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Are Land Reforms Still Relevant? Indroduction The expression 'land reforms' has a misleading connotation. It sounds as if land has been polluted and needs purification. Actually the term means reform of the basic relations between man and land, and between tillers of the land and other beneficiaries from the land-tiller interaction like landlords, moneylenders, village merchants, etc. In India where 70 per cent of the population is dependent on land, relations between various categories of people like big farmers, small and marginal farmers, share croppers and agricultural labourers on the one hand, and the nature of their respective control over land on the other is of paramount importance. Any strategy for increasing agricultural production cannot overlook these structural questions, just as rural poverty and agricultural backwardness cannot be understood without reference to the agrarian structure. Land reform is a subject fraught with controversy -- intellectually as well as politically. The idea of turning over land and its management to uneducated peasants was seen in the pre-independence period as the road to disaster. Landlords were quick to point out the dire consequences of such a policy -peasants will produce only for their own needs, food prices will soar, economic growth would be arrested, etc. Yet this position is contradicted by historical experience. Confidence in the ability of peasants to rise to the challenge has usually been well placed. However the development of this latent human potential requires an appropriate institutional environment. The creation of such an environment is what land reform is all about. The Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Indian Constitution enjoin that: 'The state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life.' Articles 39 and 49 state that ownership and control of the material resources of the community should be so distributed as best to subserve the common good, and that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production. The Indian Economic Plans too right from the First Five Year Plan have laid considerable emphasis on land reforms. As set forth in the national plans, the objectives of the land policy have been, firstly to remove such motivational impediments to agricultural production as arise from the agrarian structure inherited from the past, and secondly, to eliminate all elements of exploitation and social injustice with the agrarian system so as to ensure equality of status and opportunity to all sections of the population. The discrepancy between the ownership and operation of land was regarded as one of the basic maladies of agrarian structure that acted as a 'built-in-depressor'. It led to not only inefficient utilisation of given scarce resources but also stood in the way of augmenting these resources. Thus in every state the policy of abolishing all intermediary interests and giving land to the recorded tenants was adopted soon after independence followed by a programme of providing security of tenure to the sub tenants in some states. At the same time the research done on sizeproductivity relationship during the sixties made it clear that in agriculture, given the same resource facilities, soil content and climate, a small farmer

produces more per acre than a large farmer. Since it was no longer necessary to identify viability and efficiency with large holdings the programme of encouraging cooperative farming died a natural death. It also provided an economic rationale to the policy of imposing ceiling on land holdings that was taken up by many states in the sixties and then more vigorously by all the states in the mid-seventies. Doubts against land reforms A view is sometimes taken doubting the strategy of curbing rural disparities in a society where greater disparities exist in the urban sector. On ethical grounds, there is an equally good case for putting a ceiling on urban consumption and a ban on production of luxury goods in a country where roughly 50% of the population cannot manage to get two square meals a day. However, agriculture and industry operate under different technologies and the laws of industrial production do not necessarily govern agriculture, just as economies of scale regarding the latter are not the same as for Dairy Development and Poultry. Some of the essential differences between industry and agriculture that should prompt the planners to give a higher priority to land reforms than to urban reforms are as follows: Land cannot be created whereas urban wealth can be created indefinitely. Rationing is imposed on such goods that are in short supply but there is no need to put a ceiling on the number of animals in a family or on the number of birds that can be kept in a poultry farm, because the supply of these goods can be increased indefinitely. Land however is limited. For instance, it has been estimated that investment in irrigation in the next 50 years will increase the gross cropped area only at the rate of half per cent per year. Thus the total available land is likely to remain constant in the coming decades. Despite industrialisation the percentage of people dependent on agriculture in the country has declined only marginally. Employment generation in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy can barely absorb the additional urban labour force and the scope of rural work force finding meaningful employment in the urban sector is limited. If pressure on land is not to increase, a high growth rate of at least 8 to 9 per cent per year of the non-agricultural sector will be necessary to absorb the increase in manpower. Industry operates under conditions of increasing returns to scale whereas agriculture has so far operated under diminishing returns to scale. Thus both output and employment per unit of capital invested increase in industry with the increase in the size of its operation. But the reverse happens in agriculture. If steel is in short supply it is much better to give it to one unit rather than create five extra units and keep their capacities under-utilised but if fertiliser is in short supply extensive rather than intensive use will be more advisable in the interest of higher production. Urban labour is highly organised and can look after itself but rural labour requires constant support from the Government. Wages in the urban sector are determined by the bargaining power of the urban labour whereas because of the poor implementation of Agricultural Minimum Wages Act the

