• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
 1
Land Reforms in India
Historical perspective
India inherited a semi-feudal agrarian system. The ownership and control of land was highlyconcentrated in a few landlords and intermediaries whose main intention was to extractmaximum rent, either in cash or kind, from tenants. As a result, agricultural productivity sufferedand oppression of tenants resulted in a progressive deterioration of their plight.As the basis of all economic activity, land can either serve as an essential asset for the country toachieve economic growth and social equity, or it could be used as a tool in the hands of a few tohijack a country's economic independence and subvert its social processes.During the two centuries of British colonization, India had experienced the latter reality. Duringcolonialism, India's traditional land ownership and land use patterns were changed to easeacquisition of land at low prices by British entrepreneurs for mines, plantations etc. Theintroduction of the institution of private property de-legitimized community ownership systemsof tribal societies. Moreover, with the introduction of the land tax under the PermanentSettlement Act 1793, the British popularized the zamindari system at the cost of the jajmanirelationship that the landless shared with the land owning class. By no means a just system, thelatter at least ensured the material security of those without land.Owing to these developments, at independence, India inherited a semi-feudal agrarian system.The ownership and control of land was highly concentrated in a few landlords and intermediarieswhose main intention was to extract maximum rent, either in cash or kind, from tenants. Underthis arrangement, the sharecropper or the tenant farmer had little economic motivation to developfarmland for increased production. Naturally, a cultivator who did not have security of tenure,and was required to pay a high proportion of output in rents, was less likely to invest in landimprovements, or use high yielding varieties or other expensive inputs likely to yield higherreturns.At the same time, neither was the landlord particularly concerned about improving the economiccondition of the cultivators. As a result, agricultural productivity suffered and oppression of tenants resulted in a progressive deterioration of their plight.In the years immediately following India's independence, a conscious process of nation buildinglooked upon problems of land with a pressing urgency. In fact, the national objective of povertyabolition envisaged simultaneous progress on two fronts, high productivity and equitabledistribution. Accordingly, reforms of the land were visualized as an important pillar for a strongand prosperous country. The first few five-year plans allocated substantial budgetary amounts forthe implementation of land reforms. A degree of success was even registered in certain regionsand states, and especially in areas like the abolition of intermediaries, protection to tenants,rationalization of different tenure systems and the imposition of ceiling on land holdings. Fifty-four years down the line, however, a number of problems are still far from satisfactorily resolved.
 
 2Most studies indicate that inequalities have increased, rather than decreased. The number of landless labor has gone up and the top ten percent monopolizes more land now than in 1951.Meanwhile, the issue of land reforms has over the years, either unconsciously faded from publicmind or deliberately been glossed over. Vested interests of the landed elite and their powerfulnexus with the political-bureaucratic system have blocked meaningful land reforms and /or theirearnest implementation. The oppressed have either been co-opted with some benefits, or furthersubjugated. As a result, we are today at a juncture where land, mostly for the urban, educatedelite, and who also happens to be the powerful decision-maker, has become more a matter forhousing, investment and infra-structure building.In the bargain, the existence of land as a basis of livelihood – for subsistence, survival, social justice and human dignity has largely been lost.
What is required?
 
To raise popular and elite awareness on issues related to land, particularly in the presentcontext of the LPG (liberalization, privatization, globalisation) thrust of the government sincethe 1990s
 
To monitor specific projects and programmes being aided by international financialinstitutions in some states of India in order to assess their true impact on the rural communitydirectly affected.
 
To monitor and scrutinize national and transnational economic trends that have a specificbearing on issues related to land and agriculture.
 
To explore the efficacy of the current developmental model that perceives land only as afactor of production, and not as a means of survival, equity and dignity.
 
To examine possible strategies for facilitating reconciliation between the claims of themarket over land and land reforms to ensure social change based on justice and equity.
 
To document historical strategies of land reforms and place them in the socio-economic-political context in which they were effective or not and accordingly cull out lessons for thefuture.
 
To recommend alternative policies and approaches to contemporary land challenges.
 
To provide research and analytical support to the existing land movements, and facilitatebetter networking among them.
 
To awaken the weakening social consciousness of an increasingly consumerist society bydrawing linkages between the economic policies of globalization at the macro level and itsimpact on human livelihoods at the micro level
 
 3
Challenges ahead
The task of the articulation of objectives is several times easier compared to the challenges thatlie ahead in realizing these goals. Any reform is as difficult an economic exercise as a politicalundertaking since it involves a realignment of economic and political power. The groups that arelikely to be the losers naturally resist reallocation of power, property and status. Obviously, thelandholding class is unlikely to willingly vote itself out of possession. Neither should it beexpected that it would be uniformly inflamed by altruistic passions to voluntarily undertake theexercise. Hence, one cannot underestimate the complexity of the task at hand.Loopholes in legislation have facilitated the evasion of some of the provisions, for instance inceiling reforms, by those who wanted to maintain the status quo. At the same time, tardyimplementation at the bureaucratic level and a political hijacking of the land reforms agendahave traditionally posed impediments in the path of effective land reforms. Even in states thathave attempted reforms, the process has often halted mid-way with the cooption of thebeneficiaries by the status quoits to resist any further reforms.For instance, with the abolition of intermediary interests, the erstwhile superior tenants belongingmostly to the upper and middle classes have acquired a higher social status. Rise in agriculturalproductivity, rising land values and higher incomes from cultivation have added to theireconomic strength. These classes have since become opposed to any erosion in their newlyacquired financial or social status.Hence, problems related to land such as concentration, tenancy rights, access to the landless etcstill continue to challenge India. The criticality of the issue, in fact, may be gauged from the factthat notwithstanding the decline in the share of agriculture to the GDP, nearly 58% of India'spopulation is still dependant on agriculture for livelihood. More than half of this percentage(nearly 63%), however, owns smallholdings of less than 1 hectare while the large parcels of 10hectares of land or more are in the hands of less than 2%. The absolute landless and the nearlandless (those owning up to .2 ha of land) account for as much as 43% of the total peasanthouseholds.This reality, however, had come to worry the governments little during the late 1970s and 80s. Itwas only in the 1990s, with the initiation of the economic restructuring process that the issue of land reforms resurfaced, albeit in a different garb and with a different objective and motivation.If the government-led land reforms had been imbued with a degree, though the extent isdebatable, of desire for attaining equity, social justice and dignity, the new land reforms agendais market-driven, as everything else in this phase of economic globalization, and has at its heartcertain other kinds of objectives. Being promoted and guided by various IFIs (internationalfinancial institutions), contemporary emphasis on land reforms reflects and seeks to fulfill themacro-economic objectives of these multilateral economic institutions.While the return of land reforms to the government's list of priorities is a welcome development,the manner in which it is being undertaken, its objectives, and consequently the impact on people,especially those that are already marginalized and are being further deprived of a stake in thesystem, raises a number of questions and prompts one to look for alternatives. The Project,
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...