—

CHAPTER -1 : LAND CIELING LEGISLATION IN INDIA:

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

v J
 1.1 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The role of agrarian structure in economic development is one of the most impor­
tant problems for social science research in underdeveloped countries. It is important to
note that this problem has attracted the attention of many eminent economists in India
though it has been by and large neglected by sociologists, anthropologists and political
scientists. The basic gaps in the work by economists on the land problem can be attrib­
uted partly to the lack of work by .anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and
geographers which would have contributed greater realism and depth to the work by
economists. Certain critical observations are, however, available from the writings of
some economists.

In one of his significant works, The Economics of Land Reform and Farm Size in
India, A.M. Kusro has also noted that ‘in most writings on questions of agrarian struc­
ture the framework of analysis is the framework of commonsense and the language of
analysis is the language of public administration. These cryptic statements sum up
some of the glaring deficiencies of land reform studies in India. These deficiencies are,
however, related to a more basic weakness viz. the absence of ‘an intimate and proper
relationship between observation and theoretical speculation’ which is absolutely nec­
essary for the growth of scientific knowledge. In fact, this constitutes the basic weak­
ness of Indian social science as a whole and is reflected also in land reforms studies. It
is this basic weakness which needs further elaboration and substantiation.

It is important to note that the study of the relationship of agrarian structure and
economic development has been attempted in many cases without either clarifying the
concepts or following a genuinely scientific methodology. For studying the agrarian
structure in India the terms ‘feudal’, ‘semi-feudal’ and ‘capitalist’ have been indis­
criminately used without always distinguishing between the Western and the Indian
variants of feudalism. Charles Bettelheim has defended the use of the term semifeudal
for the Indian agrarian structure on the ground that some of the typical elements of
feudalism are present in the Indian situation. These elements have been identified as:
‘(1) absence of a labour market in a large part of the rural sector; (2) the personal
subservience of the immediate producer to the land-owner; (3) the excessive impor­
tance of land rent; (4) the underdeveloped marketing system resulting in little social
division of labour, a low rate of accumulation and the use of produce mainly to satisfy
immediate needs [1],

1
 Myrdal belongs to that school of economists who have treated the agrarian struc­
ture as an independent factor and then analysed its impact on economic and social
development. In very few studies the agrarian structure is treated as dependent factor,
itself conditioned by the populational pressure, state of technology, the level of eco­
nomic development and degree of social-political consciousness and organisation. In
other words, no doubt agrarian structure retards technological growth but technological
backwardness in turn also perpetuates the backwardness of the agrarian structure. To
emphasise only one-way-causation is to ignore the ‘cumulative’ nature of causation so
much emphasised by Myrdal himself at the level of approach and methodology. This
model of cumulative causation offers many-sided possibilities of policy intervention
which are overlooked if one is concentrating only on one-way-causation. For instance,
one of the reasons why landlordism does not act as a ‘built-in depressor’ in the agrarian
economy of the Punjab is that here the credit system is not an adjunct of the land system
and that here the small peasant has independent access to credit in the form of remit­
tances from migrant members of the family working in the non-agricultural sector out­
side the village. Similarly the existence of a strong cooperative credit structure in
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu also neutralise to some extent the growth-retarding ef­
fects of landlordism. The building up of a credit structure independent of the landed
interests thus offers possibilities of neutralising the negative effects of landlordism.

Reference can be made also to Doreen Warriner’s work who uses the Nurksian
analytical framework of the ‘vicious circle’ and ‘lospsided economy’ for analysis of the
agrarian structure in relation to economic development. But she too does not go very
far in exploring and identifying the variety of the patterns of agrarian structures in India
and the variations in the degree of their responsiveness to technological change and
economic development. [2]

1.2 AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN INDIA BEFORE INDEPENDENCE

Isolated instances of concern with growing poverty -the inevitable consequence

of under development- in India could be unearthed even during British rule. Of course
this concern was not dictated by any political sagacity or moral altruism but the more
practical experience of ‘not killing the goose that lays the golden egg; or that ‘as India
must be bled; the bleeding should be done judiciously’[3]ofthe more urgent political
exogenous of having to contain peasant discontent and disturbance[4] and mass revolt.

2
 With regard the approach for Agricultural Development, two divergent stands of
thought dominated. First,the institutional approach regarded radical change in the semi-
feudal agrarian relations as an essential precondition for the solution of poverty, while
the second-the technological approach-lay stress on technological improvements to the
exclusion of fundamental change- or for that matter any change-in land relations[5].
However, the second approach governed official thought, policy and practice during
British rule. The two basic tenets of the official approach were a) an insulate view of
the agrarian problem and b)a technological bias for agricultural development. The
insular view implied that the agrarian problem was analysed in isolation from the prob­
lem of general economic backwardness associated with colonial domination; it also
implied that attempts to overcome agricultural backwardness were unaccompanied by
efforts to promote industrialization. The technological bias on the other hand reflected
the tendency to view the backward state of Indian agriculture mostly as a technological
problem, unrelated to the depressive effects of the agrarian institutional framework. At
a policy level it was reflected in a tendency to give primacy to technological measures
and to underplay the importance of changes in the institutional framework[6]. This
technological obsession of the British was so strong that in laying down the terms of
reference of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India in 1926, the Commission
was adjured not to step out of its purview and trespass into the question of the existing
agrarian structure[7]. But in Dutt’s words: ‘This is indeed Hamlet without the Prince of
Denmark. It is impossible to deal with the problem of agriculture in India without
dealing the problem of the land system’[8].

Of course, this technological bias and insular view could be understood when
seen in the perspective of British Imperial designs. After all thwarting industrialization
in India was part of the dynamics of British capitalist exploitation. S ince India for the
British was only an agricultural colony they desired to ‘improve’ her agriculture with­
out overcoming her industrial backwardness[9]. Preservation of the agrarian structure
- a structure which was the handiwork of the British themselves - and protection of the \
Kingpin of this structure - the aristocratic landlord class who were the loyal and enthu­
siastic props of the British rule[10]. was essential for the British political survival and
economic domination.

The Nationalists in India, however, were opposed to the technological view adopted
by the British. They continued to express dissatisfaction with the land and revenue
policies of the British government from as early a period as the late 19th century. [Link]
was one of the first who voiced such criticism openly[l 1]. But the leadership of the
Indian nationalist movement was divided on the issue of institutional reforms and struc­
tural changes. Dutt believed that the institutional framework of agricultural production
constituted an obstacle to economic development and economic welfare. He pointed
out that a change in the institutional framework is a pre-requisite for agricultural devel­
opment^]. But Gandhi did not agree with the view of eliminating the system of
landlordism by confiscation of land from landsystem as advocated by Dutt and others.
He favoured not the exclusive control over land by either of the two classes of landlords
and peasants but an economic relationship between them as an effective instrument for
improvement in agriculture[13].

Thus, two independent approaches emerged for the reorganisation of land rela­
tions in India. One envisaged to modify the prevailing land system by encouraging the
erstwhile landlords who had so far been merely rent receivers to engage in cultivation
and manage lands directly with hired labour along modem lines[14]. This path is remi­
niscent of the Prussian Junker capitalism[15]. The second sought to convert the mass
of tenant cultivators into owners with full proprietary rights on easy terms. This path
would eliminate the class of absentee or non-cultivating owners from the agricultural
setup and thereby help usher in small peasant farming on vast scale.

The development of these farms could be further buttressed with state assistance
in the form of cheap credit and with the provision of other facilities at subsidised rates.
These two perspectives represented two alternative paths of pro-landlord and pro-peas­
ant agrarian reorganisation in Indiafl 6]. It may be noted here that there were sharp
differences within the leadership of Indian national congress on the immediate policy
as well as the future perspective of agrarian reform in India. But, in view of the tremen­
dous peasant discontent in almost all parts of the country and the necessity of rallying
peasant support in the anit-imperialist struggle, the differences paled into insignifi­
cance and the leadership was obliged to adopt a pro-peasant line through its resolutions
and public prouncementsf 17]. Since independence was the immediate goal and reform
a more distant objective, the Congress could afford the luxury of radical posture and
pronouncement as embodied in the Karachi Congress resolution[18] (1929) and the
Faizpur Congress agrarian programme[ 19] which gave the clarion call for thorough­
going changes in the structure of land relations.

4
 Agrarian structure refers to the manner in which man -land relation ships are
governed. It covers the way in which land is held and cultivated and the rights and
privilegs enjoyed by different categories of people who have access to land.

Agrarian structure in India, before Independence was marked by the presence of feudal
intermediaries such as Zamindars, Jagirdasjn^i Inamdars, of various descriptions. They
were the result of various tenures created by the state. Extensive areas in the country
were under the raiyatwari tenure, where the state was in direct relationship with the
occupant of the land. Under this system there existed no intermediaries between the
state and the cultivator.

The fedual tenuiral system gradually degenarated resulting in insecurity of tenure

to the cultivator and enhancement of rent by the fedual intermediaries. In the raiyatwari
areas also, the occupant of the land, by acquiring more land and getting it cultivated
through tenants, created tenancy problems marked by insecurity of tenure and exces­
sive rates of rent. The growth in population and increasing dependence on agriculture
aggravated the tenancy problems.

Another important problem that emerged over time was inequitable distribution
of land. In the fedual areas, the intermediaries kept extensive areas as home-farm land
with tenants under them. In raiyatwari areas also large holdings emerged on account of
unchecked acquisition of land. The personal law permitted breaking up of holdings
among the heirs resulting in continuous sub-division and fragmentation. Thus, on the
eve of Independence, agrarian stucture had the following major stuctural problems to
be solved: (1) the fedual tenurial systems which had outlived its purpose; (2) inequita-
ble_4ristribution of land; (3) high rates of rent and insecurity of tenures; and, (4)
7 1agrp6ntation and disgrgsment of holdings.

v.___
The introduction of centralised administration and the revenue system, the
insitution of police and law Courts, the extension of modern means of communication
(railway, motor, bus) broke the isolation of the villages. Hence, the independence of
villages was never complete; but in the changed situation it became impossible,- Thus
came the end of the self-sufficient village community, which in its traditional from was
an ancient agency of social control, social security and a bulwark against social change.
The self-sufficiency of the village had much earlier broken down, but now the village

5
economy became a part of the world market with money transactions. The British
introduced landlordism, a semi-feudal and semi-colonial land tenure, which created a
new set of relationships between a hierajey of tenants on the one had and the landlords
(often absentee) on the other, leaving the bulk of tillers out of focus. Instead of the
village community, the village landlords became the social base for the British rule[18].

One feeble attmept was made by the British to preserve the self-sufficient charac­
ter of the village community when the Mahalwari tenure was introduced in the ceded
and conquered provinces of Uttar Pradesh. It was Mckennzie who pointed out the coex­
istence of two distinct forms of property, viz., property in the State revenue and prop­
erty in the soil. The former was vested in the classes who were responsible for the
collection and payment of revenue to the State; the latter was vested in the village
communities, the village Zamindars and the resident ryots. On this basis, he contended
that the persons recongnised as proprietors in the early regulations were not the real
proprietors of the soil, but merely those who possessed a heritable or transferable prop­
erty in the portion of the State revenue left to be enjoyed by them[19]. The unit of
assessment, therefore, was a mahal, consisting of a whole village, a group of villages or
even a part of big billage. An important change effected in the mode of revenue assess­
ment was to tax the land according to its productive capacity and not according to the
actual produce grown on it. Even in this type of settlement, the ancient dalss of Zamindars
were dispossessed by the moneyed specualators and a large number of pattedari estates
were converted into Zamindari estates through the sale of rights of cultivating proprie­
tors. Gradually, land tenure in most parts of the provinces assumed only the Zamindari
pattern.

Therefore, the initial steps of destruction of the village community were accom­
plished, first, by the company’s eollosal direct plunder, second by the neglect of irriga­
tion and public works, which had been maintained under previous g^vegihients and
were not allowed to fall into neglect, third, by the introduction of the British landed
system, private property in land, with sale and alienation and the whole English crimi­
nal code and fourth, by the direct prohibition or heavy duties on the import of Indian
manufacturers, first into England and later also to Europe. All this, however, did not
yet give the ‘final blow’. It came with the era of nineteenth century capitalism.

6
 Marx also observes that the village system had been built on the domestic union
of agricultural and manufacturing pursuits. The handloom and the spinning-wheel were
the pivots of the structure of the old Indian society. But it was the British intruder who
broke-up the Indian handloom and destroyed the spinning-wheel. Thereby Britain pro­
duced greatest, and to speak the truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia.
This revolution not only destroyed the old manufacturing towns, driving their popula­
tion to crowed the villages, but destroyed the balance of economic life in the villages.
From this arose the desparate over-pressure on agriculure, which has continued on a
cumulative scale right upto the present day.

The impact of British rule thus led to disintegration of village community, the
evolution of a new structure of agrarian relations that was extremely regressive. The
new system did not at all permit the development of agriculture. New Social classes
appeared at the top as well as at the bottom of the social scale. There are landlords,
intermediaries and moneylenders at the top and tenants-at-will share-croppers and agri­
cultural labourers at the bottom. The new pattern was neither capitalism nor feudalism,
nor was it a continuation of the old Mughal arrangement. It was a new structure that
colonialism evolved. It was semi-feudal and semi-colonial in character.

The most unfortunate result of all this was that absolutely no efforts were made
either to improve agricultural practices or develop it along modem lines for increased
production, Agricultural practices remained unchanged. Better types of implements,
good seeds and various types of manures and fertilizers were not introduced at all. The
poverty-stricken peasant cultivators had no incentive to do so and the colonial Govern­
ment behaved like a typical landlord who was interested only in extracting high rev­
enue and did not take any steps to modernise and improve and develop Indian agricul­
ture.

The result was prolonged stagnation in agricultural production and when India
became independent the State had to seriously think about reshaping its agrarian struc­
ture.

