INTRODUCTION
Agrarian structure refers to the way during which man-land relationship are governed. It covers the way during which land is held and cultivated and therefore the rights and privileges enjoyed by different categories of individuals who have access to land. In every political and financial system, pattern of land holding and its use bears significant influences on socio-economic development of the state. Rapid economic developments altogether sector of the economy with rising population land is possessing greatest importance. Land resource is vital because humans not only live but also perform all economic activities ashore. Land provides a way of security among rural population. Policies concerning the reworking agrarian structure during a desired way are called as Land Reforms. Land reforms include regulation of ownership, leasing, sales, operation and inheritance of land (indeed, the redistribution of the land itself requires legal changes). Simply speaking we will say that reform may be a change within the system of land ownership especially when it involves giving land to the people that actually farm it and taking it far away from people that own large areas for profit.
BACKGROUND
The need for direct intervention within the sort of land reforms emanated in India from the exploitative nature of the tenure system prevailing during the pre- Independence period. The colonial rule by British saw a dramatic shift within the land ownership pattern of India. British cultivators and Zamindars harassed many tribal/forest communities by seizing their lands and then they started collecting taxes like property tax via systems like Zamindari, Mahalwari and Ryotwari. The Zamindari system supported exploitation. It created a parasitic class of zamindars which didn’t do any work ashore but snatched away whatever surplus above the minimum subsistence the cultivators produced. The latter were forced to steer a wretched lifetime of slavery and deprivation. Under the Ryotwari and Mahalwari system also the tenants were exploited. This exploitative nature continued even after Independence of India. As the land stayed in the hands of Zamindars, they started becoming more and more powerful and wealthy and with passing time the condition of peasants and workers started deteriorating and after India adopted socialistic principles after Independence then it became important to adopt a policy that can divide the land equally to every category of people so that India can achieve equality in all the spheres.
OBJECTIVES
As put within the words of Second Five Year Plan, the target of reform was to make conditions for evolving as speedily as possible the agrarian economy with high levels of efficiency and productivity and to determine an egalitarian a society and eliminate social inequalities. An equivalent objective was repeated in Fifth Five Year Plan Draft. So we will say that the aim of reform policy was two folded. On one hand, it aims to form more rational use of the scarce land- resource by affecting conditions of holdings in order that cultivation are often wiped out the foremost economical manner i.e. with none waste of labour and capital and on the opposite hand it had been basically done to prevent the exploitation of the particular tillers of soil and to expire the ownership of land to them, the reform policies were introduced within the Independent India because labour class is extremely important for the economy of any county and that they must tend the credit for an equivalent . Gandhi ji also stated that- “The land belongs to him who labours on it”Emphasizing the role of land Reforms, the Seventh Plan clearly states: Land Reforms are recognized to constitute an important element both in terms of anti- poverty strategy and for modernization and increased productivity in agriculture.”
METHODS ADOPTED
Land reform legislation in India consisted of 4 main categories:
1. ABOLITION OF INTERMEDIARIES: Abolition of zamindari and comparable delegate residencies amid 1950-55 basically included evacuation of mediator levels or layers of various indistinct and parasitic gatherings in arrive between the State and therefore the genuine cultivators.
2. TENANCY REFORMS: The Tenancy enactments have taken three structures:(I) Regulation of lease- The initial Five-Year Plan began that the instalment of lease by the occupants of all classes and therefore the rate of lease is to be controlled by enactment and it ought not surpass one-fifth to one-fourth of the mixture create. The law thusly has been authorised in all of the States. The foremost extreme rate of lease ought not to surpass that recommended by the design Commission altogether parts of the States. Greatest rents varied starting with one State then onto subsequent – Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat settled one-6th of the create as most extreme lease. In Kerala, it runs between one-fourth and 33% and within the Punjab 33%. In Tamil Nadu, the lease shifts from 33% to 40 for each penny of the deliver. In Andhra Pradesh it’s one-fourth for watered land. The lease might be paid in real money instead of kind.
(I)Providing security of residency.
(II)Conferring privileges of proprietorship for occupants. To diminish the present variations within the example of land-proprietorship and make some land accessible for appropriation to landless farming specialists, the Second Plan (1956- 1961) prescribed the inconvenience of roofs on horticultural property. It had been visualized that land over a selected point of confinement would be gained by the State and redistributed among the landless laborers and tiny agriculturists so as to satisfy their long for land and, therefore, to empower them to form monetary property.
Consolidation of Land Holdings- Divided and subdivided landholdings and tiny measured property have made Indian agribusiness un-gainful. So, union of those grounds is vital to support proficiency and economy in India’s horticulture. It’s been finished within the conditions of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Till December 2001, about, 163.3 lakh sections of land of land or 1/third of the mixture developed region are solidified.