poorest have been left to suffer the tyranny of market forces. As government penetration is much better in the towns than in the villages, it is administratively much more feasible to implement laws that would change the rural feudal structure once for all, as was done by the Zamindari Abolition Acts, than to expect that the delivery machinery at the cutting edge level will be able to give credit, water, pump, animals, inputs, infrastructure and social services to the rural poor effectively ignoring the interests of the rural oligarchy. Industrial entrepreneurship is limited and therefore neither can the industries be nationalised on a wide scale nor their management be transferred to those who possess little skills to run them. On the other hand, agricultural entrepreneurship is already available with the landless because it is they who till the fields of the landlords, it is they who harvest the crop and it is they who lose their limbs in the threshing operations. Once land is transferred to them all that they require is institutional support in credit and marketing. They can do the rest in a much better way than the landlords.

Why land reforms? Equity arguments - Any programme of transfer of ownership and control over land from the big to the small will increase overall employment and consumption. A blind emphasis on growth without destroying exploitative elements in agrarian structure is neither economically nor socially desirable. Access to land determines not only income and wealth but is also the basis of stratification of the village community into socio-economic classes. Land attracts fertiliser, capital and water, and thus becomes the main source of rural inequality and power. The commercial banks and other institutions have viewed with distrust and apprehension schemes of helping the landless poor. Therefore it follows that the programme of land reform should primarily mean an attack on landlessness and on immeserisation of the rural poor. Both market forces and technological forces act in favour of concentration of land in fewer hands and unless the government comes out with a programme to halt this trend, growth with existing levels of asset inequalities will lead to further impoverishment of the rural poor. Better distribution of land and control over land by sharecroppers and tenants will not only increase employment per unit of land but it will also improve consumption standards of the rural poor, thus enlarging the size of the market for consumer products. It will improve the world view of the poorest and will make them invest in their future. It will also minimise the chances of social tensions and conflicts that are showing signs of increase in states where the landless constitute a substantial proportion in rural society. Economic rationale - The objective of programmes included in rural development is fourfold. To increase production, to reduce unemployment and under-employment, to secure an appreciable rise in the standard of living of the poorest section and, fourthly, to reduce disparities in income and wealth between various classes in the rural areas. Except for the first objective better distribution of land and tenancy reform would help in furthering the other three objectives of rural development.

In so far as production per unit of land is concerned, the relationship between equitable distribution of land and productivity has become a subject of controversy. There are some economists who believe that inverse relationship between farm-size and productivity is still valid. The small farmer cultivates his land more intensely and puts in more labour per unit of land. The quality of supervision as well as of land and irrigation is also better on smaller holdings. Since the new technology is size-neutral and it is both labour and capital intensive, there is no reason why the small farmers cannot fully exploit the HYV technology, provided capital is made available to them at a reasonable rate of interest. It is also argued that, other factors of production remaining constant, caste plays an important role in determining productivity. In India, best farmers are not the high caste people despite the fact that they are most favourably endowed in land and material resources. The traditional agriculturist castes (also called intermediate or backward castes) like the Jats, Koris, Kammas, Patidars, Marathas, Vokkaligas, etc. have always been better cultivators. It is not only in their attitude to manual work that the non-working Brahman or Rajput cultivators differ from the traditional agriculturists. There are significant differences in enterprise, thrift, mobility and readiness to exploit economic opportunities. The intermediate castes having more intense knowledge of the practices of cultivation have always given higher yields. Therefore reducing the holding of non-cultivating castes will improve overall production, provided the surplus land is allotted to the marginal farmers from backward castes. On the other hand it is argued that the new technology may be size neutral but is certainly not resource neutral. In many parts of the country the cultivating castes are also the big and medium land holders. Through better access to credit and other material resources they have shown better results in agriculture than the poor farmers. The small farmers have lost their traditional yield advantage because of inferior access to on-farm surplus, cheap credit, non-crop incomes (which increase risk bearing capacity) and private tubewells. The rising trend of inverse tenancy, whereby the marginal farmer leases out his "uneconomic" holding to medium and big farmer is an indication that relative productivity per unit of land may be becoming higher on medium and large holdings, at least in the green revolution areas. Rising capital intensity in agriculture - The much debated size-productivity relationship has so far looked at productivity from the view point of land. Another scarce resource is capital, and it is equally important to study which class of farmers use capital more efficiently. Small farmers have better access to labour, as they exploit their own family labour, whereas large farmers have better access to capital and have to hire labour from the market. These differences result in small farmers' committing more labour to production than large farmers, and large farmers' substituting machines and capital for labour. Thus a small farmer may get an extra unit of output by using home produced mulch and organic manure and the large farmer may depend on chemical fertiliser bought from the markets. In fact capital intensity is increasing for all category of farmers, but at a faster pace in green revolution areas and for large farmers. Thus, the weight of fertilisers, pesticides and diesel which accounted for a mere 14.9 per cent of the total inputs in 1970-71 in the country increased to