The first comprehensive economic programme of the Indian National Congress

was adopted at its Karachi Session in 1931. In that document, as also in the special
Agrarian Programmes of 1936, which were adopted at the Congress sessions held in

7
Lucknow and Faizpur, stress was laid mainly on regulating tenancy relations. In the
background of the struggle between the Congress and the Communist Party of India for
leadership of peasant movement,[26] the Congress Programme felt compelled to in­
clude clauses for limiting the right of landlords to evict tenants from the land, for lower
rent, and for endowing broader sections of tenants with the right of occupancy tenancy,
and so on. It should be emphasized that before World War II no programme of the
Congress had raised the problem of altering the system of landholdings. [27],

The explanation for this is that the Indian bourgeoisie, having fought the colonial
rule and striving to keep the leadership of the national movement, wanted to make sure
that the semi-feudal landlord class at least remained neutral in the struggle.

It was only after the war, aimd the developing mass peasant struggle, that the
Congress, having set itself the task of immediate independence, put forward in its mani­
festo for the 1945-46 elections a demand for the elimination of ‘intermediaries’ be­
tween the state and the peasants. It read as follows: ‘The reform of the land system,
which is so urgently needed in India, involves the removal of intermediaries between
the peasant and the state. The rights of such intermediaries should therefore be ac­
quired on payment of equitable compensation.’[28] This helped to strenghen the lead­
ing role of the Indian National Congreess in the freedom struggle which was spreading
all over the country.

After the formation of the Interim Government, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, and
Congress governments in the provinces (in Bengal and the United Provinces, for in­
stance) committees were set up which began to draw up bills for the alienation of inter­
mediaries’ land.

1.3 Land Reform in Post Independece India

Land being one of the primary sources of livelihood and wealth its control and
ownership is a matter of considerable significance in a traditionally agricultural society
like India. Overall development in such a country depends upon the extent to which
land is utilized by the people for their well being. Utilization of land depends to a great
extent on the nature of ownership of land, which in turn depends on the social organisa­
tion. A just and proper utilization of land implies a sound system of land tenure which
enables all the people to enjoy the fruits of land.
8
 The problem of land arises when it is controlled by a few and when the pattern of
ownership is inimical to socio-economic growth. Such a problem pre-supposes contra­
dictions between land control and land utilization on the one hand and land control and
equitable enjoyment of the prqducgd-bf land on the other. The dissolution of the contra­
dictions requires restructuring oTland through violent social revolution and some through
legislation and peaceful transformation.

Whenever land reform is undertaken it affects not only the technical aspects of the land
control and tenure but also the material interests of the holders, hence the conflict
between the losers and the beneficiaries. Land reforms have been'itleeessful through

violent struggles in Russia and in China. In India the main thrust in land reforms pro­
gramme has been on legislative enactments, with the result, much progress in the direc­
tion has not been made.

The land problem in India is a legacy of the British colonialism which destroyed
the traditional pattern of peasant proprietorship on land and strengthened the land ten­
ure for better by legislative methods. In independent India attempts to change feudal
land structure created by the British have been passive and aimed at striking a balance
between the landed and the landless within the framework of the fundamental right to
property. In the initial stages legislation was passed for the abolition of Zamindari and
Jagirdari intermediary land tenures, and was implemented with a little success. The
second phase of land reform consisted of tenancy reform, ceiling on land holdings,
consolidation of land holdings and co-operativisation of land.

The various legislative enactments to bring about comprehensive land reforms

failed because at the ^ate)of implementation they were left to the governmental agen­
cies and participation of peasants was never envisaged. The only alternative provided
by law was the legal battle between the landless and the landed gentry, Large scale
eviction of peasants has occurred and protracted legal battles have been, in most of the
cases, won by the landed class. Land reforms in India have brought neither ‘land to the
tiller’ nor ‘high productivity’ as was expected by the framers of the agrarian policy.
Legislation regarding land reforms is defective and is marked by loopholes that re­
sulted in half-hearted implementation.

9
 Land reform in India represented a grand design to revolutionize the relation
between the government, the owner and the cultivator of land, change the size of farms
in an economically meaningful way and therby revolutionize investment, technology
and productivity-in conjunciton, of course, with other major policies. But the spark
was to be set off through land reform.

It has seldom been clear even to economists that the economic theory behind
India’s land reform is the theory of a limited price control and rationing, or more gener­
ally, a qualified theory of quantitative control co-existing with an extensive free market
set-up. The distinguishing peculiarity of Indian land reform, one of th world’s largest
and most recent experiments in land re organisation, has been its oertion within a
ralatively free market for land and land-use—unlike the U.S.S.R., China and the East­
ern European countries, where the market mechanism was supended and tenurial or
farm-size changes came through administrative decrees. India’s is the first great ex­
periment which, with popultion pressures, adverse land-man relations, other resource
limitations and layers within layers of tenures unknown to the Soviets, Eastern Europe
or to Israel, sought to bring about revolutionary changes within the framework of politi­
cal democracy and the market mechanism. In general, neither the market for land pur­
chase and sale nor for its leasing-in and leasing-out was suspended. Neither the price
of land nor of land-use (rent) was abolished, although some restrictions were attempted
to be placed outside a wide range. It is possible to show that some of the greatest insights
into the successes and failures of Indian land reform can be had by treating it as a
colossal experiment in price and quantitative control and an otherwise free system, and
studying the impact of the price mechanism on land reorganization.

Yet the analysis of land reform, such as exists, has all too often been conducted in
general, sociological or quasi-economic terms. Journalistic or commonsense com­
mentaries on the process and some of its results are plentiful. Several research studies,
no doubt, exist [20] but with one or two exceptions,[21] nearly all of them treat of
small segments either regionally or by a specific issue or two. Moreover, each has a
different methodology and the reader is left with a variety of diagnoses and policy
prescriptions and a frustrating sense of being unable to see the wood for the trees. Most
economists, both Indian and non-India, rather less easy with the ecnomic analysis of
traditional institutions than with input-output relations in agricluture, have, by and large,
preferred to concentrate in the latter area and shun the former. This has led to a wide-
spread and uncritical belief that land reform/nay' not be very important after all as a
means of agricultural growth. All in all, it seems that the theoretical economic frarne-
10
work in which Indian land reform was undertaken-and there doubtless was such a frame-
work-has yet to be described and policy and its outcome has yet to be analyzed with the
help of familiar tools of conomic theory.

When India won independence, the national bourgeoisie was faced with the need
of formulating more clearly its policy on the agrairan question, the solution of which
was becoining increasingly urgent. A special committee appointed in November 1947
and e^acjjed by Jawaharlal Nehru worked out directives for the Congress economic

policy, which was approved at a special meeting of the All-India Congress Committee
in 1948. Clause 2 of the Section dealing with agricluture read: ‘All intermediaries
between the tiller and the state should be non-profit-making agencies, such as coopera­
tives.’[22] And paragraph 13 of that Section says in addition: ‘The maximum size of
holding should be fixed. The surplus land over such a maximum should be acquired
and placed at the disposal of the village cooperatives. Small holdings should be con­
solidated and steps taken to prevent further fragmentation.’[23]

At a conference of revenue ministers held in Delhi in December 1947 it was

proposed that a special committee be set up to work out an agrarian policy. Accord­
ingly, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the then President of the Indian National Congress, ap­
pointed an Agrarian Reforms Committee, headed by the prominent Gandhian econo­
mist Dr. [Link]. The committee made a detailed survery of agrarian relations
in the country, collection oral and written evidence, which made up more than 6,000
typed pages. After analysing the material, the committee in the middle of 1949 sub­
mitted its report, which is an important source for studying agrarian relations in India in
the period under review.

In its reommendtions, the committee, in contrast to the official programme of the

Congress, held ifhjihe main questions'wsjthe immediate abolition of all forms of feudal
exploitation of the peasatnry, though, certainly with a moderate compensation. The
committee envisaged that following rate compensation. The committee envisaged that
following the allotment of land to tenants, including cropsharers and even some groups
of agricultural labourers, small and medium-sized individual farms would be set up,
and also various types of agricultural producers’ cooperatives to consolidate chiefly the
holdings of small peasants. It is significant that the committee opposed the establish­
ment of landlord-type capitalist farms.

11
 Some of the recommendations of the Kumarappa Committee were later made the
basis of the agrarian programme of the National Congress. However, two points, namely,
rapid and effective abolition of all forms of semi-feudal exploitation and simultaneous
extension of rights to peasants, and conferring of ownership only on those who person­
ally prticipate in cultivation, were never included in the agrarian legislation in the States.
Neither did the Congress agrarian programme include the following basic recommen­
dation of the committee: ‘There should be no scope for exploitation of one class by
another.’[24]

The Kumarappa Committee went somewhat further in its recommendtaions than

the other Congress bodies. And no wonder. For incorported in the Report of the Con­
gress Agrarian Reforms Committee was the agrarian programme of the Congre^
Leftwing, who expressed the interest of the peasant followers of the Congress and the
numerous urban petty bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois intellignetsig..

Dr. P.C. Joshi of the Delhi School of Economics was perfectly right when he
called this report ‘ one of the most radical documents of the Indian National Congress
in independent India in as much as its recommendations approximated to a very large
extent to the objective of land to the tiller and the abolition of non-cultivating interests
from land.’[25]

Thus, even the earlier basic documents dealing with the agrarian policy show that
the National Congress ws not for abolition of the semi-feudal exploitation of the peas­
antry, but for only alienation of part of the landlord holdings meant by the system of
‘intermediaries’ was not semi-feudal landholding in general but landholding of the
zamindari type.

The struggle around further agrarian reforms continued in the Congress leader­
ship, Parliment and government. This is reflected in the resolutions on economic prob­
lems adopted at the annual sessions of the Congress in Avadi in 1955 and Amritsar in
1956. While both resolutions underscored the need for carrying out agrarian reforms as
early as possible, no concrete programme of any kind was set forth in either.[26]

However, with the general elections of 1957 drawing near and the need of draft­
ing directives for the Second Five Year Plan, the more farsighted of the Congress lead­
ers became more active.

12
 Of great importance for formulating the agrarian programme in the Second Five
Year Plan were the Reports of the Panel on Land Reforms prepared in the spring of
1956. These documents contained a fairly complete and objective picture of the imple­
mentation of the legislation covering zamindari abolition and tenancy and also quite
specific recommendations in regard to the ceiling on landholdings and developments
of agricultural producers’ cooperatives.

Radical measures were recommended in the Memorandum on Land Policy sub­

mitted by Dr [Link] of the Punjab University to the Plan Forum session held in Delhi
in April 1956.[27] He presented a plan for giving effect to the slogan of ‘Land to the
Tiller’ by the end of 1960 through redistributing the land radically but not on a levelling
principle. He proposed that the agrarian reforms shall be carried out in the villages by
special ‘Committee of the Tiller of the Soil’ to be guided by the general principles
worked out by the special Land Reforms Commissions in each State.

While the Praja Socialist Party criticized the agrarian policy of the ruling party, it
did not advance an agrarian programme of its own different from the Congress pro­
gramme. The Second National Conference of this party, held in 1956, stated in its
resolutions that the party stood for halting the eviciton of tenants, for distribution of
waste land, and for higher prices of farm produce and so on. But as regards the main
questions of agrarian policy the Praja Socialists confined themselves to vague state­
ments on the need of‘redistribution of land’ and of encouraging the development of the
cooperative movement.[28]

The explanation why the Praja Socialist Party has no agrarian programme differ-
ent from that the ruling Congress Party is that these parties are akin to the another in
their social character.

A sharpening of the struggle on the question of agrarian reforms became apparent

during the debate in Parliment on the Second Five Year Plan. At the meetings of Com­
mittee ‘C’ on Second Five Year Plan appointed by the two Houses of Parliment to
consider the sections of the Plan covering agriculture and agrarian reforms, a heated
discussion developed. Many members belonging to the parties of the Right and even
Congress members spoke against the recommendations of the Planning Commission
for a ceiling on landholdings and perspective of peasant producers’ cooperatives.[29]
While the communist and Congress Leftwing members of the committee criticized the
government’s agrarian policy, they supported the progressive part of the programme set

13
 TABLE 1-1
Group-wise Distribution of Land in States
[Percentages]

GRADES OF RAJASTHAN SAURASHTRA BOMBAY MADHYA MADHYA HYDRABAD ANDHRA MADRAS

HOLDINGS PRADESH BHARAT
IN ACRES Owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold- owe- hold-
ners ings ners ings ners ings ners ings ners ings ners ings ners ings ners ings

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(N
t"-;
ro i
12.8
YU
8.4 12.3 14.5 13.8 10.0 6.7 12.0 6.5
rzi
15 to 30

Cs
<N
<N
GO
00
(N
GO
11.4 24.4
CM
K
YO
00

33.6 29.7 19.1 23.9 20.7 5.7 18.0

cn
30 to 45

YO
cn
cn
3.4 12.6
C;

17.5 25.7
00

001
2.4 10.2 3.5 12.5 6.8 14.6

rn
so
00
45 to 60

Gn
00
cn
o
cn
o

60
00

7.0 14.4
rn

7.0 2.9 9.0 5.6 0.5

<N
00
o
Over 60 1.5

cn
16.7
rn
OC
©

16.3 20.5 4.1 28.7 17.1 0.9 19.0

Source: Second Five Year Plan, PP.213-6,220.

forth in the draft directives for the Second Five Year Plan.

The reactionaries did not succeed in changing the Nehru government’s agrarian
policy. In the directives passed by Parliment and published towards the close of 1956,
the lines set forth in the earlier official documents of the government and Congress
were developed and concretized. Along with the need of the most expendtious and
complete implentation of zamindari abolition and tenancy legislation, special stress
was laid on working out and putting into effect by State of laws fixing a ceiling on
landholdings.

