Prologue

 So far we’ve seen: British Tenure system, peasant revolts and

three main land reforms after independence viz. (1) Zamindari
Abolition (2) Land ceiling (3) Tenancy protection Acts.
 In this article, we’ll check some people’s/NGO/Civil society
movements for land reforms in India. Their
achievements/limitations.
 In the next article we’ll come back to government actions:
cooperative farming, consolidation of land holdings and
computerization of records.

@Mains 2013 Players:  If running out of time and find this article
too lengthy then just read Bhoodan+Gramdan+directly Jan
Satyagraha 2012 and skip the topics in between.

Bhoodan Movement (Donation of Land)

 First Bhoodan in village Pochampalli, Nalgonda District,
195
Andhra (the hotbed of Telengana movement)By local Zamindar
1
V. Ramchandra Reddy to Vinoba Bhave.

195 Jayaprakash Narayan withdrew from active politics to join the

3 Bhoodan movement

Bhoodan movement had two components:

1. Collect land as gift from zamindars and rich farmers.

2. Redistribute that gifted/donated land among the landless
farmers.

Bhoodan: Mechanism/procedure/features

1. (Hierarchy) Vinoba: Sarvodaya Samaj=> Pradesh Bhoodan

Committees in each region=> local committees and individual
social workers @grassroot.
2. He and his followers were to do padayatra (walk on foot from
village to village). Persuade the larger landowners to donate at
least one-sixth of their lands.
3. Target= 50 million acres. (~1/6 of total cultivable land in India)
4. When a Zamindar/rich farmer gifts/donates a land, the Bhoodan
worker would prepare a deed.
5. These Deeds forwarded to Vinoba Bhave @Sevagram for
signature.
6. Bhoodan Worker took help of Gram Panchayat, PAtwari (village
accountant) to survey the beneficiaries and land fertility.
7. First preference given to landless agricultural laborers, then to
farmers with insufficient land.
8. A date was fixed, entire village gathered and the beneficiary
family was given land.
9. Those who receive the donation are asked to sign a printed
application requesting for land, after which they are presented
with certificates of having received land.
10. No fees charged from the beneficiary.
11. Beneficiary was expected to cultivate the land for atleast
10 years. He should start within three years of the receipt of
land.
 12. These Rules/procedures were relaxed by taking local
conditions, cultures in account.

Many state governments made legislation to facilitate donation and

distribution of Bhoodan land. Example: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Punjab,
Rajasthan, U.P., Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.
Subsequently, the movement was widened into Gramdan. States
again passed special legislation for management of Gramdan villages.
Bhoodan: Positive

 In the initial years the movement achieved a considerable

degree of success, especially in North India- UP, Bihar.
 By 1956: receiving over 4 million acres of land as donation.
 By 1957: ~4.5 million acres.
 The movement was popularised in the belief that land is a gift of
nature and it belonged to all.
 The donors of land are not given any compensation. This
movement helped to reduce the gap in haves and have-nots in
rural areas.
 This movement was un-official. The landlords were under no
compulsion to donate their land, it was a voluntary movement.
One of the very few attempts after independence to bring about
land reform through a movement
 Promoted the Gandhian the idea of trusteeship or that all land
belonged to God.
 Communist leader E.M.S. Namboodiripad
o the Bhoodan and Gramdan movement stimulated political
and other activity by the peasant masses
o has created a favourable atmosphere for political
propaganda and agitation
o for redistribution of the land
o for abolition of private ownership of land
o for the development of agricultural producers’
cooperatives.

Bhoodan: Obstacles, Limitations, Problems

Slow progress  After ’56 movement lost its momentum.