35.1 per cent in 1984-85. For a large farmer in commercialised regions it could be as high as 70 per cent. But the proportion of output sold has increased at a much slower rate than the proportion of industrial inputs or of monetised inputs. The implication of this is a resource squeeze in agriculture. Whereas the need for resources to purchase these inputs has been increasing, the marketable surplus has been increasing at a slower rate to absorb this, as growth in industrial employment has become very sluggish. It is not surprising that the repayment of loans is such a problem in Indian agriculture and has emerged as a major issue in farmers' movements. Pressed by the increasing costs, big farmers demand higher output prices, thus setting the cycle of inflation. The need is of a new technology, which would be more labour intensive and would cut cash costs. Unfortunately the general climate in the country today is towards 'liberalisation', which further legitimises increasing use of capital in agriculture. It may be worthwhile to quote on this issue from the UNDP Human Development Report 1996:As land is redistributed from big to small farms, not only family labour per hectare can increase sharply. So can hired labour. For both reasons, the employment situation improves even for those who remain landless after the land reform. The main conclusion: an agricultural strategy centered on small farms rather than large simultaneously increases the social efficiency of resource use in agriculture and improves social equity through employment creation and the more equal income distribution that small farms generate. Political factors It is often asserted that no tangible progress can be expected in the field of land reform in the absence of requisite political will, which is demonstrated by the large gaps between policy and legislation and between law and its implementation. To quote Shri P.S. Appu, an authority on land reforms, 'In no sphere of public activity in our country since Independence has the hiatus between precept and practice, between policy-pronouncements and actual execution, been as great as in the domain of land reform. With resolute and unambiguous political will all the other shortcomings and difficulties could have been overcome; in the absence of such will even minor obstacles became formidable road blocks in the path of Indian land reform. Considering the character of the political power structure obtaining in the country it was only natural that the required political will was not forthcoming.' While it is granted that there has been lack of political will in the field of land reforms, more important question is why has there been such political constraints of imposing radical social change. The commonly held view point is that the role which the State can play in promotion of radical reforms would depend upon the class character of State power in India. The nature of the State in turn would depend upon the mode of production and the classes that own the means of production and it is in the interest of these classes that State power shall be exercised. Hence it would be futile to expect the Indian State to promote land reforms that will hit at the very base of power of the ruling land based elite. There are several problems in accepting the above hypothesis in toto. First, whenever in a society there are two classes, one which owns the means of production and the other which controls and operates upon these means of

