Why agrarian reforms should go beyond meeting demands of the agitating farmers

Relevance: To understand the land reforms

Synopsis: The land reforms of 50’s and 60’s have been inadequate in addressing the inequity in land ownership. Thus, new agricultural reforms should be targeted on land reforms.

Introduction

The government brought farms laws in 2020 and ever since then farmer’s protests and agitations have been going on. However, what is often missed in the discourse of such reforms is the larger issue of land reforms and equitable distribution of productive resources in rural India.

About Agriculture:

Agriculture in India is of vast importance because it has been an important contributor to GDP. In ’60s and 70’s, after the success of the green revolution, it contributed by making India self-sufficient in food grains. This also helped in reducing food imports and import bills.

However, India witnesses persistent poverty in rural India. This can be seen as:

• Poverty co-exists with prosperity due to the inequitable distribution of resources like land.
• National level food sufficiency has not translated to household-level food sufficiency.
• Poverty alleviation necessitated interventions like MGNREGA.

Land reforms since Independence

Land reforms were initiated as soon as India gained its independence. These included measures like

• Abolition of feudal landlordism,
• Conferment of ownership on tenants,
• Fixing land ceilings,
• Distribution of surplus land,
• Increasing agricultural productivity and production.

These reforms were met with some success, like abolishing Zamindari, tenancy rights.

Present status of Land ownership

Even though India introduced land reforms, the progress of land ownership has been slow and dismal.

• Less than 1 percent of the total land in the country was declared as surplus.
• Owing to manipulations in land records, very less land was available for distribution.

Challenges in land ownership

The land reforms in fact complicated the rural power structure and political environment.

• This was accompanied by fast development of other sectors in the economy.
• Rural areas were absorbed into urban and industrial areas. The new landowner soon turned capitalist farmers.
  • Capitalist farmers utilized programs like the green revolution, the nationalization of banks and urbanization and gained access to markets.
  • They soon dominated the labour markets, small farmers and rural credit.
  • They also cornered a disproportionate share of subsidies.
  • Many members of rich farm households moved into industry, business and professions, which resulted in further procurement of land.

Suggestions

What agricultural reforms actually demand is the reforms in land distribution to check the concentration of land in few hands. This is because the relation between caste and land still persists, with higher caste holding land assets. So any land reforms must address all segments of rural society, including farmworkers.

This calls for radical land reforms such as,

• Agricultural land should be pooled and equally distributed among farm households.
• Non-farm households should not be permitted to hold farmland
• The land reforms programme should not be left to the states as it will be sabotaged by capitalist farmers who also hold political power.
• India can make land reforms a central subject; while agriculture can remain a state subject.

The aim should be to provide a justiciable universal property right that must form an inalienable part of Article 21 (Right to Life) of the Constitution.

Terms to Know

• MGNREGA
• Article 21