CONTENTS OF DISCUSSION

MEANING OF LAND REFORMS

EMERGENCE OF LAND REFORM IN INDIA

LAND TENURE SYSTEM WEAKNESS OF AGRICULTURE COMPONENTS OF LAND REFORM OBJECTIVE OF LAND REFORM LAND HOLDINGS

POST INDEPENDENCE

Land reforms involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. It refer to transfer of ownership from the more powerful to the less powerful: such as from a relatively small number of wealthy (or noble) owners with extensive land holdings (e.g., plantations, large ranches, or agribusiness plots) to individual ownership by those who work the land. Such transfers of ownership may be with or without compensation; compensation may vary from token amounts to the full value of the land.

Land policy in India has been in discussion prior to Independence. The land-revenue system, implemented by Todar Mal, during Akbar's regime can be traced as the possible beginning of systematic efforts to manage the land. This method incorporated measurement, classification and fixation of rent as its main components. Under the various pre- British regimes, land revenues collected by the state confirmed its right to land produce, and that it was the sole owner of the land. British rulers took a cue from this system and allowed the existence of noncultivating intermediaries.

Independent India, inherited from its British colonial masters, a land tenure system which was semi-feudal in character with heavy concentration of land in the hands of a few land lords called zamindars. It covered over 40 percent of land area in the country covering Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Uttar Pradesh. This system was highly exploitative in character; it not only impoverished the peasants but thwarted growth of agriculture and uplift of the rural economy over zamindari tenures were operative. Besides the Zamindari system the other two types of tenure prevailing in agriculture were the Ryotwari system and the Mahalwari system. There was thus an urgent need for appropriate policy measures that could mitigate the evils associated with land tenure system and improve farmers life, productivity and living standards.

Land tenure system denotes as to who owns the land, who pays land revenue to the government and who actually cultivates the land. Based on these, there are 3 systems of land revenue that prevailed in India. They are: The Zamindari System The Ryotwari System The Mahalwari System

A Zamindar was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over. They were landlords in colonial India. The zamindari system was a way of collecting taxes from peasants. This system was created by East India Company when in 1973, Lord Cornwallis entered into permanent settlement with the landlords with a view to increasing the revenue of the company. According to Bhawani Sen approximately 25% of the produce was taken away by the intermediaries in the form of rent. This means that out of the income of Rs.4800 crore from agriculture in 1949-50,the share of intermediaries was as high as Rs.1200 crore. Grabbing of such a high income was not socially unjust but also highly detrimental to capital formation & economic development. The actual cultivator was left with no surplus to invest in better implements, improved seeds or fertilizers and neither was there any incentive for him to increase agriculture production and productivity.

Consequently, agriculture production was held down and from 1880s to the 1940s it rose so slowly as to amount to virtual stagnation.

FEATURES OF ZAMINDARI SYSTEM

Zamindars made owners of large tracts of land
Zamindar were given ownership of large tracts of land covering many villages. They paid a fixed amount of revenue in return to the government every year. The zamindars got the land cultivated by the village people whom they charged rent on land in the form of a major share of the output produced on the farms. Cultivators had no ownership right on land and were always at the mercy of the zamindars.

Ruthless exploitation of cultivators

Cultivators were subjected to increased rents as an increasingly larger part of output on land was claimed by the zamindars. To produce more supervisors were appointed which further added to zamindars expenses and created more burden on the cultivators. It resulted in the emergence of a class of zamindars who cornered most of agriculture produce. On the other side was a class of poor famished cultivators who had no interest left in cultivation.

The Ryotwari system is that where ownership of land vests with persons or families who are also the actual cultivators of that land. This is also called a system of peasant proprietorship where owner-cultivation is the general mode of farming. In some cases the land was actually cultivated by the tenants, but such practices may be few and scattered. By and large, the owner cultivate the land and they also deposit the revenue fixed by the government in the treasury. Thus the cultivators(called ryots) are in direct contact with the state, they own the land for which they pay land revenue to the government, and they cultivate their own land. This system was initially introduced in Tamil Nadu and was later extended to Maharashtra, Barar, East Punjab, Assam and Coorg.