  While nearly 4.5 million acres of Bhoodan land
was available- barely 6.5 lakh acres was
actually distributed among 200,000 families
(1957)
 In some cases the donors took back their land
from the Bhoodan workers for certain reasons.
 This created doubts in the minds of some
people about the continuity of the movement.

village leaders, or allotting authorities, demanded

money from the poor for recommending their names
Bribes for allotment. As a result, many underserving
villagers also got land e.g those already having
land/ those involved in trade-commerce.
Bhoodan movement created land hunger among
landless.Some of them applied multiple times in the
Greed
name of wives, children etc. to get more and more
free land.
big landlords donated those land which were unfit
Donating bogus
for cultivation (or under court litigation). Such
land
donations served no real purpose.
 Sometimes Bhoodan workers would even
accept disputed land as gift. Without
Disputed land verification.
 Later the Matter would be stuck in court
litigations and beneficiary would get nothing.

 In the later phase, Bhoodan workers got

associated with one or another political
parties. Some of them tried to ‘use’ the
Bhoodan organization as a means to gain
Politicization political clout and dividends at the time of
election.
 Thus as the years passed, Bhoodan workers
lost credibility and respect among
villagers=>land gifts declined.

Bribes  Since Bhoodan workers became political

 agents, Some landlords / Ex-Zamindars
donated land as ‘bribe’ to Bhoodan workers-
with hope of getting favourable returns e.g.
ticket in local election, road-contracts, building
contracts etc.
 And if they (landlords) were not given such
favours- they’d forcibly take back the Bhoodan
land from the beneficiary later on.

 Mere allotment of land=insufficient. Because

landless farmer also needed seeds, fertilizer,
Support irrigation etc.
 Often the beneficiary couldn’t arrange loans
for these inputs.

 District officials were slow and inefficient in

finishing the formalities of Bhoodan land
bureaucratic transfers.
apathy  donated land remained idle for a number of
years and the revenue for it had to be paid by
the donor.

1. The average size of land given to

beneficiary=0.5 to 3 acres.
Fragmentation 2. Result: land fragmentation + diseconomies of
scale + ‘disguised unemployment’ without any
noticeable rise in agro-production.

3. Bhoodan’s main purpose was to ‘serve as a

brake on the revolutionary struggle of the
Marxist peasants’
Criticism 4. Thus idea of Bhoodan= reactionary, class
collaborationist.

Missed the 5. Bhoodan based on Gandhian idea of

bigger picture trusteeship. Some Socialists wanted this
movement to realize the potential of
trusteeship and launch mass civil
disobedience against injustice.
 6. The Sarvodaya Samaj, however, on the whole
failed to make this transition: to build an active
large-scale mass movement that would
generate irresistible pressure for social
transformation in large parts of the country.

 All these loopholes, slowly and steadily, made the movement

dysfunctional.
 1999: Bihar government dissolved the State Bhoodan
Committee for its inability to distribute even half the Bhoodan
land available over the past thirty-eight years.
 Thus, Vinoba’s lofty ideal remained more as a philosophy and
was never realized fully.

Gramdan (Donation of the Entire Village)

First 1952: by the village of Mongroth in U.P.1955: Orissa,

Gramdan Koratpur district.

At a later phase, this progamme was extended to other states in

Bihar, Maharashtra, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Gramdan: Concept/Principles

1. Gramdan may be defined as an experiment in collective village

living.
2. Original idea comes from Gandhi’s reply to Jamnalal Bajaj: “it is
far better for a hundred families in a village to cultivate their land
collectively and divide the income therefrom than to divide the
land any how into a hundred portions”.
3. Vinoba Bhave popularized ^this concept of Gandhi.

Gramdan Mechanism

The villagers have to sign a declaration saying, “We are vesting the
ownership of all our land to the “Gram Sabha” of the village.

1. This Gram Sabha/ Village council will unanimously nominate ten

to fifteen persons who will form an executive Committee.
 2. This executive Committee will be responsible for the day-to-day
administration of the village.
3. The decisions of the Committee will be ratified by the Council.

In other words, Gramdan=A Gram Sabha like institution collectively

owned and managed entire land/farms of the villagers.
Gramdan: Benefits

1. In an ideal gramdan village, there will be no landowners, and no

absentee landlords.
2. The labourers will give all their earnings to the village
community, which will then distribute it according to needs.
3. Thus, gramdan acts as the ideal unit for putting the principles in
the practice, “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs”.