In the Congress Election Manifesto of 1957, too, it wjs emphasized that ‘the prin­
ciple of ceilings on land has been accepted and should be progressively introduced, so
as to bring about a better distribution of land.’[30]

In contrast to the other parties, the Communist Party of India not only set forth in
its Election Manifesto a programme for settling without delay the agrarian question and
its central problem-the abolition of landlordism without compensation-but underscored
the need of carrying out the agrairan reforms not through bureaucratic machinery, but
through ‘democratically elected agraicultural labourers’ and peasants’ committees’.[31]

The Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition Act has provided for a new hierarchy of
tenure-holders in place of the old one; but the two are all too recognizably similar. At
the top are bhumihars, below them sirdars, and still further down the asamis. At the
bottom of the heap remain the mass of cropsharers and landless labourers. The zamindars
have disappeared but these sme persons have been confirmed as landholders, often of
very substantial tracts of the best quality of land. Intermediaries as such are not al­
lowed and the elasing out of land is prohibited, but it is possible to retain the status of a
‘cultivator’ while tilling solely with the labour of hired workers, or by giving out one’s
fields to cropsharers. For the great bulk of the peasantry who were classified as sirdars,
the tenure remains substantially the same, the rent remains exactly the same, and the
most important new feature is tht the rent is collected by government rather than by the
zamindar.[32]

It should be underscored that the agrarian reforms were attended by a sharp po­
litical struggle. The peasants d^mnded a radical solution of the agrarian question and, '^4
as a minimum, the quickest possible implementation of the reform legislation. The
reforms themselves were brought about by a powerful upsurge of the peasant move-

15
ment since the war. This was expressly and unequivocally stated by the late Shri S.K.
Sinha, Chief Minister of Bihar. In 1946, in his p^egdi in the Legislative Assembly, he
said: T tell you that you are at the crest of a volcano. The volcano may burst at any
moment. It is only to save you from destruction that I have brought this resolution.’[33]
Almost in the same vein are the following remarks in the report of the UP Zamindari
abolition Committee: ‘Our scheme of zamindari abolition contemplates payment of
equitable compensation. If abolition is held over for a few years, abolition may mean
expropriation without compensation and, quite possibly, bloodshed and violence.’[34]

However, even such limited agrarian reform as the abolition of the zamindari
system met with fierce resistance from the landlords and circles in government and
legislative bodies linked with them. As a result the reform had to go through two basic
stages-first, delay in drafting the bill, its passage in the State legislatures and approval
by the President, and second, the actual implementation of the law.

The laws to abolish the zamindari system were enacted by the States independ­
ently of one another and at different times. J^wever, an approximate chronology can
be traced: the first extended from 1947 to 1953; the second from 1953 onward, the
drafting of the legislation and enactment of the zamindari abolition laws stretched over
many years. To illustrate, the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition Committee was ap­
pointed on 8 August 1946 and it presented its report in October 1948. the bill based on
the report was introduced in the State’s legislature on 7 July 1949. After the first read­
ing the bill ws referred to a select committee which submitted an amended text to the
legislature in January 4950. It was passed by both houses of the State legislature that
year and signed by the President in February 1951, but the law became effective only on
1 July 1952. Thus, it took six yers just to work out the legislation and put through the
law. And such(w|ithe case practically in all States. Those who were opposed to the bill
made use of the devices of parliamentary obstruction, common in the West. According
to the Press Trust of India the debate on the bill took 63 days, during which 1,450
speeches containing 2,000,000 words were made.[35]

Even after the bills had passed all stages of the complicated legislative procedure
the road still was not clear for its enforcement. The zamindars went to the High Court
and the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of particular articles or the
acts in the their entirety. The struggle around the agrarian reform laws is excellently
described by Dr. Daniel Thomer:

16
 Once the law has been printed in the State Gazette, it may be said to have com­
pleted the initial stage in its life cycle, the legislative phase. It now moves into the stage
of implementation, which may involve both the executive and the judicial arms of the
State government. The most extreme case of the prolongation of this phase occured in
Bihar. After a clouded legislation history stretching through four years, the Bihar Land
Reforms Act was published as law late in 1950. But when the State government moved
to enforce the Act, the Bihar landlords turned to the courts. First, in a case brought
before the High Court of Bihar sitting in Patna they challenged the condtitutionality of
the law. The landlords’ ^utiywas upheld, whereupon the Central Government intro­
duced and the Central Legislature passed a constitutional Amendment jmvidpig spe­
cifically for the validation of the Bihar Land Reforms Act. The Bihar landlords then
challenged the constitutionality of this amendment in a suit brought before the Su­
preme Court of India. But this time they lost. Once again the State government started
to put the law into practice; and once again the landlords raised in the courts the ques­
tion of the legality of the Act. For the second time the matter was carried up to the
Supreme Court of India. As before, the landlords lost it, except for two sub-sections
which the Court severed as invalid from the body of the Act.

In 1952 the State authorities for the third time tried to enforce the new law; and
the landlords found still another means of blocking the action. They simply refused to
had over to the State their rent rolls and the related village records. Eventually the
adminstrating officers had to reconstruct these documents for themselves. By 1954,
when the State was at long last in a position to complete the taking over of the zamindaris,
the most recalcitrant of the landlords played yet a final delaying action. Upon being
served with formal notices to surrender their estates to the authorities-against compen­
sation to be duly provided-these landlords petitioned the courts on the individual basis
to prevent the State government from taking over their estates. Until these court dicisions
have been rendered (which may be as long as two or three years) the landlords have to
be long as session. .Thus, pighl after after the Bihar legislature voted its acceptance of
the principle of zamindari abolition, the majority of the zamindars of Bihar were in
legal possession of their lands. [36]

In 1951, Article 31 of India’s Constitution was amended, legalising the acquisi­

tion of landholders’ estates with compensation. Another amendment to this Article
passed in 1955 provided that decision of the respective legislative bodies fixing the
compensation were final and not subject to appeal. However, this did not worry the
zamindars in the lest. As pointed out in an official publication of the Indian govern-

17
ment, ‘even the validity of the amendments was questioned’.[37] As was the case in
Bihar, the Madhya Bharat jq^rdrs between 1951 and 1954 presented endless appeals to
the High Court and the Supreme Court. [38]

In the course of 1947-52 leaders of the National Congress and representatives of

the central and State governments gloomily adimtted that the Congress’ agrarian pro­
gramme ^ not being carried out. The Economic Planning Conference of the National

Congress held in April 1950 in Delhi, which was attended by chief ministers of the
States and the presidents of the provincial Congress committees said in it resolution ‘it
is...necessary to shorten the period of ^fash^n by expe^^ng the abolition of zamindari

and malguzari by paying compensatioTiTlf necessary, in bonds.’[39] In a resolution

dealing with economic problems adopted at the Nasik session of the AICC in Septem­
ber 1950 it was emphasized again that ‘immediate action is necessary more especially
in regard to the following matters... Abolition of zamindari, jagirdari and other forms of
landlordism’. [40] And the following year, the Delhi session of the AICC held in Octo­
ber again adopted a resolution in which it was stated that the land reforms ‘should be
extended and completed, as speedily as possible, so that their full benefit reaches the
masses.’[41]

However, despite the resolutions, the agrarian reforms were not being imple­
mented at that time in most of the States and the reactionary forces were launching a
counterattack in the countryside. Following its militant activity the government de­
clared the Kisan Sabh illegal, and the landlords in some State tried to suppress the
struggle of the peasants by mass terror. The press of those years ijjterally filled with
reports of landlord excesses, in prqficudhr, in the former princely stat^such as Rajasthan,
Saurashtra, Madhya Bharat, and others.[42]

It is perfectly obvious that the attempts to destroy the peasant movement and the
delays in implementing the agrarian reforms are the two sides of the same coin.[43] It
should also be borne in mind that in the State legislatures, which had been elected
colonial rule, the influence of the landlords was very strong. However, as we have
stated before, the policy of suppression of the peasant struggle did not yield the results
expected by those who were carrying it out. This was strikingly shown by the success
of the Left Opposition in the first general elections, held in 1951-52. E. M. S.
Namboodiripad stated on one occasion that the upsurge of the mass struggle all over
the country forced the ruling circles to being once more to speak of the agrarian re-
forms[44].

18
 The Further development of capitalism and the desire of fitienational bourgeoisie,
which had grown strong politically and economically, to the process gave a
spurt to the agrarian reforms. The election manifesto of the National Congress (1952)
again underscored that the abolition of zamindari, jagirdari and the like must be
rapidly completed. [45] In the middle of 1952 Prime Minster Nehru issued a statement
in which he said that the Planning Commission was again examining the problem of
agrarian reforms in detail.[46] The elaborated programme, which concretized and de­
veloped the basic principles in the Congress documents cited above, was incorporated
in the First Five Year Plan, which was approved by the Parliament. [47] in the spring of
1953, a special Panel on Land Reforms under the Planning Commission, was appointed
to advice on the fulfilment of the programme set forth in the First Five Year Plan. [48]

One after another the State began implementation of the reforms. The process at
first was rather slow. In July 1953 the All-India Congress Committee stated in a reso­
lution that ‘much yet remains to be done in order to make the actual tillers of the soil the
owners of the land.’[49] And exactly a year later, the AICC reiterated that ‘the process
of eliminating the intermediaries must be completed all over India without delay.’[50]
In a resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India in
April 1954 it was underscored that ‘zamindari abolition acts have not been applied in
many Staes where the old landlordism still remains intact.’[51] Indeed, according to
official data, as on March 1954, the reforms had virtually not been implemented in the
States of Bihar, Orissa, Rajastha, Assam, West Bengal, Mysore, Himachal Pradesh and
Delhi.[52]

A turning point came in 1955-56, due unquestionably to the approaching general

elections in the spring of 1957. By the close of 1956 the agrarian reform laws, that is,
the zamindari abolition acts, according to some data, had been applied on the great bulk
of the land in those areas, namely, 306 million acres. However, the laws had not been
given effect on an area of 16,300,000 acres. Moreover, there remained a total area of
11,500,000 acres on which there were zamindari estates and which:w? not covered by
any legislation.[53]

Table 1 gives a picture of the implementation of the agrarian reform laws by

States as at the end of 1956.

Execution of the zamindari abolition acts presupposes, first, formal transfer by

zamindars of control over the alienated part of feft estate to the State, or, to be more

19
exact, to the land revenue official as its representative; second, the setting up of an
agency for the maintenance of up-to-date land records; a cadastral survey in unsurveyed
areas and the revision or preparation of a new record-of-rights; the establishment of a
new machinery for collecting land revenue. To this should be added the fixing of com­
pensation to be paid to zamindars and its payment.

TABLE - 1.2
Data on Agrarian Reforms on Zamindari Lands, 1956

Percentage of area in which

State Total area, Zamindari Reform law Reform Zamindars
in million was passed rplemented1 still remained

Andhra 40.7 32 24 22 10
Assam 54.4 6 3 - 3
Bihar 45.0 95 95 94 1
Bombay 71.2 18 18 18 -

Madhya 83.4 62 62 62 -

Pradesh
Madras 38.6 20 16 16 4
Orissa 38.5 43 43 43 -

Punjab 23.9 - - - -

Uttar Pradesh 72.6 94 84 84 10

West Bengal 19.7 93 93 93 -

Hyderabad 52.6 42 42 42 -

Madhya Bharat 29.6 58 57 57 1

Mysore 21.3 6 6 - 6
Rajasthan 88.3 58 56 45 13
Saurashtra 13.6 37 37 37 -

Cutch 10.9 33 - - 33
Vindya Pradesh 15.1 38 38 38 _

Inasmuch as zamindari abolition acts are being carried out by revenue depart­
ments of the State governments, the conferring of ownership rights on tenants, determi­
nation of exact amount of the lands left with the zamindars, fixing the amounts of

20
compensation to be paid, and the introduction of new land revenue rates whereverr^nred-7
by the law-all necessitate revision of the record-of-rights or preparation of a newtme.
As justly noted by Professor Priya Ranjan Sen, ‘it has to be recognized that a final
publication of the record-of-rights is a sine qua non before the act could be brought into
force in any particular locality.

The Report of the Committee on Size of Holdings, Panel on Land Reforms, set
the following aims to be attained by fixing a ceiling on landholdings: (i) meeting the
widespread desire to possess land; (ii) reducing glaring inequalities in ownership and
use of land; (ii) reducing inequalities in agricultural incomes; and (iv) enlarging the
sphere of self-employment. [54]

Can we seriously speak of redistribution of the land and its transfer to the tillers
of the soil if landlords having large families (and they really have a good many relations
who can be included in Hindu joint families) are permitted, in Oissa, legally to keep up
to 100 acres, in Delhi up to 120, in Uttar Pradesh up to 132, in Bihar up to 144, in
Madhya Pradesh up to 159, in Madras up to 240, in Maharashtra up to 252, and in
Mysore up to 432 acres.

Thus, the legislation itself presupposes preservation of not only small landlord
holdings, but in the case of some areas (such as the delta districts of Andhra Pradesh)
fairly large holdings. Worthy of note in this respect are the substantial differences in
the ceilings in different States, which cannot be explained merely by the soil and cli­
mate, since no uniform upper limits by far have been fixed for private holdings on the
soils of the dry areas in Deccan or the irrigatd alluvial soils in the different States. As
we have ^ri'redy stated, the variations in ceilings are to be explained primarily by the
average size of a large holding in a particular State. In addition, another factor obvi­
ously is the influence exerted in the legislatures by different political forces, which is
especially to be observed in the Stae of Andhra Pradesh, where the landlords who own
large farms have succeeded in putting through a ceiling law which has made redistribu­
tion of the land a sheer farce.

