Land Reforms in India , its causes and measures to improve the land reforms.

 

Land Reforms in India:

Productivity in agriculture depends on two sets of factors- technological & institutional. Land reform is an institutional reform, which aim at abolition of intermediaries & bringing the actual cultivators in direct contact with the state. It aims at redistributing ownership holding from the viewpoint of social justice & reorganizing operational holdings from the viewpoint of optimum utilization of land. Broadly land reform measures taken in India are as follows.

1.     Abolition of intermediaries.

2.     Tenancy reforms –i. Regulation of rent ii. Security of tenure for tenants.

 iii. conferment of ownership to them.

3.     Fixation of ceiling & floor on land holding.

4.     Agrarian reorganization including consolidation of holding & prevention of subdivision & fragmentation.

5.     Organization of cooperative firms.

1.     Abolition of Intermediaries: Before independence the main land tenure systems present in India were Zamindari, Mahalwari & Ryotwari. After independence the government abolished the intermediaries between them & the farmers for the collection of land revenue & started the system of direct contact with the actual cultivators. The lands were taken from the landlords against proper compensation & distributed among the landless farmers who were actually cultivating the land. 

2.     Tenancy Reforms: In India tenants who are not the owners of land cultivate 20% to 25% of the land. Rest 75% of the land is ownership holding. The landowners exploited many of these tenants ruthlessly. The purpose of tenancy reform was to stop this exploitation. The measures taken are [A]. Regulation of rent [B]. Security of tenure & [C]. Conferment of ownership to the tenants.       

[A]. Regulation of rent Before independence the rent charged used to be 50% of the produce or more, which was very high by any standard of social justice. So the government decided to reduce it to 20% -25% of the produce.

[B]. Security of Tenure. Sir Arthur Young rightly observed, “Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock & he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years’ lease of a garden & converts it into a desert.” This clearly explains why tenants should be provided with some security so that they can’t be evicted by the landlords at their sweet will. So the government made some rules & regulations to protect the poor tenant farmers from the landlords & to give them a sense of security of their land.

[C]. Conferment of ownership to the tenants. The government has tried to provide ownership rights to the tenants to bring them in direct contact with the state. The tenants those who are cultivating the landlords land for some time & the landlord has sufficient land for his own cultivation are asked to buy the land from the landlord at just price. States like W.B, Gujarat, Kerala, M.P, U.P etc had passed law in this regard to bring the tenants to the direct contact to the state.            

3.     Ceiling on land holding.    According to the land reform policy in India all the lands of the landlords beyond a specified limit would be taken over by the state & distributed to the to the small & landless farmers to meet their demands for land. The best way to reduce inequalities of income in the rural & urban areas is to reduce inequalities of land distribution. This law was not that successful because people started holding land in bogus names to escape from the law. Though there is a long way to go in getting total success still there was some success in this regard. It will be clear from the following table.

PROGRESS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF LAND CEILING LAWS	AS ON 31.3.80	AS ON 31.3.85	AS ON 31.3.90	AS ON 31.03.2004
AREA DECLARED SURPLUS [LAKH ACRES]	69.13	72.07	72.25	73.36
AREA TAKEN POSSESSION	48.50	56.98	62.12	64.97
AREA DISTRIBUTED	35.50	42.64	46.47	54.03
NO OF BENEFICIARIES      [IN LAKHS]	24.75	32.90	43.60	57.46

4.     Agrarian reorganization including consolidation of holding & prevention of subdivision & fragmentation: Consolidation of land holding means joining small plots of land to make them more economic for scientific cultivation. This has been considered as a necessary condition for efficiency and economy in agriculture. Almost 950 lakh acres has been consolidated in India till the end of 2001. With the increasing emphasis on raising productivity of the land, consolidation has been given increasing importance than before. The causes of small size of holdings in India are [a] growing population in the country [b] the law of inheritance [c] the decline of joint family system [d] the decline of handicrafts and village industries [e] rural indebtedness and grabbing of land by the village moneylenders. To stop this more jobs must be created outside agriculture, population must be controlled and importance of village moneylenders must be reduced.

5.     Organization of Cooperative farms: The government believed that the best way for the farmers to stand against the exploitation of the landlords is to join hands in farming & other agricultural & non-agricultural activities in the rural areas. They tried to spread the ideas of benefits of cooperation to the illiterate villager farmers. But the cooperative movement in India not that successful as the landowners & moneylenders who were exploiting the villagers were always against the movement & tried to stop the movement at all cost. The illiterate farmers also did not like cooperation as they felt that their individual ownership would become joint ownership, which is not the reality.

Causes of Slow Progress of Land Reforms:

1.Deficiency of reliable records.

2. Lack of integrated approach.

3. Lack of financial support in the five-year plans.

4. Improper implementation of the land reform measures by the state governments.

6.     Legal hurdles.

7.     Lack of political will.

8.     Lack of pressure from the poor farmers.

Measures to Improve the Land Reforms:

1. Breaking up the Landlord Tenant Nexus & discourage absentee landlordism.
2. Distribution of surplus land should be faster & to the actual poor farmers.
3. Rent fixation should be implemented strictly in all the states.
4. Preparation of proper land records should be made.
5. Simplification of legal procedures.
6. Voluntary surrender of land system should not be accepted.

In conclusion, it can be said that land reform measures or institutional changes indirectly help in increasing output by providing a healthy atmosphere in agriculture. Unless these measures are implemented properly the conditions of the majority of the poor farmers will not improve & productivity in Indian agriculture cannot increase substantially.