production, the State power may often be exercised in favour of the latter group. Tenants during the pre-Zamindari period did not own land but since they operated and controlled production the State could abolish Zamindari. Similarly, in the urban sector industrialists may be owning factories but the industrial workers have organised themselves and have often demonstrated to the government that it is they who control production and therefore the regime often bends in favour of the workers. Second, in a nascent democracy political influence is very unevenly distributed among various classes. It is possible for a tightly organised and articulate group to corner for itself political benefits although this group may not be owning or controlling means of production. Lawyers in the pre-independence period and students or government servants in the post-independence are examples of such groups. Third, lack of political will cannot be equated to putting obstacles by the politicians in the way of implementation. Experience shows that politicians often welcome radical laws at the time of enactment as it gives them publicity. As individuals some of them may put hurdles in implementation but there is no evidence that as a group they have thwarted such laws. The administrators have often been greater villains as they have not done all that they could within their power and authority in terms of the provisions of legislation and in accordance with directions given to them. Fourth, there is no alliance, as is often assumed, between the urban bourgeoisie and the rural kulaks. Their interests are diametrically opposite. The former group is interested in cheap and plentiful supply of food grains and raw materials that comes from the agricultural sector whereas the latter group is interested in high price for agricultural produce and cheap supply of fertilisers, water and power. Therefore there is no structural constraint in so far as the support of urban class to land reforms is concerned. Fifth, a soft state like ours lacks political will to adversely affect the interest of a class, if it is organised, irrespective of its economic strength. Laxity in administration stems from the government's unwillingness to hit at any class. Family Planning and Law and Order are obvious examples. Hesitation to hit at the rural rich is also partly because of ours being a soft State. Sixth, the nature of political power never remains static. Till the 1950s those who had high ritual status and liberal education held the sway in politics. Gradually political power passed on to these who held land, likes Marathas, Vokkaligas, Reddies, etc. There is every reason to assume that after some time there would be growing independence of political power from the influence of traditional landed interests, as is happening in U.P. and Bihar. This proves that the political and economic elites neither constitute a cohesive group nor can be taken to be identical. The correlation between social ownership pattern and political structure can no longer be assumed to be static and linear. Too much repetition of socialist goals and radical talk have created a receptive environment in the country for sympathetic changes in favour of the poor. For instance, there has been no hostility against programmes meant for small and marginal farmers, and for the scheduled castes/tribes such as JRY and IRDP.

Lack of organisation among the poor If the development process in India has not been able to reduce poverty and inequality or if redistributive legislation has not been implemented, the main reason for failure has to be sought in the total lack of organisation among the rural poor for whom these schemes are meant. Because of absence of pressure from below the implementation of such schemes becomes totally dependent on corrupt and over-worked bureaucracy. The impediments to the growth of consciousness and awareness among the rural poor are many. First, it is their weak economy and poverty that makes them totally dependent on the medium and big farmers. Even if landlordism is totally abolished and ceiling laws are implemented exploitation in the rural areas would continue. The not-so-poor and medium farmers would then exploit the poor and the landless. Second, the rural poor are scattered, unlike the urban workers who tend to concentrate in pockets. The political parties who are interested in mobilising the poor invariably choose urban workers as it is easier to contact them. Third, the nature of contact of the rural workers with their masters is more personal and intimate and therefore they find it difficult to organise themselves against their masters. Fourth, in many states purely landless workers hardly constitute 10 per cent of the rural population. A significant percentage of the rural poor are marginal farmers, subtenants, artisans and unskilled workers engaged on construction sites. They all together constitute a social group but not a distinct class with common class interest for purposes of organisation. It might be difficult to organise the entire rural poor in a single consolidated viable union. Fifth, they are unskilled and can easily be replaced by family labour and labour from outside the village. Sixth, caste also plays a divisible role. Despite these weaknesses political development in north India in the recent years shows that the poor could come together, via caste alliances, at least for electoral gains. However so far there has been no evidence that such a grouping can be used for ushering in radical property reforms. On the other hand, significant changes in agrarian structure have taken place in those areas where the new technology has taken roots. Because of higher profits self-cultivation has increased. The marginal farmers are leasing out their lands to more enterprising medium and big farmers. The latter have better access to institutional credit and they generate sufficient surplus to finance their own short-term and long-term investment. Political and economic power in the rural areas is no longer in the hands of the feudal absentee landlord but has passed on to an aggressive entrepreneurial class, which is hybrid and quite mixed in terms of caste. The advantages of cheap labour available with the poor farmers are getting nullified as requirement of capital increases in agriculture. It is interesting that even the Marxist parties in states as the Punjab where they have some influence are not talking in terms of reduction in ceiling limits or of giving rights to sub-tenants (it is not very well known that sub-tenancy is very high and legal in the Punjab and Haryana). The economic programme that such parties advocate in the rural areas is not any different from the programme of BKU and similar other medium farmer based organisations. Thus the poor are pitted against technological forces over which neither they nor the government has any control. There is no