By
Approx.Gramdan Villages
1960

Orissa 1900+

MH 600

Kerala 550

Andhra 480+

Madras 250

Gramdan movement was considered superior to the Bhoodan

movement because:

BHOODAN GRAMDAN

land fragmentation, inefficient Nope

cultivation, distribution of poverty,
decline in marketable surplus ,
donation of uncultivable land, legal
and other difficulties of redistribution,
etc.

Nope Economies of scale

Benefits only the person who gets the Sarvodaya of entire village.
land Everyone benefits.

 possible to correlate with

economic planning in the
country.
 2nd FYP recognized that
Nope Gramdan village have
great significance for co-
operative village
development.

Limitation of Gramdan? Gramdan was successful mainly in villages

where class differentiation had not yet emerged and there was little if
any disparity in ownership of land or other property. E.g. Tribal
villages. But didn’t find cooperation from other villages in the plains or
villages near urban centers.

Pardi Satyagraha, Gujarat, 50s

1. Socialist workers: Iswarbhai Desai, Ashok Mehta.
2. Kisan Panchayat: a non-political body with no affiliation
WHO to any political party.
3. Tribals from Pardi and Dharmpur Taluka

WHEN 1953-1967

Why?

1. 75% of the agro land was owned by 100 big landlords.

2. These landlords were not interested in farming. They kept the
land as such- so grass automatically grew and sold profitably in
Bombay fodder trade.
 3. Local tribals would get labour work in such ‘fodder-farms’ for
only 1-2 months during harvesting. They remained jobless and
starving for remaining months. While the landlords made decent
profit with almost none investment or efforts.

OBJECTIVES/FEATURES/ACTION:

 Redistribution of land was not on their agenda. (Themselves

declared it)
 Satyagrahi would enter in the private land and start tilling to
grow foodcrops and court arrest.
 Tribals to boycott grass cutting work. even outside labour would
not be allowed do the work. Picketing. As a result, the grass
dried up at many places.
 With time, movement found support from public and political
parties
 Bhoodan and Gramdan movements also started but failed
thanks to poor response from landlords.

Result? Almost #EPICFAIL because:

1. 1960, Gujarat created out of Bombay state. New state

government made some promises=>Iswarbhai and other
Satyagrahi joined the Congress party. Hence
momentum/pressure was lost.
2. 1965: War between India Pakistan. The CM (Balwant Rai
Mehta) died in plane crash. New CM (Hitendra Desai) did not
show much interest in fulfilling promises made by previous CM.
3. Landlords went to Gujarat Highcourt court. Although HC rejected
their plea, but state government did not show any urgency to
implement the agreements.
4. 1966: Ishwarbhai Desai decide to quit congress and launch a
new Satyagraha, but he died. And others were unable to provide
effective leadership/direction to the movement.
5. 1967: A new agreement between the government, the landlords
and the Satyagrahis. But the implementation carried out at a
snail’s pace.

Great Land Struggle, 1970s

WHEN 1970s
  Bhartiya Khet Mazdoor Union, All India Kisan Sabha
and Communist Party of India
 Nearly 15 lakh agricultural workers, poor peasants, the
WHO? tribals, workers and the poor from the towns
 Trade unions and students, the youth and the women’s
organizations came forward and directly participated in
the struggle.

TYPE militant mass movement

 to highlight the fact that land is concentrated in the hands of
a few landlords, former princess, zamindars and monopolists
WHY?
and to alert public attention to the urgent need for radical
agrarian reforms.

OBJECTIVES/ACTIONS

1. Occupy the government lands, forest lands, the land belonging

to landlords, monopolist, black marketeers.
2. Start cultivating on ^above land
3. Landless fight for full ownership of land
4. Tenants fight to reduce rent
5. Tribals fight for tribal land grabbed by forest contractors and
moneylenders from the plains.
6. Urban poors fight for vacant land for housing
7. Everyone fight to get radical amendments to the present ceiling
laws and distribution of surplus land.