This system was introduced by Lord William Bentinck in Agra and Oudh. It was later extended to Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. In this system, the whole village was treated as a unit as far as payment of land revenue was concerned. The responsibility for collecting the land revenue and depositing it in the treasury was of the village headman(or a co-sharer appointed for the purpose). According to the Congress Land Reforms Committee the ownership of land under this system was collective. Period of settlement , fixation of land revenue, etc .,were different in different mahalwari areas.

Weakness of agriculture sector

Weak productive accumulation:
At the time of independence, there were defective means of production, lack of use of fertilizers, defective machines, etc. all these led to weak production accumulation.Labour intensive cultivation was used. Capital equipments weren't in use. Unemployment and underemployment: Poor capital formation in agraiculture led to rise in unemployment and underemployment. Low productivity of labour: Farmers were poor , undernourished, suffered low stamina and had no incentive to work. It led to low productivity of labour.

Land reform consists of three components : reform of the land tenurial structure reform of the production structure reform of the supporting services structure

The land tenurial structure deals with land rights and land ownership. Land rights can take several forms. The most preferred is owner-cultivator ship. The production structure is illustrated by the way in which land and other resources enter into production. The supporting services structure describes the type of services which helps contribute to the production of agricultural commodities and, more generally, to the well-being of the farm households.

Land reform has the following objectives: To convert tenant and landless farmers into owneroperators To provide and ownership to squatter farmers through legalisation and land distribution To increase agricultural production and improve delivery systems of supporting services so as to ensure betterment of living standards among the farmers, and To reduce social and economic inequalities.

Landholdings mean the area of land which a person or a family owns, which could be in the form of one piece of land or a number of small scattered pieces of land. The land area thus held by a person or a family is called ownership holding.

STRUCTURE OF LANDHOLDINGS
Land as the Prime Asset in agriculture Small Size of Landholdings

Land as the Prime Asset in agriculture

Land is the most important asset in agriculture. Two important aspect of land that have a significant impact on agriculture efficiency are: (a)Size and distribution pattern of landholdings and (b)The ownership condition of land or the system of land tenure.
Both the size distribution of land and the land tenure system form an important part of the institutional framework of agriculture. Old school institutions like the joint family system disintegrated over time and caused subdivision and the consequent small size of landholdings that cover over 90% of land area. And the imposition of the alien tenurial system by the British called Zamindari System further contributed to the slow growth and virtual stagnation of agriculture. Thus for ensuring meaningful pace of development in agriculture, the government of India tried to bring about the needed reforms though the pace of such reforms has been very slow and uneven among the various states of the Indian Union.

Small size of land holdings

One of the biggest obstacles in development of agriculture is posed by the existence of very small landholdings in India. The average size of operational holdings which was only around 2.28 hectares in 1970-71 was further reduced to about 1.57 hectares in 1990-91. And within this small average size, nearly 58% of the holdings were below 1 hectare while another 33% were between 1 and 4 hectares in area. Thus over 90% of operational holdings were small or very small holdings. The extremely small and scattered landholdings are the consequences of sub-division and fragmentation of landholdings in India, a practice under which land is divided among all the inheritors of deceased persons land and other property.

Some points can be noticed from the table: Before land reform 1) Disparities in the size of land holding. On one hand smaller size holdings were 26.3% while holdings ranging from 100 hectares and more, were 0.1% of the total land. 2) Disparities in area under use. While 1.8% smaller size holdings were operational instead of 26.3% of total small size holdings available & 8.7% of 0.1% of total large size holdings was operational which shows the inequalities with respect to availability of operational land. After land reform After land reform because of governments effort to consolidate land and discourage the practice of fragmentation and subdivision of land, the units of large size holding rose and along with it the use of the same increased.

Immediately after Independence a Committee, under the Chairmanship of the late Shri J. C. Kumarappa (a senior Congress leader), was appointed to look into the problem of land. The Kumarappa Committee's report recommended comprehensive agrarian reform measures. A substantial volume of legislation was adopted, much of it flawed and little of it seriously implemented. Land policy in India has undergone broadly four phases since Independence. The Constitution of India also made land a state (provincial) subject. So, only state (provincial) legislatures have the power to enact and implement land-reform laws. The Government of India established a National Planning Commission immediately after Independence to fulfill this role of social and economic planning. The Planning Commission has prepared a series of Five-Year Plans since 1951.

Apurwa Shah Roll no.-183