However, the imposition of ceilings had a certain economic aspect, too. What is
amounted to was that the drawinjup and enactment of ceiling legislation became, as it
were, a means of extra-economic pressure on the landlord class, who thereby were
forced to step up the process of the shift to capitalist farming. In brief, the position is
that the laws enacted provide for preservation of the large capitalist-type farms. This

21
aspect of the ceiling question was elaborated by a committee specially appointed for
the purpose, which recommended that the laws on ceilings should not be extended to
the following types of farms plantations, sugarcane farms owned by sugar factories;
orchards; cattle-breeding and dairy farms; ‘farms in a compact block,’ ‘efficient farms,’
‘mechanised farms and farms with heavy investments.’ These reconmmendations were
accepted by the government and were incorporated in the Second Five Year Plan in a
slightly modified form. Landlords were afforded the opportunity of partly avoiding
alienation of their lands by switching over to capitalist farming. In some States (the
Punjab and Mysore) the rescotnfnendations in the ceiling laws have been, in the opin­
ion of N. Prasada Rao, defined so vaguely that practically all landlords’ farms can be
included in the category of ‘efficient farmes.’ In Assam, mechanized farms of up to
166 2/3 acres have been exempted from the operation of the law. Preserved, too, in
Andhra Pradesh are large capitalist-type farms which fall in the category of‘efficiently
managed farms.’[55]

Moreover, there is no uniformity in the legislation of the different States. For

example, while in the ceiling laws passed by the Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Madras
legislatures exemption is provided for lands under sugarcane belonging to sugar facto­
ries, in Maharashtra the ceiling has been extended to cover sugarcane plantations in
spite of the stubborn resistance of the owners of the sugar factories and the powerful
support they received inside and outside the legislative assembly in Bombay.

Sometimes ‘exemptions’ are so formulated in the laws that they lend themselves
to the broadest interpretation. In the Madras bill, Article 69(111) provides for exemption
form the operation of the law ‘any land held by any cooperative society’ .[56] Of course,
landlords will not hesitate to avail themselves of the article to set up all kinds of pseudo­
cooperatives, about which quite a lot of information can be found in reports of agro-
economic surveys as well as in the press. The same bill permits the landlords, in addi­
tion to the maximum fixed, to keep up to 50 acres of grazing land. And, moreover, the
following explanation is given: ‘Any land exclusively used for grazing shall not cease
to be grazing land merly by reason of the ploughing or preparing the soil for the sowing
of fodder seeds or of the raising or heavesting of fodder crops.’[57] But who will
guarantee that with ploughing of grazing land formally permitted, some time after ceil­
ing legislation has been implemented in the particular locality, and ‘surplus land’ has
been determined, acquired and distributed, this ‘grazing’ land would not be used to
grow other crops? Where is the guarantee, if the corrupt patwari, our old acquaintance,
is to be charged with the duty preventing the violation of this law?

22
 Besides, in addition to the exemptions envisaged in the recommendations of the
Planning Commission, clauses providing for the preservation of large holdings of reli­
gious and charitable institutions which exceed the ceiling are included in the acts passed
in many States (as, for instance, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Assam). In some parts of
the country, in particular in the South, these are large holdings. And as we know,
landholding by temples is really semi-feudal in character.

The whole system of putting through land reforms in India shows that under
present conditions it is hard to expect a radical redistribution of the land in favour of the
mass of landless and land-poor peasantry.

Secondly, in some States (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and
Mysore, for instance) the laws do not prohibit alienation and transger of land before the
laws come into force. In the Orissa bill the scale of land above the fixed ceiling by big
landholders is specifically envisaged. And while in most States restictions on this score
have been put through, in some (Maharashtra, Manipur and Uttar PradeshT too remote
a date wsyset for the restriction to go into effect (1959), and in the^>hters)it has to be V\
established in each particular case whether the transfer of land is agamsTthe provisions
and objects of the act. However, we know how local adminstrative authorities can
establish this!

However it be, the fact is that ninety per cent of the possible usefulness of a
programme of ceiling upon landholdings has been lost, and land redistribution has been,
by and large, a failure in our country...The failure is to be attributed to the fact that there
have been people in charge of implementation of policies which they never accepted. [5 8]

In the section on zamindari abolition we have already pointed out that the effec­
tiveness of the agrarian legislation passed is largely determined by the methods used to
implement it. Unfortunately, the peasantry has not been to help carry out the
reform; its enforcement is entirely entrusted to the administrative and revenue authori­
ties. At the same time, as has been justly stated in the Third Five Year Plan, ‘frequently
at the lower levels of administration, collusion and evasion have gone unchecked, and
there has been failure also to enlist the support and sanction of the village community in
favour of effective enforcement of legal provisions.’[59]

Determining the conditions under which the agrarian legislation, including the
ceiling laws, are enforced is not only the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, but also the

23
ignorance of the illiterate peasants about the laws. Interesting in this respect are the
results of a poll taken in the autumn of 1956 in Sahajapur village (West Bengal), where
it ws found that only nine percent of the peasants polled were aware of the propsed
imposition of a ceiling on holdings in conformity with the law passed in 1955.[60] At
the same time the big landowners in the village, three owners of over 25 acres each, had
already managed ta ‘prepare’ for the enforement of the ceiling law, as investigators
found that they had concealed more than 30 per cent of the total land under cultivation
in the village.[61] Dr. Y. P. Bhattacharjee came to the conclusion that ‘obviously there
must have been benami and other transfers to evade the law. The position is indeed
very disquieting and has serious implications for the future of land reforms inthe coun­
try. For, there is every reason to believe that what has happend in Sahajapur has taken
place in most of the villages.

Thus measures such as the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Holdings (Census) Ordi­
nance of 1957, which enjoins owners of more that 25 acres to report to the tahsildar, on
the threat of a fine, the area of their holdings were ineffective. [62]

Ceiling legislation in Khammam district, Mulugu taluk of Warangal district,

Aurangabad district and part of Yadgir district (Hydrabad) ws implemented as far back
as 1955-56, and it was the conclusion of Gulzari Lai Nanda, the Union Minister for
Planning and Labour, that ‘the surplus land now being found is much less than earlier
estimates.’[63] In fact, in the first two areas mentioned above, as against an expected
surplus land of 122,209 acres only 4,000 acres were found. And even the 4,000 acres
were not turned over to peasants. Enforcement of the ceiling legislation began approxi­
mately in the same years in West Bengal, at first it was estimated that 600,000 acres
would be rplesed, then 400 ,000, and by 1961 the actual area ac^pjjgd by the State was
268,000 acres.[64]

Thus, implementation of ceiling legislation proceeded at no faster pace than the

legislation abolishing the zamindari system. This is corroborated by the situation in
some of the other States. In the Punjab, the impostion of a ceiling on holdings was
begun back in 1956-57, but by the beginning of 1961 not a single acre had been redis­
tributed. And although more than five years had passed since similar legislation wa
enacted in Assam, the second Panel on Land Reforms staed in 1961 that ‘in Assam and
the Punjab, rules have been framed and declarations of surplus land have been obtained
which are now under scrutiny.[65]

24
 In their attempts to slow down enforcement of the ceiling laws the big landown­
ers have resorted to the same devices the zamindars_did. In Himachal Pradesh, for
example, impostion of ceiling was held up due to ^^rit^etitions in the c^mr^y'

Moreover, some laws contain also provisions that essentially are loopholes which
landlords could take advantage of to obtain the use of part of the land alienated from
them.

Firstly, in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar there are provisions for the vesting of surplus
land in village panchayats. As is well known, however, it is precisely in those States
that large landowners, ex-zamindars among them, exercise(lairjy)substantial, and some­
times decisive, influence in the village self-government bodies. The author has(fvimself b
met such mukhyas of panchayats duringfhisyvisit to Bihar. It is no accident, therefore,

that during the debate on the agrarian resolution at the Nagpur session of the National
Congress some of the speakers objected on these grounds to the recommendation tht
the land taken over after the imposition of the ceiling should be prnc^fl at the disposal of
the panchayats. [66]

Secondly, in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh cooperatives

have priority in getting surplus land. At the same time, as Ram Dayal Singh, a delagate
to the Nagpur Congress session from the Punjab, rightly stated, and which was con­
firmed by surveys conducted ^he past five years, ‘the cooperatives would be domi­

nated by the landowners and there would be no one to look after the interests of the
landless’. [67]

Lastly, some States (Uttar Pradesh, for instance) provide for keeping surplus land
of mechanized farms as state farms, and moreover, in the appointment of managers
pereference is to be given to the existing holders. The legislators certainly took good
care to leave the back-door wide open for the big landowners!

An opportunity to evade the ceiling legislation in the course of distribution of

surplus land has been afforded to landlords not only by provisions of some of the Acts
themselves, but, as can be seen from West Bengal’s experience, also by the very proce­
dure established for distribution of land.

And this is not surprising, since the real purpose of the agrarian policy pursued in
India is , as we have tried to show in analysing the zamindari abolition legislation and

25
the impostiion of a ceiling on landholdings, gradually to convert the landlords and rich
peasants into middle and small l^dowing^armers of the capitalist type. And this ob­
jective has nothing in common withTHe proclaimed slogans of turning the land over to
the tillers of the soil.

A no less important aspect of ceiling legislation is to draw away the mass of the
peasantry from revolutionary struggle for land.

A new policy on land ceilings was evolved by the Chief Ministers Conference
held in July 1972. The main features of the new policy were:

(a) Lowering of ceilings to 18 acres of wet land and 54 acres of unirrigated land;

(b) The change over to family rather than the individual as the unit for determining
land holding-lowered ceiling for a family of five;

(c) Fewer exemption from ceiling;

(d) Retrospective application of the law declaring benami transactions null and void;

(e) In order to insulte the measures from challenge in courts of law, jurisdiction of
civil courts has been barred; most of these laws have been included in the Ninth
Schedule of the constitution, which places them beyond any challenge in courts
of law on grounds of infringement of Fundamental rights.

In respect of constitutional protection of Land Reform Laws and machinery for

quick disposal of land reform cases, the Raj Krishna Committee made the following
recommendations. [68]

(a) All land reform Acts passed by the States, but not yet included in the Ninth Sched
ule, and all land reform laws enacted in future should be included in the Ninth
Schedule If the Constitution.

(b) The State Governments should expand High Court Benches and name one or two
more judges to deal exclusively with land reform cases.

(c) Land reform cases should be dealt with by revenue functionaries alone below the

26
 high court level.

(d) . The revenue machinery dealing with land reform cases should be suitably ex
panded to clear all pending land reform cases.

About L2£jnillion hectares of land have been declared surplus. Out of this, i
nearly 4/5 of tfiearea has been taken over by thei'St^f for distribution among landless
agricultural labourers and other categories of population.[69] According to
Bandyopdhya, the Land Reform Commissiioner of West Bengal, out of 40 lakh acres of ,
agricultural land declared surplus throughout the country, West Bengal’s contribution
has been 11.77 lakh acres. Out of this, 6.31 lakh acres have been distributed among
over one million beneficiaries.[70]

In a large number of cases land owners have surrendered inferior and uncultivable
land which is supposed to be in possession of village Panchayats is actually in
unauthourised occupation of landlords.

Ml recently revenue officials constituted the main machinery for allotment of

surplus land. Apart from being busy with ohter responsibilities, there were reports of
favourtism shown by them. No popular Committees consisting of non-officials were
set up for supervising allotment of land. Few of the states have tried to overcome this
lacuna by setting up statutory and non-statutory panels at State, district and tehsil levels
for administering ceiling laws.

It may be recalled that as early as when the First Five-yea Plan was being formu­
lated it was accepted that the reasonable rent should be one-fifth to one-fourth of the
gross produce. Most of the states had accepted the prescription and incorporated it in
their respective laws. Some states, e.g., Maharstra, had gone still further and prescribed
even lower rates of rent. However some states have yet to adopt this limit as, for exam­
ple, in Andhra Pradesh Tamilnadu, Haryana and Punjab higher rates still preyjL-'Apart
from the/faljhr£of some states to fall in line with the national policy in this respect, it is
significant to note that in actual practice the legally prescribed rates were never fol­
lowed in the rural areas. In some parts of Andhra Pradesh the rent was as high as 75
percent of the gross produce. In most parts of the country where tenancy cultivation is
in vouge, the reported rate of rent is 50:50. That tliejfb is absolutely no agency to effec­
tively supervice the implementation of these provisions explains the hhftus between the
state policy and the actual feild situation.

27
 Therefore, it can be stated that as far rates of rent are concerned the state policy is
clear and it has been translated into legislative measure in most of the states; but their
implementation has not been effective.

Insecurity of tenure, as already pointed out, arises out of socio-economic factors

that govern demand for and supply of land. This insecurity arises in three forms (1)
termination of tenancy, (2) resumption of land by land owner for personal cultivation
and (3) surrender of land by the tenant. It will be useful to explain these forms of
insecurity before discussing what policy was prescribed in the Five-year plan docu­
ments to meet them.

^Termination of Tenancy. Tenancy reform measures were first introduced in the

idupi areas to protect the tenants from the wilful exploitation by the feduaj lords. The
Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885 had introduced the concept protected status to tenants and
provisions and, by the 1920s, protection of tenants against eviction was a widely known
concept. The various tenancy laws as adopted in the various Provisions had laid down
certain basic principles for tenancy and its protection. It was an accept principle that a
teancy could be legitimately terminated if the tenant contravated any of the terms of the
lease failed to pay rent used the land for non-agricultural purposes,(deTned}he landlords

his legitimate rights etc. Such conditions were copied even in legislative measures that
were enacted in raiyatwari areas as could be seen in the Bombay Tenancy and Agricul­
tural Lands Act 1948 and or even the Malabar Tenancy Act 1930. A close analysis of
the accepted grounds for termination of the tenancy measures would reveal that a ten­
ancy can be ended legitimately on very frivous grounds. It could be advisable even now
to review the provisions in this regard of some of the tenancy laws in the country as
even after conferment of owership on tenants, some tenancy is bound to exist. The
objectiveshould be to restrict termination of tenancy only to misuse of land, denial of
rent or(deimd of the landlords right. Beyond these, all other groups that were listed in
the various laws should be given up if termination of tenancy is to be reduced. The
other policy approches to reduce termination of tenancy were to prescribe a fairly long
term as the minimum period of tenancy and automatic renewal of the tenancy agree­
ment on the expiry of the first term of lease. Such suggestions were made in the plan
documents to improve security by reducing the scope for termination of tenancy.