evidence of a new labour-suiting technology in sight. In the years to come these factors rather than the class character of elite or caste composition of the party in power are more likely to determine the future of the rural poor in India. Implications of absence of political will The change in the mode of production that has been brought about in the last 15 years and emergence of capitalism in agriculture has to a large extent reduced political acceptability of any further reduction in ceiling limits. During the first decade of planning it was easier for the Government to eliminate a functionless parasitic class of Zamindars who were economically isolated from the production system. Now in the changed context of capitalist agriculture appropriation of land from the rich farmers amounts to not only an attack on the principle of private property but it also goes against the principle of income earned through enterprise in agriculture. It offends the property instinct as also the commercial drive of medium and big farmers. Unless the land hunger of the poor is mobilised into a militant movement to neutralise the property instinct of the rich farmers, more equitable distribution of land does not seem feasible. Unlike landed gentry which lived in towns and took no interest in cultivation the present rural elite is enterprising and very much rooted in the socio-political system and so as much more difficult to remove. Therefore a more pragmatic approach towards ceiling laws will be to remain content with the present level of ceiling, not insist upon its downward revision, but resist any attempt to increase ceiling limits on the grounds mentioned above. One could think of innovative solutions such as taking away land from those whose income from nonagricultural sources is sufficiently high, say Rs 5 lakhs annually, but one wonders if such suggestions have any future in the changed economic and political climate today. Future of the poor minus land reforms - A view is often expressed that without radical land reforms pumping of money in rural areas will further exacerbate rural inequities and leave the poor worse-off. A blind emphasis on growth without destroying exploitative elements in agrarian structure is neither economically nor socially desirable. Our stand on this issue is slightly different. Without doubting the desirability of land reforms, we hold that other methods of helping the poor should not be overlooked just because political climate does not favour more stringent land laws. Preoccupation with land distribution as a means of effecting structural changes in the economy in favour of the poor has perhaps resulted in the neglect of other means of augmenting income flows to the poor. Vested interest against land reforms has been much commented upon, but no systematic study has been done of such vested interest in other sectors, such as forestry, common property resources, etc. Benefits which could flow to the poor through suitable policy changes in these sectors could be immense. The debate "who loses and who gains" from an economic activity is often couched in conspiratorial terms; the neglect and the harm done to the poor is generally explained in terms of compulsions of a capitalist state or the hold that the rich have over policy and delivery. While the explanatory power of social structure is not to be denied, other important factors are sometimes lost sight of. It is simplistic to say that reasons for the failure of development programmes are

rooted only in inequitious land distribution. Administrative failures have their own autonomy and do not always stem from class bias. The reasons for slow progress of development projects are often unromantic and mundane. For instance, many assets created under JRY and other similar rural infrastructure schemes are not able to serve any useful purpose because of lack of funds for maintenance of existing assets, which is a non-Plan item. Permitting Plan funds for maintenance more liberally than allowed at present will in itself improve the utility of such assets. About 40% of school buildings in Chotanagpur area have no roof. Instead of sanctioning new buildings greater benefit would accrue at less costs if funds are available for their repairs. Similarly, in backward areas existing posts of doctors and teachers remain unfilled for long periods. Filling up such posts also does not require any fundamental change in our political economy. If poverty alleviation programmes have not helped the poor, part of the explanation can be sought in administrative structures and organisational weaknesses, or in policies followed by Ministries other than Rural Development. By changing such policies and by improving the administrative apparatus incomes of the poor will rise which will itself put pressure on the exploitative structure to change in favour of the poor. As Dantwala argues, By using appropriate policy interventions that systematically modify structural consequences, changes in the crystallised structure can be induced. The establishment and strengthening of countervailing non-exploitative institutions may be more effective in enhancing the bargaining power of the poor than attempts at changing the structure. II We shall examine the current scope of land reforms in view of the above arguments. Ceiling on Land Holdings As already discussed, `Land Ceiling' is one of the more effective instruments for reducing disparities in the ownership of land and to improve productivity through higher utilisation of labour. Till March, 1997, 74.97 lakh acres of land has been declared surplus. Out of the total area declared surplus, 65.84 lakh acres i.e. 87.82% has been taken possession of and an area of 52.05 lakh acres has been distributed to 51.47 lakh rural poor. Of the total area distributed, 25.47 lakh acres i.e. about 49% has gone to those belonging to the SC/ST who account for more than 50% of the total beneficiaries. The area declared surplus till now is less than 2% of the cultivated area. The main reason for this dismal progress is of course the absence of political will. Other reasons for this are : Exemptions beyond the normal ceiling limits to tea, coffee, rubber, cardamom and cocoa plantations and land held by religious and charitable institutions beyond the normal ceiling limits; Benami and farzi transfers ; Misuse of exemptions and misclassification of lands;

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Non-application of appropriate ceiling for lands newly irrigated by public investment.

