bhoodan land- for the landless labourers. But later, they started individual farming, although officially the land still continues to be in the name of the societies.

Free riders 

  

Some member-farmers become lazy, thinking why bother when we‘ll get the same amount of profit in proportion of the land owned. Just like those free-rider students in MBA/Engineering College who do not contribute anything for the powerpoint projects yet get full credits/marks for being member of the group. This demotivated sincere farmers from working hard on such cooperative farms. + Entry of idiots with political patronage and caste affiliations entering in cooperative farming activities, with their own vested interests. Ultimately, nobody takes interest in the actual farming and entire project turns flop.

Overall, Cooperative farming didn‘t grow beyond the government projects and the bogus cooperatives. anyways, enough of cooperative farming, let‘s move to the third and last topic of this article:

Topic#3: Computerization of Land Records    

Under the British Raj, Land Revenue =significant source of income for the British. so they maintained accurate, up-to-date land records. But after independence, Revenue administration falls under ―non-plan‖ expenditure = doesn‘t get much budgetary allocation. As a result, revenue department won‘t hire many officers/employees, won‘t bother building new offices, buying new photocopiers, survey devices, jeeps etc. Ultimately records became outdated.

But after 80s, there was need for up-to-date land records for industrial purpose, acquiring land for railways, highways, industries. Up to date land records also help implementing land reforms, designing agricultural policies and resolving court cases. So Union government comes up with two schemes in the late 80s: 1. Strengthening of Revenue Administration & Updating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) 2. Computerization of Land Records (CLR) Later, both schemes merged together into a single scheme NLRMP in 2008. (Imagine the relief of UPSC aspirants in that era upon knowing they had to mugup just one scheme instead of two!)

National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) Who Department of Land Resources under Rural Development Ministry. When 2008

It has four components:

1. Computerize the property records. Encourage states to legalize computerized copies with digital signatures. 2. Computerize the registration process: link Sub- registrar ‘s office with revenue offices. This helps in real-time online synchronization of data. 3. do surveys and prepare maps using modern technology- global positioning system (GPS), aerial photography, high resolution satellite imagery (HRSI) etc. 4. HRD, training, capacity building, awareness generation and other fancy things. Target: cover all districts by the end of 12th Five year plan.

Funding pattern of NLRMP Just for information: work 1. computerize land records 2. survey

% funding by: center state 100

50

10% north eastern states 50% other states 10% north eastern states 75% other states 10% north eastern states 50% other states

100

0

100

0

90 50

3. computerize registration process, link sub-registrar‘s office with revenue offices

90 25

4. modern record rooms in Tehsil offices 5. training, capacity building 6. Core GIS

0

90

Benefits/Potential of NLRMP 1. Provides security of property rights with conclusive titles and title guarantee. 2. Minimizes land disputes. 3. Efficient functioning of the economic operations based on land, and overall efficiency of the economy. 4. Integrated land information management system with up-to-date and real time land records. =>even after drought/famine/disaster, helps government to award compensation to needy farmers. 5. Even helps providing other land-based certificates such as caste certificates, income certificates, domicile certificates; information for whether given citizen is eligible for xyz. Government scheme or not. 6. no need for stamp papers 7. stamp duty and registration fees can be paid even through banks. 8. Computerized entries=less opportunities for patwari to demand bribes. 9. NLRMP is a demand driven scheme. States/UT frame the project according their local requirements, send their file to Delhi and get the ca$h. 10. provides location specific information to planners and policymakers. 11. helps e-linkages to credit facilities/banks.