Resumption for Personal Cultivation. Tenancy reform measure enacted soon af­
ter Independence were replete with provisions to permit the land owners to resume the
land for personal [Link] provision was very widely utilised by the landlords to
get rid of the tenants which resulted in a high degree of insecurity of tenure for the
tenants. The Planning Commision thought of different solutions aimed at preventing
such resumption to get rid of the existing tenants. It was thought that if resumption to
get rid of the existing tenants. It was thought that if resumption were to be recorded and
registered the tendency would be curbed. Further, it was suggested that a more rigid
definition for the term personal cultivation would be an effective check. For this pur­
pose personal cultivation should involve personal labour and not merely supervision. It
was later suggested that personal cultivation should also imply that the land owner
resided with in a specified from the location of the land, that would permit such super­
vision and personal cultivation. These would help in restricting the scope for resump­
tion for personal cultivation. We have no indication how far such resumption were cut
down by these prescriptions. Most of the states did not incorporate the suggestions
made by the Planning Commission. At the same time policy-wise changes were taking
place which rendered resumption for personal cultivation meaningless and to this we
shall refer to later.

Surrender. Where neither termination nor resumption succeeded, the strategy

used by landowners to get rid of the tenants was to persuade them to surrender the land
voluntarily. In such cases there was no means to ensure security and written declaration
of the voluntary nature of the surrender was adequate proof for the landlord. To counter
this villainous way of getting possession of the land, the Planning Commission sug­
gested that surrenders should be registered with the revenue authority and that the au­
thorities should be convinced of the genuineness of the surrender before the landlord
could take possession of the land. But this was not effective enough and in the Fourth
Plan it was suggested that all surrenders made in the recent past should be treated as
surrenders in favour of the state and the landowner should not be allowed to take over
the surrender land which the state would be entitled to dispose of according to rules
framed for the disposal of government land.

If effictively implemented, these suggestions of the Planning Commission would

have reduced the degree of insecurity at least marginally. But, unfortunately, most of
the states did not adopt these suggestions in the tenancy laws.

29
1.4 Ending Landlord-Tenant Nexus

While these measures were being defined it was found necessary that in order to
promote security of tenure the best wayout was to do away with the landlord-tenant
nexus. In fact, even from the early days of tenancy legislation the right of the tenant to
purchase the tenanted land was recognised. The ultimate step was to convert all tenants
into owners of the land they held as tenants. This stage was reached in different phases.
In the first phase the principle adopted was known as the right of preemption. It means
that if at any time the landlord wanted to sell the landleased out to a tenant the latter had
the first preference and only when he refused to purchase it that the landlord could sell
the land to anybody else. The effectiveness of this measure to promote purchase by
tenants was always suspect. The landlord could easily choose a time to sell the land
when the tenant, whose economic condition he knew well, was least sound to make an
offer to purchase the land. For, if he sells to the tenant he may have to be content with
a much lower price. As this approach failed to help the tenants to become owners to
any significant extent, a more effective method had to be introduced.

This led to the right of optional purchase. When the tenant felt that he could
purchase the leased area, he could make an offer or reject it. In case he accepted the
offer, the deal is finalised on mutually agreed terms and land is transferred to the tenant.
On the other hand, if the landlord failed to accept the offer the tenant was entitled to
apply to the authorised revenue official who would intervene in the matter and get the
land transferred to the tenants at a price fixed according to provisions of the Act. Here
the initiative rested with the tenants and in the context of dependece of the tenants on
the landlords, such initiative was rarely seen. Thus, in the ultimate analysis, even op­
tional right to purchase supported by official machinery failed to effect of much land to
the tenants.

The final state was the compulsory transfer of land to the tenants. Under this
scheme, with effect from a notified date, all the tenants who were entitled to purchase
the land from their landlords would be deemed to have become owners of the land they
cultivated. This was done in the former Hyderabad State and in Maharashtra first and,
thereafter, in a number of other states and later in Kerala and Karnataka. It is reported
that as a result of this measure over three million tenants had become owners of over
3.7 million acres of land in the country.[71]

30
 One advantage of transferring land to the tenants is that the tenancy problem can
be solved to a large extent. If adopted universally, what all would remain are those
cases which are permissible cases of leases by invalids, minors, widowed and other
type of land-owners who have to be permitted to get their land cultivated through ten­
ants. So, in most of the states where tenants were given ownership, one can find provi­
sions restricting future leases. If this is also universalised, there would be no tenancy
problem in the future. When leasing is not allowed, it is not proper for village-level
officials to record any tenancy that could be existing in the villages. Then the position
is very comfortable, almost amounting to wishing away the problem of tenancy for the
future. This is perhaps the reason why in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra,
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, tenancy, according to 1971 agricultural census, was very neg­
ligible. However, the real situation in the rural areas is not revealed by the census
which was based on land records. The tenancy practice cannot disappear so long as the
scarcity of land in relation to demand persists. Another advantage of compulsory trans­
fer to tenants and prohibition of leasing in future was that the other provisions of ten­
ancy laws needed to be implemented only in respect of the residual tenancy which is
limited both in extent and in number. Thus in one stroke the whole tenancy problem
disappears.

In real life, however, the rural scene is not that simple and straight. Leasing-in
and leasing-out go on under various terms, terms which are particularly unfavourable
to the tenants because they are at the receiving end and landlords still enjoy monopoly
power. Tenancy assumes the nature of labour agreements, mortgages, sharecropping
and a number of other forms without becoming either recorded or admitted by either of
the parties. This collusion is for mutual benefit, for the alternative to the landless man
is to go without land. Thus, we have a very happy situation nobody speaks of the
existence of tenancy or problems arising therefrom. The Agricultural Census con­
firmed that practically tenancy was non-existent at least in most parts of the country.
All the same, independent observations made by academics estimate that about 20 to
30 per cent of the land in the rural areas is still under tenancy cultivation of one type or
the other. In any case, it would be very safe to believe that atleast 30 per cent of the land
owned by large landholders might be under tenancy cultivation of various types and
often on terms not at all favourable to the tenants. Because of the poor maintenance of
records, one has no way of finding out the truth. The progress made in the recording of
bargadars in West Bengal (where several lakhs were recorded in a special operation)
further lends credibility to the premise that tenancy is still rampant and is highly ex­
ploitative because of the monopoly element in land ownership. Thus, we have had
changes in the law without having any impact on the agrarian structure for the better.

31
1.5 CEILING ON LANDHOLDINGS

The question often asked is why there should be ceiling on agricultural holdings
when there was no comparable restrictions either on income or on wealth in the other
sectors. This discrimination is justified by resorting to the argument that land is a
limited factor and, hence, there should be a sort of rationing when the shortage cannot
be ratified. It should be recalled, however, that while discussing the policy of ceilings
on landholdings soon after Independence, sufficient emphasis was placed on compara­
ble, restrictions in the other sectors as well. The Kumarappa Committee Report, the
First Five-year Plan document and the Report of the Panel on Land Reforms, all con­
tain reference to this effect. But later on, only land became susceptible to ceiling and
the other sectors were ignored, may be for political reasons. In any case, one of the
major policy approaches should be to link ceiling on landholdings with an integrated
income, wealth and wages policy covering the entire economy, if growth with justice is
to be ensured.

Ceiling on landholdings is justified on the ground that the ownership in land is to

be treated as merely occupancy right and right to use it subject to payment of the stipu­
lated rent or revenue. Under the raiyatwari system, no ownership is give to the raiyat
but only the right of occupancy, and it should be within the privelege of the state to
regulate this right in the best interests of the maximum number, and this is what has
been laid down in the Constitution. So, for socio-economic and constitional reasons, a
ceiling on landholdings is perfectly justified.

Ceiling is also justified on the ground that (a) land is inequitably distributed with
a large number going without land; and (b) this inequitable distribution impedes opti­
mal use of all the productive resources. The Agricultural Census of 1971 revealed the
following landholding pattern.
TABLE : 1.3 DISTRIBUTION OF OPERATIONAL HOLDINGS
(197 IfAGRICULTURAL CENSUS')

Size Group Percentage of Percentage of

No. of Holdings Total Area

Less than 1 ha. 50.6 9.0

1 ha. to 2 ha. 19.0 11.9
2 ha. to 4 ha. 15.2 15.5
4 ha. to 10 ha. 11.3 29.7
10 ha. and above 3.9 30.9

32
 The various NSS Rounds showed that the number of landless in the rural areas
was anywhere between 10 to 15 per cent of the rural households. Thus, the total landless
poor accounts for a substantial proportion of the persons dependent on agriculture,
while 30.9 per cent of the land is held by 3.9 per cent of households in the rural area.
This skewed distribution is not congenial to maxminising production.

It has been found from various farm management studies that a large holding
depends more on hired labour. When labour is hired the landowner is keen to equate
the marginal cost to marginal product and would stop hiring additional labourers when
he finds the marginal cost is higher than marginal product. On the other hand, on
smaller farms, the family labour is more fully used as its cost does not enter into the
calculations of the small farmer with less than fully employed family labour; and the
per-acre production is relatively higher on the small farm. Thus, if one goes by purely
economic consideration there is nothing to lose by cutting down the large holdings as
they are not the most efficient units of production nor are they helpful in absorbing
maximum labour. In a labour surplus economy, where the opportunity cost is near zero,
a fuller utilisation of family labour is ensured on the small farms.

It is also pointed out often that the holdings in India may be large but the farms
are small. Under the existing technology, large farms cannot be cultivated efficiently
by the landowner himself and it is a common feature that such holdings are parcelled
out into smaller units of operation. So, imposing a ceiling on large holdings need not
necessarily be the same as breaking up of the most efficient units of production or
breaking up of large farms. Economics of scale do not have the same applicability and
relevance to agriculture, as to industry. Moreover, it needs to be pointed out that under
the existing policy framework, a ceiling on landholdings does not necessarily imply a
ceiling on income.

1.5.1 EARLY CEILING LAWS:

In any case, ceiling on landholdings is decided purely on political considerations.

This is amply proved by the first ever experience of ceiling legislation in the country
which was enforced in Jammu & Kashmir. An arbitrary level of 22 3/4 acres was fixed
as the ceiling with no attempt to (classfv the land and the surplus land over the ceiling
was taken away without paying compensation and over 4.5 lakh acres were freely dis­
tributed to the deserving categories of people. All this was done with lightening speed
and effect.

33
 In the legislative measures meant for abolition of intermediary system, some other
states also provided for ceiling. However, nowwhere else was svailable the same po­
litical expendiency that existed in Jammu & Kashmir in those days and this explains
the sea of difference in the levels of ceiling, approach and implementation.

However, when the First Five-Year Plan was launched, the country was not yet
sure about the ceiling policy. There were no data available and no accepted policy
framework though the Kumarappa Committee’s report had dealt with this aspect. There­
fore, the Planning Commission appointed a Panel of Land Reforms which set up three
committees (1956), one to deal with tenancy reform measures, the second to deal with
the size of holdings and the third to deal with the problems of reorganisation. The
reports of these committee were submitted in 1958. The Second Plan was on by that
time and the policy was not yet formulated. The Planning Commission wanted to go
about ceiling in a systematic manner and, hence, called for a census on landholdings
throughout the country and this was also initiated during the First Plan p[eriod itself'^
However, the census was watered down into uihple studies in some states. All the
same, for the first time dependable data on landholdings were made available. Around
this time, the NSS organisation conducted the 8th Round in which landholding data
were collected. During the Second Plan period the pplicyfwas more effectively formu­
lated and spelt out in the Third Plan document.

Land reforms is a state subject under the Constitution. The Centre assumed only
the role of a guide by formulating the broad policy while it was left to the stzate^ to
enact legislative measures spelling out the details in accordance with the broad frame­
work on the one hand, and on the other the socio-political and economic compulsions
in each state.

Most of the states had enacted ceiling laws in accordance with the views ex­
pressed in the Second and Third Five-Year Plans in the early 1960s. The main features
of these laws can be briefly discussed following the significant points of law. The level
of ceiling was the most important aspect. The usefulness of a ceiling law as an effec­
tive instrument for structural change in the distribution of land and as a tool for bring­
ing about greater social justice would depend upon the levels of ceiling accepted in the
legislation. The planning commission left the level of ceiling to be decided by the
manland problems in the respective states. The resutl was that the ceiling land prob­
lems in the respective states. The result was that the ceiling varied from 15 acres to 324

34
acres. In Andhra Pradesh, for the lowest quality of land the ceiling was 324 acres. This
wide variation from state to state was not a desirable situation even after making a
margin for variations in the agro climatic situation and man-land ratio. Fixing a high
level of ceiling was the major cause for the ineffectiveness of the ceiling laws. The
unit of application is the second factofthtat would influence the effectiveness of ceiling
laws. A ceiling could be applicable to all the land held by all the members of the family
as a unit or it can be applied to an individual landholder within the family, in which case
there is no need to pool the holdings of the members of the family. The Planning
Commission held the view that as the census on agricultural holdings were conducted
on the basis of individual holdings and as records were built up on that basis it would be
more practical to keep the individual as the unit of application. Still some states adopted
family as the unit hwileysome laws had the individual as the unit of application. Where
family was adopted as the unit, it was family of five members with additional area for
additional members in some states with the outer limit prescribed, such flexbilities
further reduced the effectiveness of the ceiling policy by permitting large areas of land
being permitted to be held by landholders under one excuse or the other.