TWO PHASES:

PHASE What Who?

all the states, except Andhra

JULY, Occupying government
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,
1970 land and forest land
Manipur and J & K,

Occupying huge farms of all states, except Assam (due

AUGUST, landlords, former princes, to heavy flood) and Kerala
1970 Monopolists like Birlas (due to Mid-term election)
etc. participated.
Overall, More than 2 lakh acres of land was occupied, more than
lakhs of people arrested.
OUTCOMES

1. While Bhoodan movement silently faded away from public

memory and political arena silently, but the great land
Satyagraha, created ripples in the public mind and ruling party.
2. Before the land struggle, the Union and the state governments
never felt the urgency of solving the land problem. But now,
Every state government came out with figures & plans to
distribute wasteland among the poor.
3. For the first time, land distribution started in actual practice, and
some landless people got Pattas of land.
4. Birlas were exposed as the biggest land grabber of India. Their
farms in Uttaranchal and Punjab were distributed to farm
labourers.
5. Government appointed Central Land Reform Committee to
address agrarian inequalities in the country.

Land for Tillers Freedom (LAFTI), Tamil Nadu, 80s

LAFTI was founded by Krishnammal and her husband Jagannathan in
1981.
Features/Actions by LAFTI

1. Earlier we saw how rich farmers in Tamilnadu transfereed their

land to fake trusts/charitable organizations/ schools, hospitals
and dharrnashalas to avoid land ceiling.
2. LAFTI organized people against such illegal holdings and
pleaded government to takeover such land and redistribute it
among the landless poor.
3. Highlighted the loopholes in the land related acts. LAFTI
petitioned the President of India about the weaknesses in the
Benami transection ordinance and how landlords evaded
ceilings.
4. Negotiated with banks and landlords for a reasonable price for
the purchase of land. And then redistributed it among landless.
5. Generally, the nationalized bank charged a high rate of interest
(14%) for offering loan for the land transfer projects. LAFTI
 appealed to the government of India to reduce interest rate to
4%.
6. Requested government to waive stamp-duty and registration
fees for transferring land to landless.
7. Started its own banking scheme, titled “LAFTI Land Bank”, by
involving 10000 landless families. These 10000 people
deposited. Re. 1 per day or Rs. 10 per week or Rs. 500 per year
for five years.
8. With this money and help from the government in the form of
exemption of stamp duties and registration fees, LAFTI planned
to transfer 500 acres of land per year to the landless families.

Land Satyagraha, Chattisgarh, late 80s

CAUSES/REASONS:

1. Land ceiling act were not implemented because nexus between

the land mafia, landlords, bureaucrats, politicians.
2. Under government’s land distribution schemes- the landless
were provided with Pattas (land ownership document) but
landmafias / rich farmers / forest contractors did not allow them
to physically occupy the land.
3. State Government made it mandatory for all the landlords to give
back tribal land to the tribals. But these landlords would appeal
in higher courts and matter kept pending for years.
4. The tribals lacked the money and means to fight such legal
battles. State government didn’t come to their help.
5. Most of the landless were SC/ST. They were forcibly pushed out
of their ancestral land, working as bonded labour because of
indebtedness to the rich landlords or village traders.
6. By 1980′s, there were 4000 bonded labourers in Raipur district
alone.

PROGRESS/RESULT:

 1988: Land Satyagraha launched in Raipur district.

Spearheaded by bonded labours

Slogan Action

Zamin Ka Faisla,  Staging dharnas (sit-ins), hunger

 strikes on the disputed land.
Zamin Par Hoga (All  All the concerned officials, including
land issues will be from police to Patwari, Tehsildar to
settled on the land magistrate should come the disputed
itself). land and settle the matter.

 Peasants would court arrest and go to

jail in a peaceful manner.
Zamin Do Ya Jail Do”  1993: thousands of villages courted
(give us land or arrest
imprisonment).  Finally government officials refused to
arrest people as there was no room
left in Jails.

