Land Reforms -A Bus that India Missed Which May Never Come Again (original) (raw)

Land reforms at centre stage: The evidence on West Bengal

Development and Change, 1996

The debate on the agrarian problem in developing countries has alternated between a stress on the necessity for land reforms and an emphasis on the introduction of productivity-enhancing technology, leading to a trickle-down effect. In the Indian state of West Bengal, the former strategy has been pursued since the mid-1970s. Most observers agree that this approach has stimulated a 'virtuous circle', leading to higher production, a decrease in poverty and in polarization, and a perceptible improvement of the human development index. This article addresses the causality sequence, namely, whether land reform or irrigation has acted as the kick-start mechanism to these improvements. The irrigation figures are not impressive, either in comparison with the outlay in other Indian states, or in terms of crop coverage. The explanation for activation of a virtuous circle may therefore be found in land reform, at least if land reform is considered and implemented in its comprehensive meaning: intervention in the relations of production, the forces of production and the broad social and political parameters. Political Weekly XVI(25126): A62-A75. Development. London: Zed Books. Columbia Press. problems and policies for development. London and New York: Longman. development theory and policy. Oxford Basil Blackwell. Nations Development Programme. G. K. Lieten is in charge of Development Sociology and Development Cooperation at the Anthropological-Sociological Centre, University of Amsterdam, Oudezijds Achterburgwall85,1012 DK Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests concentrate on South Asia, and have resulted in various publications, including The First Communist Ministry in Kerala, Colonialism Class and Nation, and Continuity and Change in Rural West Bengal.

Land Reforms in an Indian State: Lessons from the Experiences of Implementation

Journal of Asian Rural Studies, 2018

Until the shift of developmental policy in India in 1990s the state used to play an instrumental role India’s development. By the time India attained independence it was widely regarded that semi feudal landlordism was the main obstacle in the way of national economic regeneration. In this paper an attempt has been to capture the processes of land reforms in India’s West Bengal under the Left Front rule and to critically review impact of this programme on village society. This paper also seeks to identify reasons with the help of empirical studies why it has not been possible for the Left Front Government to achieve the declared objectives of the programme. Major transformations in economic, social and political fields during the first two decades of the Left Front rule characterized by the successful implementation of land reform programmes but failed to produce sustained benefits to the poor beneficiaries of land reforms. The panchayat institutions were unsuccessful in making the ...

LAW AND AGRICULTURE PROJECT ON "Land Reforms in India: Objectives, Measures and Impact"

This paper critically examines the impact of major land reforms in changing the unequal and exploitative agrarian structure. The paper also seeks to provide the context in which the reforms were introduced, their objectives and the measures that they put forth. The three major land reforms introduced since India gained independence, i.e., abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reforms and ceilings on landholdings have been dealt with in the paper in detail and thereafter, the researcher has attempted to come up with the defects in them. Recommendations for future land policy regarding these reforms have also been put forth.

LAND REFORMS IN INDIA A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Land reforms generally alludes to redistribution of land from the rich to poor people. All the more extensively, it incorporates control of ownership, operation, renting, deals, and legacy of land (undoubtedly, the redistribution of land itself requires legitimate changes). In an agrarian economy like India with incredible shortage, and an unequal circulation, of land, combined with an expansive mass of the provincial populace beneath the destitution line, there are convincing financial and political contentions for land change. Of course, it got beat need on the approach motivation at the season of Independence. In the decades taking after freedom India passed a noteworthy assemblage of land reformsenactment.

Political economy of land reform in West Bengal

2003

This paper examines land reforms implemented in a longitudinal sample of over 80 villages in West Bengal since the mid-1970s. Since 1978 the state government (throughout dominated by a coalition of Leftist parties) devolved implementation of land reforms to elected local governments. It is difficult to explain the observed patterns on the basis of differences in redistributive ideology alone. Land distributed to the poor had an inverse-U pattern with respect to the share of local government seats secured by the Left, with the downward sloping part prevailing over most of the sample. We offer an interpretation of this in terms of reduced incentive for elected officials to implement land reforms when there was less competitive pressure for re-election, owing either to moral hazard or the influence of local landed elites. We find evidence consistent with the competitiveness hypothesis for the land distribution program. Added evidence for the role of competitive motives is provided by significant pre-election year spikes in land reform activity, and substantial land reform preceding the advent of the Left Front government. 1 We thank the MacArthur Foundation Inequality Network for funding the data collection. Sankar Bhaumik and Sukanta Bhattacharya of the Department of Economics, Calcutta University led the village survey teams that collected the data. Indrajit Mallick helped us obtain the election data. We are grateful to Partha Chatterjee for useful conversations concerning West Bengal politics, and to Kevin Lang for econometric advice. Alfredo Cuecuecha provided outstanding research assistance. Nobuo Yoshida and Amaresh Tiwari also provided useful assistance. Mookherjee thanks the John Henry Simon Guggenheim Foundation for funding a sabbatical year when much of this research was conducted. The paper has benefited from the comments of seminar participants at Jadavpur, MIT, PennState, Stanford, Toulouse, the World Bank and the Center for Studies in Social Science, Calcutta.

Land Reform in post independent India

After independence,the Government of India knows that farming improvement in India could be accomplished just with the change of India's country institutional structure. It was said that the degree of the use of farming assets would be dictated by the institutional system under which the different sources of info were put to utilize. Land change, a purposive change in the path in which farming land is held or possessed, the strategies for development that are utilized, or the connection of agribusiness to whatever remains of the economy. The idea of land change has differed after some time as per the scope of capacities which land itself has performed: as a component of generation, a store of significant worth and riches, a grown-up toy, or a wellspring of social and political impact. Land esteem mirrors its relative shortage, which in a market economy for the most part relies on upon the proportion between the zone of usable land and the extent of that range's populace. As the per capita land territory decays, the relative estimation of land rises, and land turns out to be progressively a wellspring of contention among financial andsocial gathers inside the group.