A large chunk of land (11.41 lakh acres) out of the declared surplus is held up due to litigation at various levels and is not available for distribution. States should be impressed upon to review such cases and expedite the disposal of these cases so that land is available for distribution. They should also be advised to take up measures for plugging loopholes for expediting decisions in cases under litigation by creating special benches in High Courts or by constituting Land Tribunals under Article 323-B of the Constitution. MORD has requested the States to ensure that when surplus land is allotted, mutations are effected in the land records, land physically demarcated, possession given and effective protective legal provisions made to protect the interests of the weaker sections. They have also been advised that "Benami" and "Farzi" transactions be unearthed with the help of PRIs, NGOs, organisations of the rural poor and other local institutions. Computerisation of land records may also help in the unearthing of bogus transactions. Due to factors like higher ceiling limit set in some cases, specific exemptions from ceiling laws and many other legal loopholes, there exists substantial scope for improvements in this direction. In view of large number of cases of dispossession from the allotted land to SCs and STs, states have been requested to undertake scrutiny of all such cases where land has been allotted to rural poor under the programme and to ensure that those who have been dispossessed of the allotted lands are granted possession afresh and they do not suffer further harassment. There is a continuing debate on whether the present ceilings should be raised, lowered, or remain the same. Agricultural land ceilings in India were set high by Asian standards. On the other hand, technological changes and rising capital intensity of agriculture, and the need for making investments in agriculture support arguments for either raising or abolishing ceilings. The empirical literature suggests a weakening of the inverse size-productivity relationship, but this has not yet generally yielded a positive relationship either. However, small farms continue to be labour using and capital saving. There is, therefore, no case for raising the ceiling limit at present, while vigorous steps have to be taken to ensure that small farms are able to take advantage of technological changes. Protection of Tribal Land Article 46 of the Constitution enjoins an obligation upon the States to promote the interests of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and to protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation. The tribal population is concentrated in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, apart from the North Eastern region. The economy of the tribals continues to be land-based, with agriculture forming the mainstay of the tribal life. The tribal land base has been steadily shrinking and is getting alienated in the wake of the migration of non-tribals to the tribal areas in search of employment. There have also been deep incursions into the tribal land and life for the exploitation of the mineral

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resources, land, labour and industrial activities. This has given rise to severe discontent in the area. It is, therefore, necessary that the land issue which forms the crux of the problem must be effectively attended to. Studies initiated by the Department of Rural Development, Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, Government of India in 1997-98 (MTR 2000) paint a grim and disturbing picture, confirming that massive alienation of tribal lands continues in tribal regions in all parts of the country. The magnitude of the problem can be assessed in the Andhra Pradesh report for instance, from the fact that today nontribals own more than half the land in Scheduled Areas of the state. The figure is 52 per cent in Khammam district, 60 per cent in Adilabad district and 71 per cent in Warangal district. In Madhya Pradesh the percentage of Scheduled Tribe cultivators to total Scheduled Tribe workers fell from 76.45 per cent in 1961 to 68.09 per cent in 1991. Correspondingly the percentage of Scheduled Tribe agricultural labourers to total Scheduled Tribe workers rose from 17.73 per cent to 25.52 per cent. Similar empirical evidence is available from other states as well. The studies commissioned by the Government of India establish that government policy itself has, directly or indirectly, contributed to the phenomenon of tribal land alienation. It has been noted in several states that tribal land is being legally auctioned by co-operative credit societies and banks to recover dues. Auctioned land is purchased by non-tribals as well as rich tribals. Authorities responsible for regulating sale of tribal lands to non-tribals have been found to frequently collude with non-tribals to defraud the tribal landowners. The same collusion has deprived tribals of their rights to land in times of land settlement, or implementation of laws giving ownership rights to occupancy tenants. The State Govts. have accepted the policy of prohibiting the transfer of land from tribals to non-tribals and for the restoration of the alienated land to the tribals. The States with large tribal population have enacted laws prohibiting alienation of tribal land and for restoration of alienated land. These provisions are, however, generally applicable to the tribals living within the Scheduled and notified areas. Though some results have been forthcoming in the efforts undertaken by different States for restoration of tribal lands, the tasks still remains unfulfilled, and greater efforts are neeed, as discussed in the chapter on tribals. Tenancy reforms Legislative provisions have been made in extensive areas of the country providing for conferment of ownership rights on tenants or allowing cultivating tenants to acquire ownership rights on payment of a reasonable compensation to the landlords. Some of the States have acquired ownership of land from the landowners and have transferred it to the tenants who have to pay certain amount of premium to the State. Sub-tenancies are generally prohibited except in certain cases viz. widows, members of armed forces, minors, unmarried women, persons suffering from disabilities etc. The tenancy reform measures were built around the following guidelines : rent payable to the landowner should be between 1/5th and 1/4th of gross produce ; the tenants should be given permanent rights to the land they cultivate