Chakka-Jam Blocking traffic on the mains roads.

 directly plough the fields with or
without government intervention.
 At almost all the places, the poor,
landless, and small farmers went in
large numbers with their ploughs and
“Jaun Khet man nagar bullocks, to register their claim over
Chalahi, wohi khet ke the ancestral land.
malik ho” (land to the  At some places people were able to
tiller) register their control over the land,
whereas in other places the official, in
connivance with the landlords and the
powerful politician, forcibly
dispossessed the people from the
land.

The land Satyagraha initiated a new dimension, a new movement,

among the people to take control over their resources.

Bhu-Adhikar Abhiyan, MP, 1996

Ekta Parishad is an NGO from Madhya Pradesh (1984). On principles
of “Samvad, Sangharsh, Rachna” (dialogue, struggle and
construction). They conducted survey in MP and found two main
problems faced by SC/ST:
 1. Land belonging to Scheduled tribe was illegally sold to outsiders
thanks to land mafia, forest contractors and corrupt bureaucrats.
2. Non Occupant Patta Holder leased their land poor farmers
(occupant cultivators) and exploited them via high rent and
random eviction.

Ekta Parishad has launched a people’s movement with the following

objectives.

3. Give Patta (land ownership document) to occupant cultivators.

4. To oppose the policy of inviting tenders from private companies,

instead of giving land to the landless.

5. To enforce joint ownership of husband and wife on the property.

(recall the lack of gender equity in land ownership)

6. Scrap the afforestation programmes funded by the World Bank.

Because the money was misused.

7. To resolve the problems of settlement of revenue land.

Result? Government appointed a Committee but it was meaningless

eyewash.

Janadesh, 2007
 By Ekta Parishad and sister organization / civil society / NGOs
 ~25000 landless tillers, labourers, Dalits and tribals, who have
been deprived of their land rights, marched from Gwalior to Delhi
to assert the land rights of the poor.

Demands?

1. Enact national land rights act.

2. setup national land authority.
3. setup land reforms council
4. fast track courts for land reforms

Result? These demands were met at least half-way by the

government, but implementation and follow-up was poor.

Jan Satyagraha 2012

About Ekta Parishad (NGO) so far we’ve seen:

 Ekta Parishad had been working for Land reforms in MP

80s since the 80s.=>State government setup committee just
for eyewash.

 They organized Jansandesh. Government agreed but

2007 implementation was poor.

 they consulted with many other NGOs/organizations to

2008- form a broader alliance for land rights.
10  trained community leaders and activists from the
weaker sections to run the next peaceful movement

 started ‘Jan Satyagraha Samvad Yatra’ over 24 states

2011 to hold public meetings and dialogues with people.

 Ekta Parishad founder P.V. Rajagopal started Jan

Satyagraha Yatra (foot march) from Gwalior on
1st October 2012.
2012  Their plan was to reach Delhi with 1 lakh people by
28th October 2012.
 But Jairam (rural ministry that time), agreed with their
demands and hence Yatra stopped @Agra.

Jan Satyagraha 2012 demanded following:

#1: General Demands

1. Bhoodaan Land= do physical verification again and take back

land from encroachers/ineligible persons.
2. Womens Land Rights: To ensure that land owned by a family is
recoded either in the name of a woman or jointly in the name of
the man and the woman.
3. Revisit land ceiling laws- implement them effectively.
4. Identify of lands encroached by ineligible persons and restore it
back to original owner.
5. Identify tribal lands alienated to the non-tribals and restore it
back.
6. Use MNREGA etc. schemes to doing irrigation projects, land
development, wasteland restoration etc. activities.
7. If government acquired land for industrial projects but it was
untilized=>give it back to poors.
8. Written Records of tenancy to help tenant farmers get bank
loans.
9. Protect/provide burial grounds and pathway to burial grounds,
especially to the most vulnerable communities in the villages;
10. Land record management in most transparent manner
11. Statutory State Land Rights Commissions to monitor the
progress of land reform.
12. State governments need to run campaigns to give land to
Nomads and settle them permanently.
13. Protect the land rights of following vulnerable groups

