Land reforms in India
Objectives of land reforms
- Improve the productivity of agriculture by improving the economic conditions of peasantry and increase its interest to invest in farming.
- To ensure distributive justice and setting up a egalitarian society and eliminate all types of exploitation
- To create a system of peasant proprietorship with the motto of land to the tillers.
- Distribute income among many to boost the demands of consumer goods
First phase of land reforms (1950-65)
Features
- Focus was institutional reforms – Abolition of intermediaries like zamindars and jagirdars (1956)
- imposition of ceilings on land ownership
- Land ownership rights to tenants
- security of tenancy tenures in Ryotwari system
- reduction of rent to just level
- Occupancy rights to the tenants
- Emphasis on community development and cooperatives for credit, marketing, distribution and processing.
Status
- Ceiling Laws and distribution of Land ownership to landless
- All states enacted ceiling laws by the end of 2nd FYP. But varied political, economic and administrative considerations resulted in unevenness of land related policies across the nation.
- Only West Bengal and Kerala succeded in effective implementation of land reforms
- Only 0.5% of land was declared surplus
- Distribution of the land was mere 0.31%
- Success of Land reforms was small as compared to envisaged vision
- Cooperatives
- Suffered huge criticism from peasantry, press etc.
- Benefits to Landless and small farmers remained small
Reasons for the failure of the land reforms
- Land ceiling laws were considered as violation of ‘Right to Property’
- Poor record keeping of land-records and its transactions,
- Legal Lacunae-
- Much higher land ceilings as compared to existing land ownership (more than 70 % land ownership were of 5 hectares or less) led in declaration of small land surplus for distribution
- Agrariancrisis in 1966-69 – (reasons are below)
- Agriculture suffered severe droughts.
- Severe food shortage forced india for conditional import of food from America
- Unemployment crisis
- India suffered two wars in early half of the decade resulting in industrial stagnation
- Growing population with these challenges led to mass unemployment.
- The agrarian crisis and defective land reforms led to militant peasant movements such as Naxalbari and Srikakulam. Land grabs were prevalent not only in Kerala and W. Bengal but also in other states.
- Political compulsions – The agrarian unrest forced the politics to tilt leftwards.
- Inputs from States’ review of their earlier policies of land reforms
- Recommendations and guidelines by Central Land Reforms Commission
- Focus was on technological reforms resulting into Green Revolution
- Increased rationalization for ceilings of land holdings –
- ceilings to depend on fertility and irrigation facilities available
- Unit for land ceiling to be family;
- decrease in actual land ceiling limit
- Time bound enactment and implementation
- Special administrative setup to implement policy
- Removal of loopholes in terms of unreasonable exemptions
- Clarity in policy for Compensation. Land revenues became the basis for the compensation
- Responsibility of implementation lied with states
- Emphasis on accessibility of land to landless
- Favouring the landless while distributing government waste land and surplus land.
- States did not implemented in time bound manner
- Political disturbance during decade of 1970s led to almost neglect of the land reforms
- Later on, the situation continued without much changes. It remained unfinished public policy.
- However, land surplus and its distribution were better in second reforms. Also, the major beneficiaries were SCs and STs.
Next compulsory Reading : Green Revolution