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subject to a limited right of resumption to the land owners ; landlord tenant relationship should be ended by conferring ownership rights on tenants in respect of non-resumable lands.

Tenancy legislation were enacted by the States incorporating some or all of the above features. As a result of their implementation an estimated 124 lakh tenants have acquired ownership rights or their rights are protected over an area of 160.16 lakh acres. The tenancy laws have not succeeded in fully securing their objectives due to following reasons : Insecurity among tenants and sharecroppers was created by legal lacunae relating to the resumption of land for personal cultivation by the land owners. Due to the provision of "voluntary" surrender in tenancy laws, tenants were evicted from their lands which they were cultivating by obtaining surrender documents under pressure. While rent was fixed at 1/5th or 1/4th of the produce, in reality crop-sharers have to part with half the produce as rent. Provision of fair rent was effective only for those tenants who had their security of tenures duly reflected in record of rights. As regards converting tenants into owners, some tenants purchased land from their owners but relatively little land changed hands from landlords to tenants.

The State Governments of West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala have achieved major success in this respect. In West Bengal, more than 14 lakh sharecroppers (Bargadars) have been recorded under the `Operation Barga'. This was done in collaboration with groups of beneficiaries and with the active assistance of rural workers organisations and Panchayati Raj Institutions. It would thus be seen that the tenancy reform has not made much impact when judged by the incidence of informal or oral tenancies today. Such tenancies have come about even where leasing has been expressly prohibited. The problem is so acute in certain parts of India, particularly the eastern region (like Bihar) that there is a wide prevalence of insecure sharecropping in the State. Residents of forest villages should be given permanent, heritable and inalienable rights in respect of land cultivated by them for a long time. They should be converted into revenue villages to enable the residents to get the benefit of various government schemes on par with other rual areas. The landless agricultural labour and tenants living in houses built on land belonging to the landowners whose land they are cultivating, should be conferred ownership rights on the land on which the homestead exists, by extending legal provisions to cover upto the present time. In case they are to be shifted, it should be at the cost of the landowner. However, if the land belongs to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, such conferment should be only in respect of the landless rural poor belonging to those communities only. Similar conferment of ownership of land and house through grant of pattas should also be given in cases of houses built on Government/local body lands without formal permission or allotment. All other rural landless poor should be provided