Exemptions given to various types of land, from the operation of the ceiling pro­
visions constituted the third major aspect of ceiling laws. Liberal provisions were
made in the ceiling laws. Sometimes, the list contained 30 to 40 types of qCmptions.'
The net result of such liberal exemptions was that the ceiling provisions and their effect
were further watered down. Exemptions that adversely affected the surplus area were
thouse given to mechanised farms, efficiently managed farms, specialised farms, land
held by trusts, cooperative societies and other insitiutions, etc. The net result of all the
exemptions could not be easily estimated.

Compensation payable was fixed to different states at different levels and on

different principles, though the sum payable was invariable below the market price.
Another feature of the law was the provision made for disposal of surplus land and in
this also there was much diffemce from one state to another. One can find that in §atgs2
like Gujarat and Maharastra preference was given to promoting cooperative farming on
the surplus land by cooperatives formed bylandless persons and samll holders.

1.5.2 IMPLEMENTATION

At the time of the mid-term evaluation of the Third Plan, the implementation of
land reforms including the ceiling laws was reviewed and the progress in moping

35
upsurplus land and its distribution was found to be unsatisfactory. A Committee of
Implementation was appointed in 1964 with the Central Home Minister as it’s chair­
man. This Committee made a number of recommendations; the important one was to
create the necessary high-level posts in the sates tb pursue vigorously the implementa­
tion of land reform measures. In response to this recommendation, a number of states
created special posts for this purpose, the Committee of Implementtion sent team to
different states and discussed the problems of implementation and suggested solutions.
As a result, some progress was made which was reported to the Planning Commission
periodically. By 1976, over 30 lakh^creTcvf land was declared surplus; of this, 24 lakh

acres was distributed among 10.65 lakh beneficiaries.

1.5.3 REVISION OF POLICY

However, the new technology that was catching up in agriculture and the new
political development in the country lent urgency to the question of living more effec­
tive ceiling policy. The Chief Ministers met in a conference in 1969 to evolve a uni­
form policy so far as ceiling was concerned. To discuss intensively these aspects, the
conference referred the whole issue to Central Land Reforms Committee, set up in
1969. The Committee submitted its report in 1971. The All India Congress Committee
had appointed another committee to discuss the same matter. These ^sudje^ in the

formultion of national guidelines which were approved by the Chief Ivlinisters in a

conference held in July, 1972. These guidelines were sent out to the states on July, 23,
1972 with a suggestion that the ceiling laws should be revised in accordance with them-
by the end of December 1972. This process of revised the ceiling laws and put them
into operation. The main features of the revised ceiling laws are indicated below:

Level of Ceiling: The ceiling for the best quality of land was to be between 10 and 18
acres; for the second quality of land between 18 and 27 acres; and for the poor quality
land or dry land between 27 and 54 acres, slight variations were allowed in respect of
drought-prone areas, desert areas and hill areas.

Unit of Application: The unit of application was to be the family a family being
defined as father, mother and three minor children. Major sons were allowed a separate
ceiling. All the lands of the members of the family were to be pooled and the ceiling
applied to land owned or held in any capacity. For members over five in the family,
one-fifth of the holding was allowed subject to a maximum of twice the ceiling.

36
Exemptions: Exemptions were reduce to the minimum. Plantations of specified type,
lands held by banks, cooperatives, Bhoodan Yagus Commmittees and state and central
governments as well al^lacahbodies were exempted. So were lands held by public

trusts, educational and charitable institutions. Most of the exemptions which had del­
eterious effect on the emergence of surplus land were deleted.

Implementation of ceiling laws was to be self-fmancing. Compensation was fixed

at a rate taking into account the paying capacity of the beneficiaries, but much below
the market price.

In the matter of distribution of^rpJyS land, preference was given to landless

agrigultural labour, particularly those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes.

Table-4 reveals two important points-(i) the poor progress made by the states and
(ii) the unsatisfactory reporting of the steps taken . Table-3.5 explains the unevemess
in the implementation ofJLanjd reforms in different states. Except in two States, all the
other states did not registerarv'notable progress in the implementation of ceiling laws.
Between 1964 and 70, there was some progress in the implementation of ceiling provi­
sions. The progress might be results of two factors - the inclusion of ceiling laws in the
ninth schedule of the Constitution and the improved efforts resulting from the adoption
of some of the recommendations of the implementation committee of the National
Development Council[72].

Thus, the first round of ceiling laws was not taken-up in serious earnest. The
principles of imposing ceiling on land holdings was first announced in 1953;

It is observed that, land reform programmes in India served primarily the inter­
ests of superior tenants and under proprietors rather than intrests of the rural poor.
What made the situation worse from the point of the peasantry was that, while the
government was unprepared to use the instruments of the authority for preventing the
violation of the land laws by landlords, they were preapred ruthlessly to use all instru­
ments of coericion and force for suppressing protest movemnets by the peasantry when­
ever it tried to stand for its rights. The ‘soft state’ (to use Myrdal term) for the landlords
thus ended to act as a strong state vis-avis the poor peasant [73 ]. Much progress has
been made in the implementation of the revited ceiling laws. According to the data,
collected at the end of November, 1980 in the various states, 14,15,294 returns, wee

37
 TABLE-1.4
PROGRESS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF CEILING LAWS AS IN THE YEAR1964
(UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED)

fi
R
State/Union ----- [Link] [Link] Area Area Taken Area [Link] Remarks

| u
Territory Cases Cases Declared Possession Distributed Beneficiaries
Verified Pending surplus (acres) (acres)

mi e
(acres)

« Si
A1 I 1 !
•
Andhra Pradesh* 24,805 22,119 2,656

-
Assam* 3,113 339 30529 4239

Bihar Notices were issued

•
t
Gujarath 4562

Kerala Was not enforced

Madhya Pradesh Action just intiated to implement the Act

l
Tamilnadu 4879 4783

<

38
Maharastra 9661+8990 259 4199

Kamakata Was not implemented, was awaiting amendments

Orissa Not implemented

Punjab 348% 34303 594 391837 122262 65466 63520 Tenants**

(inch Pepsu Area)

Rajasthan Implementation to be taken up by stages

Uttar Pradesh 8052 4170 3882 143714 435000

,
•
•
West Bengal 776615 435000 - Deemed to be surplus

Himachal Pradesh Not yet implemented

* The figures year for 1965

** Under the Punjab law the Ceiling was on land operated and land above the permissible area was taken possession by state phyusically, but allowed to be
retained by the landowners till suitable allottees/tenants were located. The surplus land in most cases went to these tenants already on land.
Source: Report of the land reform implementation committee, planning commission. Government of India, 1967.
 TABLE-1.5
PROGRESS IN IMPLEMENTATION OF CEILING LAWS(1970)

State Area declared Area distributed Area declared Areadistrubuted

Surplus(acres) Surpluls(acres) Surplus(acres) Surplus(acres)

*
*
■
Andhra Pradesh

Assam 67,934 466 67,934 474

<3
o
o
Gujarath

o
<N
o
o
41,030

v-T
50,000

Haryana 182,250 54,981 176,308 57,019

Tj-
O
O
O
Jammu & Kashmir

o'
450,000 450,000 450,000

00
Madhya Pradesh

o
75,581 12,500 13,000

o •
Tamilnadu 24,572 17,412 24,570 18,675

39
Maharastra 262,741 16,260 271,000 213,000

Punjab 191,527 60,333 N.A. N.A

Uttar Pradesh 240,554 120,588 237,847 N.A.

West Bengal 794,410 182,338 700,000 264,000

Himachal Pradesh
<
Z

6,525 292 N.A.

1
•
•

Tripura 145

* There was no conisstency in some cases in the reportin go progress or the details there in. For instance, Andhra Pradesh reported
declared 73,692 acres as surplus when this was actually the area likely to be sruplus. An extent of 191 acres was taken over. Fore
many states, details other tahan whgat were given for 1969 were not available. Andhra pradesh had decided to take possenssion of
surplus land only when funds are made avialable.
Source: 1. Chief Ministers’ conference on Land Reforms, No. 28-29, notes on agenda, Government of India, Ministry of Food &
Agriculture, Community Development & Cooperation, Department of Agriculture, New Delhi.
2. Chief Ministers’ conference, Summary recalled, New Delhi, 26-27, September, 1970. Ministry of Food & Agriculture, Community
Development & Cooperation, Department of Agriculture, Government of India, New Delhi, p.43.
 filed by landholders in accordance with the provisions of the law. Of these 13,21,432
cases were scrutinized and surplus land, if any, was determined, leaving only 93,683
cases still to be disposed off. An extent of37,84,877 acres of land was declared srupius,
of which only, 24,87,726 acres were taken possession of by the state. An extent of
17,28,603 acres was distributed among 12,07,400 beneficiaries, of which 4,94,325 be­
longed to scheduled castes, 1,53,350 to scheduled tribes, and 5,59,733 to other commu­
nities [74.]

It was estimated that an extent of 50,03,649 acres would become surplus as a

I, result as^erfeshlt of implementation of the revised ceiling laws. The completed in most
of thesKfesIand the total land declared srupius cannot be expected to be much more
than what is already found. The gap between the expectation and the actual suplus
declared was ober 12 lakh acres. Between the area declared surplus and the area actu­
ally - taken possession of was about 13 lakh acres. An extent of 7.6 lakh acres from the
area taken over by the state remained undistributed according to the information avail­
able. One of the reasons for this situation was the legal battles that have been intiated by
the affected land-owners at all stages of implementation.

The gap between the area taken posseession and distributed is also quite wide
and calls for a critical evaluation of the process of distribution to find out the lacunae in
the process.

A central sector scheme to assist the new assingees of surplus land was intiated
^ by the land reforms division of the Gtjoyefnment of India in 1975-76. Up to the end of
1978-79 a sum of Rs. 13.8 crores was released to the State Government for distribution
to the allottees of srupius land. The scheme was urgently conceived provided for: (1)
Rs. 500 per hectare as shortterm grant for the first two agricultural seasons to buy
^ necessary inputs for cultivating the allotted land; and (2) Rs. 500 per hectare for devel­
opment of land likeievillink, land Ksapping, bunding etc., half of the latter amount that
is Rs. 250 per heetarirwas to be given as out-rate grant while the.-ohter half was treated
as loan.

The National Development Council at its meeting in February, 1979 decided that ’
the cost of the scheme should be equally shared between September, 1979 and the new
pattern is (i) the scale of assistance would to Rs. 400 per acre or Rs. 1,000 per hectare;
(ii) the expenditure on the scheme would be shared equally between the Central and
State Governments; (iii) the entire central assistance would be a grant and will berflovided
40
in lumpsum; and (iv) the assistance will relate to the area distributed after 1 -1 -1975 but
will not be available in areas where other special programmes like SFDA, DPAP, CAK,
etc. are in operation.

The exemption has, however, been made for ITDP areas. Under the revised
scheme, an assistance of Rs. 94.09 lakhs was provided by the Central is Orissa and
Andhra Pradesh during 1979-80.

Under the Draft Five-year Plan 1978-83, a provision of Rs.30 crores was made
for this scheme. Under the present revised plan programmes, the details are being
worked out and in view of the em^olhasis on 20-point programme it has been decided
that a sum of Rs.30 crores may be included in the Sixth Five-year Plan, 1980-85. Dur­
ing the current financial year that is 1980-81, a sum of Rs. 3 crores has been made
available for this scheme.

In any case, the large landowners have, by and large, cirumvented the ceiling
laws. Benami transfers were freely resorted to well in advance of the date from which
retrospective effect was given to the provisions of the law. Where they had to part with
land they invariably parted with land of the pi^^t quality. It cannot be said that any

structural change in the distribution pattern of land had taken place in the country as a
result of the ceilinejm landholdings. Even if some disperasal of holdings have taken
place this has hapfejed with in the families and among friends and relatives such that
no effective redistribution took place.

In the recent period new contributions have been made to the study of agrarian
structure and economic development which have yielded better insights and under­
standing of this question than before. These break fresh ground in four important re­
spects:

1. In the first place mere ‘theorising from above’ has been replaced by a blending of
abstract reasoning and model-building with observation from below. The desire of the
analysts and theorists not to leave field work to others but to become field workers
themselves at the very beginning of their enquiry is a development the significance of
which cannot be exaggerated for good economic analysis.

2. Secondly, in the earlier phase many research workers began with the ambition of
constructing a grand or total view of the Indian agrarian structure. That is why the

41
preference for grand concepts like ‘feudalism’ and ‘capitalism’ or grand frameworks
like ‘transition from feudalism to capitalism’. Today it is being recognised that enor­
mous groundwork has to be done before the construction of a grand view may become
possible. Thus formulation of smaller problems (e.g. the changing forms and magni­
tude of tenancy, and middle range theorisation is now in vogue which is a good devel­
opment. This takes the economist closer to one major lesson of the history of science
that ‘ in all the sciences theorising proceeded from lesser to greater generality’.

3. Thirdly, in place of studies trying to generalise for the whole country, we have
now more regional studies which try to evolve generalisations for specific regions on
the basis of data pertaining to that particular region. As a result, we have for the first
time an insight into some concrete forms which variations of the agrarian structure
assume in backward regions like West Bengal and Bihar and dynamic regions like the
Punjab and Andhra Pradesh.

4. Fourthly, the explorations into the agrarian structure now take account not only
of the influence that it exercises on processes of stagnation or growth; they also explore
how agrarian structure is itself influenced by changes in other economic, social and
political variables. As a result of these new trends, instead of the facts being adjusted to
suit the conceptual framework or models of analysis as sometimes happened in the
past, the latter are being modified or revised in response to the demands of new facts.
This is helpful for conceptual innovations. It is yielding new insights which have far-
reaching implications also for policy.

