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Land Reforms in India and Their Implications |
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Recently, a massive rally of almost twenty five thousand persons including tribals, dalits and landless farmers from 18 states marched towards the capital city. They demanded the rights to land and livelihood and overhauling of land policies and reforms. They also emphasized setting up of national land authority which would make recommendations on land policies, judicial reforms and speedier disposal of court cases related to land disputes. In India, a whopping more than 20 million farmers are facing an acute shortage of water. Other issues are related to ceiling of land holdings, distribution of land to eligible persons, including landless and homestead landless and for ensuring their possession, speedier disposal of land related court cases and necessary mechanisms. What does all this imply? Are the already existing land policies making poorer more miserable?
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Land reforms have been a national agenda of rural reconstruction since independence. The major objectives of land reforms have been:
- Reordering of agrarian relations in order to achieve an democratic social structure
- Elimination of exploitation in land relations and enlarging the land base of the rural poor
- Increasing agricultural productivity and infusing an element of equality in local institutions.
Land reforms are an attempt by the Government to achieve social equality and optimum utilization of land by redistributing the land holdings. These reforms are intended to eliminate exploitation and social injustice within the agrarian system, to provide security for the tiller of the soil and to remove obstacles arising from the agrarian structure that has been inherited from the past.
But despite this vision of the leaders of the nation, there was inertia, lack of sincerity by governments and pressure tactics of powerful land owning class discouraged land reforms in most of the states. Moreover, land demand for industrial development and other complicated economic development issues have resulted in many thousands of marginal farmers and those who were living in agriculture-oriented cottage industries were thrown out of their livelihood drove off their habitats, who have settled in the outskirts of big cities making slum clusters.
Bad results of this kind of deprivation are many, one of them are lack of healthcare and education facilities for these people. There are paradoxical examples of Bihar and Kerala. Kerala is one of the few states which took brave step of land reforms in early years, where the landless agricultural workers were provided land to settle down; the result was highest public health and distribution of basic educational facilities and least slum dwelling. Bihar had least bothered for land reforms, the state has the highest rate of illiteracy and lack of healthcare administration and highest slum dwellers in the country are from Bihar.
Tenancy reforms are one of the major aspects of the land reforms. Tenancy reforms relate to the rights and conditions of holding land. They aim at the abolishing intermediaries and bringing the actual tiller in direct contact with the State, regulation of rent, security of tenure for tenants and providing ownership on them. It also focuses on land ceiling and land holdings. Land reforms include redistribution of land ownership in favor of the cultivating classes so as to provide them a sense of participation in rural life, improving the size of farms, providing security of tenure to them. The purpose of land reform and thus the tenancy reform is twofold.
On one hand, it aims to optimum utilization of land by affecting conditions of holdings, imposing ceilings and floors on holdings so that cultivation can be done without any waste of labour and capital. On the other hand, it is a means of redistributing agricultural land in the favor of less privileged classes of tillers and cultivators, and of improving the terms and conditions on which the land is held for cultivation by the actual tillers, with a view to end exploitation.
These land reforms have not only deprived rich landowners of their inherited property, but also have helped the medium prosperous farmers. However, who are still left are the actual tillers of the soil. In UP former feudal lords still own hundreds of acres of land either by exploiting legal loopholes or through illegal stratagems. Official data gives an easy to believe picture according to which redistribution of land is impossible, however, reality lies beneath these facts and figures. The absolute landless and the near landless (those with less than half an acre of land) make up 43 per cent of rural households in India. Economic liberalization has not made any significant impact on the lives of the poor and others backward castes that lack education. Bihar serves as a good example of the same. Rich in natural resources, Bihar is one of the poorest states in India. The lack of development in Bihar is due to the almost total failure to implement land reforms and the lack of any real mass movement against the existing land holding system.
Implications:
- The slums of metros like New Delhi and Mumbai thrive with countless landless labourers who have flocked to the city in search of livelihood. Many among the migrants are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar - states which have a terrible record in land reform.
- State of Karnataka in southern India tried to grant occupancy rights to tenants. Many state governments have banned agricultural tenancy but concealed tenancy still exists. Many of the affluent states like Punjab and Haryana show a growing tendency towards 'reverse tenancy' in which large farmers lease land from small and marginal ones.
- Land reforms are the responsibility of individual states. Therefore the degree of success in implementing land reforms has varied considerably from state to state with the agenda remaining unfinished in most states.
- Today, land reform in rural India is at a turning point. Despite the inequity, the constituency advocating land reform is weakening day by day and the number of people pushing for a revocation of land ceilings is increasing.
The land reforms have not put an end to absentee ownership of land nor has it led to the disappearance of tenancies. Although the contribution of tenancy reforms could not be totally neglected but the programs including these reforms did not lead into any significant redistribution of land, or the removal of all the obstacles to increasing agricultural production.
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