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developed house sites. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should also be provided with constructed houses over a period of time under the various existing schemes. Group housing schemes should also be formulated to provide houses and common facilities at low cost. Measures are required to combat non-cultivation of large extents of land and leaving them fallow by absentee landlords. There should be provision for either the State to take over and lease out on a long term basis or for the landowner necessarily lease out on a long term basis to give the necessary incentive to the tenants to invest in the land and improve its productivity. Future of tenancy laws - A ban on leasing was imposed in almost all states to encourage owner-cultivation and to give security of tenure to sharecroppers and tenants. While such laws should continue in areas characterised by semi-feudal mode of production and may even be strengthened in tribal areas where agricultural markets are not well developed, in green revolution areas where the mode of production has become capitalist there is a need to liberalise and free leasing of land from all government controls. For instance, in Purnea (Bihar) in 1972-73 about 40% of the land in Purnea was under share-cropping. The percentage of land under share-cropping has come down since then, but still it is probably not less than 25%. Though under the law share-croppers are entitled to security of tenure and the share of the landowner is limited to 25% of the gross produce, in practice the protection granted to share-croppers is illusory. Since the tenancies are oral and the share-croppers are weak politically, economically and socially, they seldom succeed in securing the rights to which they are entitled under the law. They have only a tenuous hold on the land they cultivate and invariably they have to hand over to the land owner one half or more of the produce. In such a situation the tenant has no incentive to make any long term investments in the land or cultivate it efficiently by providing higher levels of purchased inputs and applying larger does of his own labour. Though theoretically both the landlord and the share-cropper stand to gain by sharing the cost of cultivation and cultivating the land more efficiently, such a practice has not been adopted on any significant scale in Purnea. The landlords do not look upon the land as a productive asset that should be operated efficiently to maximize their income. To them land is essentially a store of value, a hedge against inflation, an instrument for appropriating the large unearned increments accruing from the huge public investments in irrigation and, most importantly, the very foundation of political and economic power and social status. They are reluctant to take any steps that may lead to the strengthening of the economic conditions of the share-croppers. In such areas there is still need to bring about a change through stringent laws and better implementation of such laws. However, in green revolution areas, where market awareness is widespread even among the poor, experience suggests that freeing the lease market for land many contribute to equity as well as efficiency of resource use. The nature of tenancies in these areas is very different from regions characterised by semifeudal labour relations illustrated above. The new forms of sharecropping arrangements in these regions involve high cost and output shares for the landowner, and a high degree of control by the landlord over the process of

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production. Like traditional leasing, the tenant participating in these arrangements is a small peasant, who is responsible for all manual tasks, but is not required to own any means of production, which are supplied by the landowner. The tenant is virtually a piece-rated labourer, but his involvement helps the land-owner save on supervision. `From leasing as a means of rental appropriation, landlords have moved to leasing as a means of control over labour power, the appropriation of its produce, and as a means of further accumulation'. In such cases the pure tenants as well as the small and marginal farmers would be able to augment their operational holdings by leasing-in area, where there is pressure on land and where wages are low and poverty is high. This may also contribute to the more efficient use of land, labour and other resources. Similarly, in areas experiencing technological change and high growth, where population pressure on land is low and wages are high, the marginal farmers may gain by leasing out their area and taking up non-farm employment. Where wages and the rate of mechanisation are high, the marginal and small farmers who are leasing-in area would be able to make a fuller use of their fixed equipment. The small farmer cultivates his land more intensely and puts in more labour per unit of land. The quality of supervision as well as of land and irrigation is also better on smaller holdings. Therefore passing on the control over holdings of non-cultivating farmers to the cultivating marginal and small farmers through an open leasing policy will improve overall production and labour absorption in agriculture. The liberalisation of tenancy laws, as discussed above, could first be done in the North-western and Western states, and lessons could then be learnt for other states. As argued above, in the eastern states and in other areas, where traditional relations predominate, provided radical tenancy reforms can be implemented, they would have more far reaching effects. In certain other areas, such as tribal areas, where agricultural markets are exploitative or not well developed, there is also the need to strengthen tenancy laws and to implement these strictly. At the same time, it should be noted that the land sales market is very sluggish in poor agrarian regions (in contrast to areas with developed capitalist agriculture, such as Punjab and Haryana) and steps could be taken to facilitate the transfer of land to small and marginal landowners through provision of long-term credit or assistance through the existing anti-poverty programmes. Measures are required to combat non-cultivation of large extents of land and leaving them fallow by absentee landlords. There should be provision for either the State to take over and lease out on a long term basis or for the landowner necessarily lease out on a long term basis to give the necessary incentive to the tenants to invest in the land and improve its productivity. New ideas on liberalising land markets In many states farmers cannot use their agricultural lands for non-agricultural purposes, such as setting up a small rice shelling plant or a cold storage. In some other states they cannot sell lands to a peron who does not own land, even if he is buying land to do farming. There are restrictions on small and marginal

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farmers on selling lands even to other farmers, as they would then become landless, or their holdings would become non-viable. Time has come when these archaic laws should be changed, at least in areas such as north-west India, where farmers are aware and land markets are competitive.