 Leprosy affected people

 Tribal Groups
 Physically /Mentally Challenged
 Single Women
People
 HIV Affected People
 Tea Tribes
 Siddhis (Gujarat &
 Salt/Mine/Bidi Workers
Karnatka)
 Pastoral communities
 Fisherfolks
 Bonded Labourers
 Slum inhabitants
 Internally Displaced People (due
 Hawkers
to infra.projects)

#2: PESA related Demands:

1. Harmonize state revenue laws with PESA 1996, to give gram

sabha the power over land matters.
2. For any sale/mortgage of land in the village- Gram Sabha must
be notified in writing.
3. For any changes in land records, Gram Sabha must be notified
in writing.
4. authorize Gram Sabha to call for relevant revenue records,
5. conduct a hearing and direct the SDMs to conduct hearings and
restore illegally occupied land
6. Expand the list of Schedule V villages to include more eligible
villages under PESA
7. Enforce in letter and spirit, the ‘Samata Judgment’ in all
acquisition of tribal land for private companies
 8. Governments need to make amendments in State laws that are
in conflict with PESA within a period of one year.

#3: Forest Rights Act (FRA) related Demands

1. bank loan facilities for land grander under FRA

2. Give land rights to tribals who were earlier displaced due to
National Parks and Wild life Sanctuaries
3. Settlement of Forest Rights before land acquisition related
projects are started.
4. The primitive tribal groups don’t have any documents/evidences
to prove their occupation of land/residence. So they must be
exempted from furnishing of evidence of residence as required
under Forest Rights Act.
5. ‘Orange Areas’ in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where
large extent of land is under dispute between Revenue
Department and the Forest Department =>settle this matter
immediately.

Outcome of Jan Satyagraha 2012?

Jan Satyagraha leaders agreed to discontinue their march, after Rural

ministry agreed to setup Task Force on Land Reforms to implement
the following agenda:
Agenda Union government agreed that:

Land reform is state subject but we will come up with

National land
a national land reform policy- with inputs from state
reform policy
governments, civil society and public.

like MNREGA and Forest rights act, we’ll come up

with new laws for
laws 1. giving land to poors in backward districts
2. guarantee 10 cents of homestead to every
landless poor household in entire India.

we’ll advice state governments to implement their

rights
existing laws to protect the land rights of SC/ST.
we’ll work with States to run Fast Track Land
Tribunals Tribunals/Courts for speedy disposal of land dispute
related cases particularly involving SC/ST.
Rural ministry with work with Tribal ministry and
Panchayati raj ministry + state governments for
PESA
implementation of PESA 1996. (but then why were
you sleeping all these years?)
Tribal ministry has issued revised rules for Forest
FRA rights Act 2006. We’ll ask States to implement them
quickly.
we’ll ask states to setup joint teams of
Survey forest+Revenue officials to do the survey of the forest
and revenue boundaries to resolve disputes

Mock Questions
12/15m

1. Critically examine the philosophy, the concept and the working

of Bhoodan and Gramdan movements in India.
2. It is far better for a hundred families in a village to cultivate their
land collectively and divide the income therefrom than to divide
the land any how into a hundred portions. Comment.
3. Write a note on the Lacunae in Bhoodan and Gramdan
Movements.
4. Bhoodan was an experiment in Gandhian idea of trusteeship.
Comment.
5. Evaluate the impact of Bhoodan and Gramdan movements as
measures of land reforms. In what way Gramdan was superior
to Bhoodan movement?
6. Discuss the significant movements initiated by people for land
reforms in India after independence.
7. critically evaluate non-governmental initiatives in the area of land
reform
8. Explain the four significant outcomes of the great land struggle
9. Write a note on the demands and outcomes of Jan Satyagraha
2012.