As illustrations of these new types of regional studies, one may refer to Amit
Bhaduri’s study on ‘Study in Agricultural Backwardness under Semifeudalism’, to
Pradhan H. Prasad’s study on the constraints of‘semifeudal production relations’ on
agricultural development in Bihar [75] to the studies by M.L. Dantwala, C.H. Shah and
V.M. Rao of the agrarian structure in a Raiyatwari region, [76] to the studies on tenancy
relating to commercialised regions by C.H. Hanumatha Rao and V.S. Vyas etc. All
these represent a new harvest of insights into the specificities of the agrarian structure
achieved through application of new research technologies. V.M. Rao’s highly percep­
tive paper on ‘Two Perspectives on Land Redistribution’ also represents an entirely
new type of research work based on intensive examination of data relating to particular
area on the one had and an imaginative, non-doctrinaire approach to the problem on the
other. In V.M. Rao’s own words, ‘the measurement of the scope of redistribution calls
for far more patience in collecting data and ingenuity in analysing them than are in-

42
volved in cursory calculations of land transfers and of the land market in a Raiyatwari
region contributed by V.M. Rao breaks fresh ground in terms of both a new problem
and a new methodology. [77]

Finally, considering the agrarian structure from a dynamic standpoint the most
important question for scientific enquiry seems now to be the future of Asian peasant
economy in the context of technological change and economic development. Is the
disintegration of the peasant economy and its replacement by a capitalist economy in­
evitable? Or whether through appropriate institutional and other devices the peasant
economy can be protected and utilised as a framework of agricultural transformation?
These are important questions for scientific enquiry. The question of peasant agricul­
ture as the institutional framework of agricultural transformation in countries like India
has been sharply posed by V.K.R.V. Rao in his work Growth with Justice in Asian
Agriculture (1974).[78]

It would be appropriate to conclude this survey of studies on agrarian structure

and economic development with some observations on contributions by sociologists
and social anthropologists to this subject. As we have already indicated sociologists
and social anthropologists can make useful contributions to the understanding of the
agrarian social structure. Economists have now begun to appreciate the significance of
non-economic dimensions of the economic structure. But they have seldom explored
these non-economic dimensions in depth. For instance, in her recent book on Land
Reform in Principle .and Practice Doreen Warriner recognises the importance of caste
in India’s agrarian structure. She observes: ‘The agrarian structure of India encloses a
world of its own since it is neither a large estate nor a peasant system but a system of
caste’ [79]. This is a very penetrating statement made by an economist. But she has not
elaborated this statement by drawing upon the insights available from field studies and
by proposing further field studies.

Sociologists and social anthropologists can study the agrarian structure at both
the macro and micro levels. Macro-sociological studies can provide a dynamic, syn­
thetic and comparative view of the modernisation process in Asian societies as re­
flected at the level of the transformation of the agrarian structure. Social anthropologi­
cal studies at the micro-level can contribute a wealth of insights into the variety and
complexity of the changing agrarian social structure in different regions of the country.
It should be emphasised that most often macro-sociological studies have either taken
the form of general reflection or ‘theorising from above’ without adequate mastery

43
over the insights provided by anthropological studies at the micro-level has proved as
sterile as a series of investigations at the micro-level without reference to a broader
perspective provided by macro-sociology. It is one of the commonplaces of science the
abstraction without reference to the concrete is as unproductive as concretisation with­
out reference to an abstract framework. [80]

It should be noted that scientific enquiry into the land problem requires both
analysis and synthesis. The task of analysis is that of exploring in depth specific aspects
of this larger problem through the aid of separate disciplines and through questions
derived from a preliminary macro view of the problem. The task of synthesis is that or
re-examining the preliminary view in this new light and or re-integrating the numerous
insights and findings offered by analysis into a broad perspective of the problem under
investigation. Analysis without reference to a synthetic view is as inadequate as syn­
thesising without analysis in depth. Without such analysis of concrete situations syn­
thesising becomes what has earlier been called sterile ‘theorising from above’. The
social scientist has to acquire as it were the skills of a watchmaker who can break up the
watch into its separate parts and then re-assemble it to make a functioning whole. The
social scientist can perform this role with the same competence as that of a watchmaker
if he knows the art of combining the specific with the general. This calls for an entirely.
different type of expertise in both description and theoretical apeculation than what has
so far been shown by Indian scholars. [81]

One of the basic reform objectives was to reduce the number of tenants and in­
crease the number of new owner farmers. Its main tool is the well-tried and tested land
“ceiling,” a device which permits a landlord to retain a certain amount of land (ceiling),
the remainder or excess being earmarked for redistribution among the landless. It is the
size of the ceiling that determines how far-reaching the program might be, always with
the proviso that the ceiling is enforced.

The extreme maldistribution of land in India with nearly a quarter of the rural
households owning no land at all and another one- fifth owning less than an acre each
provides ample social and economic reasons for the use of the ceiling as a means of
redressing this imblance. The ceiling question gave rise to more debate and arguments
than any other reform issue, For it did touch on the raw never to tampering with private
property rights. But regardless of the argument for or against ceilings, the Planing Com­
mission laid down the basic policy, concluding that :We are, therefore, in faivof of the
principle that there should be an upper limit to the amount of land that an individual

44
may hold. The second plan went a step further, concentrating on a number of questions
of execution and policy.

These question were:

1. to what land should ceiling apply;
2. the levels at which the ceiling may generally be fixed;
3. what exemptions should be made;
4. steps necessary to prevent mala fide transfers;
5. the rate of compensation; and
6. redistribution of land, among those with primary claims.

It would take one too far field to touch even in general terms upon all or any of the
questions just mentioned. What should be said is that in a formal way the states fol­
lowed the recommendation of the planning Commission, each state determining the
ceilings, compensation, exemptions, priority of land allotments, and also taking note of
illegal transfers before legislative enactments and how to deal with such transfers.

At one time, a rough estimate attributed to the Planning Commission indicated a

possible surplus of about 37 million acres. According to one assessment, “ this would
be 90 percent of the area required to give any every landless family a minimum basic
holding or 42 percent of the area required to increase sub-basic holdings to basic hold­
ings; or 29 percent of the area required for both these purposes. The basic holding was
assumed to be 2.5 acres for one state, 5 acres for seven states, and 10 acres for ten
states.” Nothing came of it in practice, for the problems associated with legislating and
implementing ceilings are indeed most formidable even in conditions of good adminis­
tration, sound and speedy legislative enactments, and a minimum of opposition. Such
conditions, however, are not prevalent in India. Some land vested in state governments
was distributed. Not much land was taken from the private owners who did have land in
excess of the fixed ceilings. With becoming candor, the planning commission in the
third five-year plan noted that” on the whole, it would be correct to say that in recent
years transfers (illegal) of land have tended to defeat the aims of the legislation for
ceilings and to reduce its impact on rural economy”. For the moment- and for the fore­
seeable future- the question of how much land might have been available for redistribu­
tion is academic. Holdings have been divided up among members of families so that on
the face of it they are under the ceiling. Field observations reveal that many didn’t
bother even with such precautionary steps. There was no reason why they should have.
The legislative enactment did not contain the “teeth” to prevent such transfers, as was

45
notably the case in Japan and Taiwan. Enforcement was not a problem; really, there
was little to enforce.

1.6 Success and Failure: Critical Observations

However powerful the theoretical case, the scheme of rationing, through impos­
ing ceilings (and floors) on present holdings, ended virtually in a fiasco. Its breakdown
is a supreme example of how a perfectly sound economic programme can come to
naught on socio-political grounds. In the first flush of national fervour many States laid
down daring ceiling laws. Rather thorough and well- meaning land censuses were taken
to determine land surpluses and deficits. In some places the land market was frozen
while the census lasted. But finally, when the stage of implementation arrived, the ad­
ministration was not backed by the legislatures in which landed interests are strongly
represented. Even the final placement of the law on the statute books was delayed.
Word of mouth went round that ceilings were coming and by the time the last of the
states put ceiling laws on its statute book the large holdings had been partitioned away.
One reputable humorous journal depicted in a cartoon a vast sea of people’s heads on
which sailed a boat carrying cabinet ministers of a state, looking out with telescopes,
and the caption read: ‘No land in sight for land reform [82]’

Nevertheless, it is quite wrong to pronounce Indian land reform a failure. The

scheme of price control and rationing which land reform was-substantaited the gener­
alization that under conditions of severe shortages some control is better than no con­
trol. It is true that the right to resumption of land by small and middling land-owners
often became a loophole for tenants’ eviction. But the rate of eviction declined rapidly.
Whatever happened in the first few years, land reform made the tenants conscious of
their rights. Today in India it is not easy to evict a tenant.

As for rents, it is true that the demand for land continued unabated. But where the
tenant’s name got properly recorded in the village papers and where rents had been
fixed as so much grain per acre or so many rupees per acre, the increase in productivity,
and more so the increase in agricultural prices, reduced the burden of rent. It is not
fashionable in rural India nowadays to talk of high land rents in such cases.

But where rents were fixed as a percentage of produce, rent burden could not
decline. In 1964 Wolf Ladejinsky reported rents in Tanjore (Madras) as high as two-
thirds of the produce. Here exploitation and disincentives continued. [83]

46
 As regards the acquisition of ownership rights, only those small tenants whose
names were recorded in village papers could purchase their landlord’s lands as a matter
of right. But not many did. The partial or complete fulfillment of some of the objectives
of land reform made it unnecessary for protected tenants to acquire full ownership
rights, especially when (a) the new ownership was somewhat restrictive in definition;(b)
it involved the mustering up of a substantial amount of capital; and (c) with security
guaranteed and rent burdens reduced, many a recorded a^efordeifXenant felt almost
like an owner of land. Be that as it may, the fact that many tenants did feel so secure is
an interesting commentary on the success of this important aspect of land reform.

Success was also obvious in the abolition of intermediary landlords. Jagir aboli­
tion led to a clear improvement in revenue administration, the dispensation of justice,
law and order and indeed in social services like education, health, sanitation, etc. in
respect of which these feudal units were a vacuum. Here, through a purchase of own­
ership (bhoomidari) rights by tenants, the burden of revenue and of several ex­
ploitative dues was reduced. In many places the Record of Rights was improved and
this often turned out to be the most substantial, though the least spectacular, benefit
conferred on the peasantry.

Even so, some significant areas of the country, such as Bihar, more or less by­
passed the mainstream of land reform and brought upon their peasantry famines and
other serious consequences in subsequent years. In several regions the Record of Rights
still needs reconstruction.

But perhaps the most painful failure of land reform is found in the continuation
and a possible upsurge of the sharecropping tenancy.

At the controlled price of land-use (fair rent) as the demand for land exceeded
supply, and as landowners could do better than an open leasing of land at controlled
rents, two remarkable tendencies appeared. The more energetic or enterprising land-
owners resumed their lands for self-cultivation and a new brand of large-scale farming,
using tractors, fertilizers and better techniques, emerged in some areas, e.g., Punjab,
U.P. and Andhra. On the other hand, some landlords, after resuming their lands nomi­
nally, entered into unrecorded, exploitative agreements with their tenants-the share­
croppers. The latter invested capital as well as gave labour to the farms but were not
identified as tenants; they were only regarded as farm-hands and continued to pay a

47
very high percentage of the product as rent. As will be shown in the following chapter,
some statistical jugglery, in terms of marrying the Land Census figures with those of
the population Census of 1961, suggests the area under this concealed tenancy to be
about 10 percent of total cultivated acreage, while the area under open and recorded
tenancy is about 12.5 percent. These however are aggregative figures. In specific pock­
ets of the country such as Tanjore, observers have unearthed unrecorded lease cultiva­
tion extending over as much as 50 percent of acreage and paying rents as high as 66
percent of produce. [84]

As the phenomenon of share -cropping tenancy turns out to be a neat method of

dodging all land reforms and the future of land reforms lies largely in the direction of
analysing estimating and controlling this phenomenon, the following chapter is de­
voted to the analysis of share-cropping tenancy.

Meanwhile political support and public interest in land ceilings has revived in the
early 1970s. The Central Land Reform Committee, 1971, has suggested a ceiling rang­
ing from 10 acres of best to 54 acres of worst lands, with some addition for larger
families. Since agricultural yields have increased during the 1960s, the new ceiling are
no less liberal in terms of real income possibilities—around Rs. 15,000 per annum at
1970 prices. Many of the old loopholes are sought to be plugged: the ceiling is to be on
the family rather than on the individual; numerous exemptions, such as, those on effi­
cient farms, sugarcane farms, orchards etc. are to be eliminated. To nullify recent land
transfers, ceilings will have to be with retrospective effect and will have to be inte­
grated with tenancy reforms.

161 land CONCENTRATIONS IN ANDHRA, ASSAM AND GUJARAT

In spite of efforts made by Government to implement land reforms programme,

one of the basic objectives, more equitable distribution of land, remains unfulfilled, as
nearly 3/4 of household ownership holdings are below 2.03 hectares. Changes in con­
centration ratios for Andhra, Gujarat and Assam are given below:

48
 TABLE -1>: Changes in Concentration Rations

SI. States Concentration Ratios

No.
1970-71 1976-77

1. Andhra Pradesh 0.5994 0.5753

2. Assam 0.5300 0.5300
3. Gujarat 0.6510 0.6043

The Gini Coefficients given above indicate that concentration ratios have de­
clined considerably in Andhra and Gujarat. Figures given above have been worked out
from the Agricultural Censuses of 1970-71 and 1976-77. Though it would have been
better to give concentration ratios on the basis of ownership holdings, the Agricultural
Census reports for 1976-77 do not give any information regarding ownership holdings.
[85]

Though decline in concentration ratios are marginal, the process of transfer of

land from larger holdings to smaller holdings is continuing, however insignificant it
may be. This can he seen from Table 5 which gives distribution of number of holdings
and operated area in different size groups.