The previous Prime Minister, Gandhi, accentuated: «Land Reforms are that the most vital test which our political framework must attend survives.» Land changes during this manner ended up one among the elemental parts of the farming improvement strategy particularly after the thought of the Five-Year Plan came to stay. The Ninth five-year plan states: “All possible efforts would be made to detect and redistribute the excess land and to enforce ceiling laws with firmness. Absentee landlordism must be eliminated by plugging the legal loopholes, tightening the implementation machinery and providing for quick adjudication of disputes in revenue court. Rights of tenants and sharecroppers got to be recorded and security of tenure provided to them.”
EVALUATION
After 73 years of independence, one notices some achievements within the sphere of land reforms. At an equivalent time, our efforts during this direction haven’t yielded desired results. Most of the areas of reform measures are indecisive and there are large gaps between policy making and legislation and between legislation and implementation.
“Land reform measures were conceived boldly but were implemented badly”
Land changes are weakly endeavourat different circumstances and this has clothed to be an instance of the cure being more terrible than the sickness. Remarking on the procedure of land changes, Prof. M.L. Dantwala says; “All things considered land changes in India ordered up until now and people examined sooner instead of later, are within the correct bearing; on the other hand, due to absence of execution the real outcomes are an extended way from tasteful”. Joshi sees: “There is nearly certainly that amid the previous 1 / 4 century arrive changes in India haven’t expected the sort of tremendous progressive change as in China, or that of a sensational change realised from above as in Japan. In any case, from this to bounce to the conclusion that the land changes program has been a scam or an aggregate disaster is to substitute declaration for some extent by point observational examination. India has additionally seen imperative changes within the agrarian structure, which have gone unnoticed as a result of the nonattendance of a practical approach in surveying these progressions. And one among the most important reason for all this poor implementation of this plan is that the resistance of landowners in implementation of those reforms and to prevent these they directly used their political clout and also various other methods of evasion and coercion, including registering their own land under names of various relatives to bypass the ceiling, and shuffling tenants around different plots of land, in order that they might not acquire incumbency rights as stipulated within the tenancy law.
Talking about the opposite aspect then we see that the laws for the abolition of intermediaries had been implemented fairly well and as a result of that 20 million cultivators were brought into direct relationship with the State. But at an equivalent time, this reform led to large-scale ejectment of tenants from land which that they had been cultivating for generations because the laws did not offer any protection to those masses.
In a forthright analysis, the design Commission task force headed by Mr. P.S. Appu mentions the subsequent because the reasons for poor implementation of land reforms-
• Lack of political will;
• Absence of pressure from below because the poor peasants and agricultural workers are passive, unorganized and inarticulate;
• Lukewarm and sometimes apathetic attitude of the bureaucracy;
• Absence of up-to-date land records;
• Legal hurdles within the way of implementation of land reforms.
Giving an overall assessment of the reform, the Sixth Plan (1980-85) mentioned: “If the progress of reform has been but satisfactory, it’s not been thanks to flaws in policy but to indifferent implementation. Often the required determination has been lacking to effectively undertake action, particularly within the matter of implementation of ceiling laws, consolidation of holdings and in not so vigorously pursuing concealed tenancies and having them vested with tenancy rights as enjoyed under the law.”
CONCLUSION
The land reform can play a major role in shaping the development of the country as more than half of the population depends on farming so the change in land reforms and the development can help the major chunk of the population to grow. This majorly includes the poor and the weaker section of society. These people have been exploited through ages by various sources. Hence proper implementation in these reforms can prevent exploitation and help in their growth. This will be seen by taking the samples of some states just like the most notable and successful land reforms happened in states of Kerala and West Bengal (Operation Barga). Only pockets of India like Jammu and Kashmir witnessed commendable steps in reform. Every policy has its own benefits but at an equivalent time that policy even has some flaws in it. And this is often what happened with this policy also. It’s just this policy need a touch more concentration from the side of state to offer it’s best to the people and country. It can also be seen that Land reform is mostly influenced by political factors as the lack of political will, delay in the decision making results in bad implementation. The evidence mentioned suggests that land reforms have some negative impacts on the poor section, while the effect in productivity is mixed. We can also see that the states in which these measures are strongly implemented have shown positive effect on land reform productivity.
The laws for the abolition of intermediaries had been implemented fairly well and as a result of that 20 million cultivators were brought into direct relationship with the state. But at an equivalent time, this reform led to large-scale ejectment of tenants from land which that they had been cultivating for generations because the laws did not offer any protection to those masses.