Failure of land reforms programme in India may be mainly attributed to a number

of reasons. The first and foremost factor is lack of political will and motivation on the
part of persons and institutions responsible for implementation of land reform pro­
gramme requires Government support. The existing power structure in the country
comes in the way of successful implementation of land reform programs. If honestly
implemented, land reform programme might disturb the existing power structure in
favour of the rural poor. At present, political will for introducing land reforms pro­
gramme is weak.

If sufficient political will and motivation was there, honest efforts could have
been made for preparing upto date land records at least. Honest efforts made by West
Bengal Government to prepare records of rights for registering crop-sharers is a typical
instance of the role which motivation can play. The Government to brought about col­
laboration between groups of beneficiaries (share-croppers) and rural workers organi-

49
 TABLE -1.7

Size of holding Andhra Pradesh

(in Hectares
1970-71 1976-77

No of Operated No. of Operated

Holdings Area Holdings Area

1. Marginal Holdings 24,916 10,853 28,680 13,261

(Below 1.0) (46.0) (8.0) (46.6) (9.3)

2. Small Holdings 10.648 15,328 12,519 18,355

(1.0-2.0) (19.6) (11.3) (20.4) (12.8)

3. Semi-medium 9,418 26,074 10.685 29,924

Holdings (17.4) (19.2) (17.4) (20.8)

4. Medium Holdings 6,887 41,861 7,450 46,467

(4.0-10.0) (12.7) (30.8) (12.1) (32.30)

5. Large Holdings 2,336 41,741 2,132 35,689

([Link] above) (4.3) (30.7) (3.5) (24.8)

All Categories
sorbs
135,857 61,466 143,796
(0001)
(100.0) (100.0) (100.0)
sations and rural self-governing institutions. In a number of village Panchayats, power
is passing into the hands of rural poor, such as, landless labourers and small holders.
Unless power passes into the hand of rural poor with rural poor having a dominant say
in affairs of village panchayat, it will be difficult to undertake work such as an upto-
date and correct record of rights. Reasonable success attained by keralajn transferring
occupancy rights to tenants is another example of the importance of political will for
successful implementation of tenancy reforms. Reasonable success attained by land
tribunals in Karnataka is another example.

Correct political motivation plays an important part in effective implementation j

of ceilings legislation also. This can be seen from the fact that West Bengal accounts for
as much as 25 percent of surplus land declared so far.

The second important factor responsible for failure of land reforms programme is
evasion of land reform legislations due to numerous loop-holes in legislation, such as,
tenancy legislations, land ceilings legislation, etc. Typical examples of such loopholes
are many. Exemption of certain categories of land from ceilings legislation and right to
resume land for personal cultivation by land owners under the tenancy legislation lead­
ing into benami transfers are instances of this type.

The third important factor which is a crucial obstacle for implementation of land
reforms programme, particularly tenancy legislations, is the demographic factor, namely,
adversee land-man ratio. In a country, where the population growth rate is high and
where the non-agricultural sector is not growing fast enough to absorb the surplus popu­
lation from land, it is difficult to implement any land reforms programme. Due to acute
shortage of land, tenants are prepared to take land on lease agreeing to whatever condi­
tions the landlord imposes. As a result, tenant have been evicted from land and formal
tenancy arrangements have been replaced by informal tenancy arrangements. [86]

To what extent pressure of population on land is increasing can be seen from the
fact that per capita availability of land has decreased from 0.91 hectares in 1950-51 to
0.75 hectares in 1960-61,0.60 hectares in 1970-71 and 0.54 hectares in 1975-76. Thus,
over a period of 25 years, per capita availability of land has declined by 40.6 percent.
Per capita availability of arable land has declined from 0.36 hectares in 1950-51 to 0.28
hectares in 1970-71 and the per capita cropped area has declined from 0.37 hectares in
1950-51 to 0.30 hectares in 1970-71. The average size of owned holdings has declined
from 1.95 hectares in 1954-55 to 1.53 hectares in 1971-72 and the average size of
operational holdings has declined from 2.20 hectares in 1954-55 to 1.60 hectares 1970-
71.

51
 Fourthly, the Government depended too much on the bureaucrating administra­
tive machinery for implementing land reform programs. The institution of patwaris
responsible for revenue administration at the village level is known to be not only
corrupt but also is inefficient. Even where there are honest officials in charge of imple­
mentation of land reform programs, they have become of implementation of land re­
form programs, they have become ineffective because the upper strata of landowners
have great influence at the Governmental levels. Vested interested in land occupy a
crucial position in the power structure of the country.

Fifthly, only strong peasant organisations can resist misdirected implementation

of policy measures. Excepting in some parts of the country such as Kerala, West Bengal
and parts of Punjab, strong peasant organisations do not exist in the country. Rural
organisations and social institutions are weak.[87]

In persuance of the land reform policy measures formulated by the central gov­
ernment, parliamentary enactments, various state Governemtns formulated, tjmgf over
legislative acts. The next chapter presents a brief account of the land reform actsand a
critical appraisal of the implementation measures in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The
next chapter presents a historical perspective of land reforms policy measures in the
state of Andra Pradesh. A survey of reseach studies counducted for critical analysis of
the land reforms measures and their implementations process is presented in the next
chapter.

52
 Notes and References:
1. Charles Bettetheim; Indian Independent, Maggibon of kee London 1968 P.23
(2. P.G. Joshi; Land Reforms in India. P.75.
3. Digby, Willions; ‘ Prosperous British India’, London, 1901, P-XII, Quoted from
paul Baram, OP. cit.P-278

Joshi, PC : Land Reforms in India, [Link](ed) Rural ^eocilogy op: cit. p - 446.
Ibid : P - 449
Joshi, P.C: ‘Pre - Independence thinking on Agraraian Plicy’ : E.P.W., Bombay,
25 Feb. 1967, P - 447 v0\ ^
7. Joshi, P.C: ‘Land Reforms in India’ Opcit. P - 449.
Dutt, .P : OP. cit. P - 233
Joshi, P.C: Land Reforms In India; Opcit. P-450.10. Dutt, R.P: Opcit. P-232,
233. ^

11. Joshi, P.C : Land Reforms In India; OpcihiM50.

12. Joshi, P.C : Pre- Independence thinking on Agrarian policy’, Opcit. p-447
13. Ibid, p-447
14. Ibid, p-450
15. Dobb, Maurice : Studies in the development of capitalism, Routledge & Kegan
paul, London 1962, p-240,241
16. Joshi, P.C: Land Reforms in India ‘, Opcit p-451
17. Ibid, p-451
18. Joshi, P.C : Land Reforms in India ‘. Opcit. p-450
19. Davey, Brian: Opcit. p-166 ^
20. In Soviet literature this period of the peasent movements in India has been treated
by A.M. Melnikov in the articakKretyan skoye dvizheniye V. Indii V 1934-1936
g g.i Obr ozovaniye Vsendyskogosoyuza(Tyhe peasant movement in India in
1934-1936 and founding of the All-India kisan sabha) in voprosy Istorii (prob­
lems of history) 1954 No. 6.
21. Resolutions on Economic policy and programme 1924-1954 (New Delhi, All-
India Committee), pp. 3-10
22. Ibid. pp. 17-18.
23. This has been clearly brought out by S. Sivasubramanian in his recent work Na­
tional Income of India 1900-91 to 1946-47 (Ph.D thesis submitted to the univer­
sity of Delhi 1965). See also P.K. Mukherji and Sivasubramanian “Agricultural
out put and National Income in India, pp. 1-43, studies in India Agricultural Eco­
nomics, J.P. Bhatacharjee(ed.) 1958.

53
24. See V.K.R.V. Rao, Agricultural production and productivity during the plan peri­
ods; Indian Journal of Agricultural economics vol. XVII, 1, January - March, 1962.
25. Ibid., p.23.
26. Ibid., pp.25-26.
27. RCARC, p.8 #
28. Dr. P.C. Joshi Land Reforms in India; perspective, No.2 (June 1961) p.106.
29. Resolutions on Economic Policy and programmes, 1955-1956 (New Delhi, All
India Congress Committee, 1954), pp.4-10.
30. [Link] memorandum on land policy, submitted to the national plan forum, Delhi,
14-15 April, 1956.
31. Report of the Second National Conference of the Praja Socilist Party, 26-30 Dec
1955, P-145.
32. Committee ‘C’ on second Five year plan, synopis of proceedings 8-13"’ July 1956
(New Delhi 1956). S A
33. Indian National congress. Election manite^to (1957) p. 12
34. Election Manifesto of the CommunistParty of India(New Delhi, 1957) p.33
/35?) Daniel Thorner. The Agrarian prospect in India (Delhi 1956) p.25.
36. Abolition of Zamindari system (patna, 1946) p.4 (citation is from the article con-
N gress Betarayal of Bihar peasantry by V.K.P. rikhi in New age (december-1953)
Yl) RUPZAC vol I p. 358
38. Modem Review (September- 1950)
39. ) Thomer op cit p.p.15-16
Government of India progress of land Reform(delhi-1955) p.8
ASI. vol XII No. 7,(october 1957) p. 757.
Resolutions on economic policy and programme 1952-54 p.5649. Ibid: p.68.
42. Ibid: p.74
43. See also: Thomer Opcit. pp 30-31.43
44. It is interesting to note in this connection that the delays in carrying out the re­
forms ofter originated in the centre see Ibid
45. Cross Roads. 24 August 1952
46. Quoted from N. prasada Rao Abolition of land lordism p. 14
47. See Asia vol. VII No.4(July-1952) p,206
48;) Goverment of India the first five year plan (Delhi-1953)
49. ASi, vol VIII No. 2 (May-1953) p.100
50. Resolutions on Economic policy and programme 1952-54. p.81.
51. Ibid, p.92.
52. Communist party of India, Our task among the peasant masses (Delhi, 1954)p.8
54
ASI, vol. IX No.7 (October 1954) p. 425
India 1958 A Rgterence Annual p. 277 In Rajastan as of 1 Junuary 1958 only the
estates of the Jagirdars had been alinated and as regards the Zamindars no corre­
sponding legislation had been passed.
Reports of the committees of the panel of land Reforms p.99
ASI Vol XV,No.l2 (March 1961) P.1397.
Government of Madras (LA Bill No. 8 of 1960); A Bill to provide for the fixa­
tion of celing on land Holdings and for certain other matters connected There
with in the state of Madras. P.47.
Ibid; p.48
Ibid; p.p.2.3
Third five year plan. P.221.
Sharjapur p.123
Ibid; p.53
ASI, Vol XLL, No.7 (October 1957)P.756.
Gulzari Lai Nanda, progress of land Refrorms in Inida (New Delhi, 1957) P.13
N. Prasada Rao, progress of lnad Reforms, p.53.
See: N. Prasada Rao land Reforms under congress Raj (Communist party publi­
cation) p.17.
Quoted from I bid.
Congress Bulletin, Nos 1 & 2 1959 pp.52,54 and 77
Ibid: p.93.
Inida - Ministry of Agriculture and irrigation, Department of Agriculture Report
of the Committee on land Reform 1978. New Delhi pp 7-8.
Inida, ministry of Agriculture and irrigation. Country paper. Paper submitted to
FAO World conference on Agrarian Reforms and Rural Development, New Delhi,
Ministry of Agriculture and irrigation. PP 48-49.
Bandyopadhya.D, Land Reforms in west Bengal, 1950, Government of West Ben­
gal.
P.S. Appu, Tenancy Reforms in India, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. X,
No. 33,34 & 35 August, 1975 pp. 1339-1375.
P.T. George, Ceiling on Land Holdings in India; A Review, National Institute of
Rural Development, Hyderabad, 1979, pp. 55,56 & 63.
Planning Commission, Report of the task force on Agrarian Relatiions, New Delhi,
1973. pp. 3-7.
Francine. R. Frankel, Indias Political Economy, 1947-77, Oxford University Press,
1978. pp. 191-93.

55
77. Hung-chao, Tai. Land Reforms and Politics - A comparative Analysis, University
of California Press, Berkely, 1974, p.288.
78. P.S. Appu, Agrarian structure and Rural Development, Economic and Political
Weekly, September, 1974. p. 75.
79. PC. Joshi, Land Reforms and Agrarian Change in India and Pakisthan since 1947
in Ratna Dutta and PC. Joshi (Eds.) Studies in Asian Development - Vol. 1, Tata
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y Land Reforms in India P.T. George (Rural Development in India: same facts) pp.
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81. Pradhan.H, Prasad “Production Relations: Achilles Heel of Indian Planning”,
E.P.W,vol VIII, No. 19th May, 1973.
82. i) M.L. Dantwala and C.H. Shah, Evaluation of Land Reforms vol.I, Department of
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ii) V.M. Rao “Land Rransfers: Finding in a Ryotwari Region” E.P.W, September
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83. Joshi.P.C Land Reforms in India p. 123
84. Joshi.P.C Land Reforms in India p. 130
85. Joshi.P.C Land Reforms in India p. 141
86. Joshi.P.C Land Reforms in India p. 150
87. Joshi.P.C Land Reforms in India p. 160
88:^ The Economics of Land Regform And Farm Size in India, [Link]. (NM
' Economic Analysis of Land Reform) pp. 19
89..• The Economics of Land Regform And Farm Size in India [Link]. (NM
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\
90. ) The Economics of Land Regform And Farm Size in India [Link]. (NM
~~ Economic Analysis of Land Reform) pp.21
91. Changes in Agrarian Structure in India. H. Laxminarayana & S.S. Tyagi. New
N Delhi Agra Cole 1982 (Review of Land reforms in India) p.33
92^j Changes in Agrarian Structure in India. H. Laxminarayana & S.S. Tyagi. New
Delhi Agra Cole 1982 (Review of Land reforms in India) p.38
93. Changes in Agrarian Structure in India. H. Laxminarayana & S.S. Tyagi. New
Delhi Agra Cole 1982 (Review of Land reforms in India) p.39

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