V

orders of society were not organized to achieve political power
and did not know how to use the organs and procedures of a
modern state to achieve their aims. Another element in the
situation, which has been widely noted, is the fact that the
rural leaders of the Congress Party were drawn from the upper and
middle castes, although not from the richest landholding people.
The rural leaders were small and middling zamindars and privileged
tenants perhaps one could call them the kulaks of India. Also,
a large portion of the MLAs elected on the Congress ticket from
rural constituencies were not rural people but urban people who
were not intimately acquainted with the character of the rural
constituency in which they ran. Nor were they by upbringing and
experience representative of the attitudes, beliefs, and aims
of small farmers and tenants. Furthermore, the Congress leader-
ship itself was largely urban, or in the long struggle for
independence had become either urbanized or 'nationalized.'
Daniel Thorner's suggested reform -- to give the land to the man
with callouses on his hands amounts to a proposal that,
wherever there was a choice, the title to the land should be
given to the man on the lowest rung of the ladder. This class
was almost totally unrepresented in the legislative assemblies
and the national parliament (except in the sentiments of the

"But I think there were deeper and more permanent roots to the
frustration of the reforms of land tenures. The acts as they
emerged from the legislative assemblies were not, I think,
mistakes or corruptions of purpose, but anticipatable results
of the nature of politics everywhere and of the specific
structure of Indian politics. It was among the higher reaches
of the Congress Party that the desire for revolutionary reform
was strongest, and these national leaders operated through the
federal Parliament and the national administration. The land
reform legislation was, on the other hand, drawn and passed
by state legislatures. Whether the MLAs did or did not have
the same high idealism as the Congress leaders, the higher
reaches of the Congress leadership did not have to worry about
re-election to Parliament, about their high position in the
Party structure, nor even (and at worst) about losing all
political function -- they knew they would always be in demand
as elder statesmen. But the MLAs position both in the party
and in life in general was much more dependent on being re-
elected to the legislative assembly and consequently the MLAs
were much more sensitive to the immediate desires of their
supporters in the constituencies. If the political structure
in the countryside had divided along class and caste lines,
then it would have been possible for politicians to found

V

successful political careers on an association with the lower orders of society,; but, the political divisions in the countryside cut vertically across the horizontal lines of caste hierarchy and economic interest group.

"The substance, structure, and process of Indian local politics, and of Indian national politics at the local level, is faction. Factions are vertical divisions within the village: they cut across lines of caste, of kinship and marriage, and of landholding status. Factions originate in disputes over land, marriages, inheritances, dignities, and the desire to dominate a festival organization or village council. They become, in the modern Indian democracy, associated with state or nationwide political parties.

"Thus marshalling electoral support in the villages by an MLA meant marshalling the support of a sufficient number of faction leaders to carry the area in an election and these faction leaders are drawn from the dominant castes. The consequence? That the people to shom MLAs in search of re-election had to be sensitive were not the smaller caste groups or the poorest people or the underpriviledged or deprived. The sensitivity of the Indian MLA to the realities of the political structure assured the middle orders of Indian rural society of gentle treatment in the reforms.

"Another characteristic of the structure of Indian society
which is relevant to this discussion is the diversity of
interests among the population as a whole. Revolutionary
reformers typically see the world as consisting of a small
group of exploiters at the top and a large mass of exploited
at the bottom. When the world is seen in this way it appears
that, once the "broad masses" are given political rights, reform
can be carried through on a wave of popular enthusiasm. But
in India and I am sure in most places the social structure
does not consist of a small band of 'ruling exploiters' and a
'broad mass' of powerless exploited. Rather, many different
groups constitute the electorate and while some groups will have
some interests in common, it is equally true that there will be
points upon which they disagree and interests over which they
conflict. If we break down India's population in a very rough
way into several primary socio-economic classes we discover that
there is no vast majority in favor of any one particular kind
of land reform; in fact, only a number of minorities. Deduct
from the total population the quarter that lives in towns and
cities. Deduct the five to fifteen percent of people who felt
themselves directly threatened by land reforms. Deduct another

V

-

who

quarter of the population landless laborers, harijans
would not receive land in any of the reforms seriously contemplated
and so had no immediate reason to support reform. Deduct another
proportion of villager-dwellers perhaps ten or fifteen percent
who were merchants, village servants, and artisans but who did not
rent land or work on the land and who therefore had no particular
reason for supporting any one kind of land reform act as against
another. This leaves us with, at a rough estimate, perhaps a
quarter to a third of India's population which stood to gain by
the 'abolition of intermediaries.' This was not a homogeneous
group: there were divisions of interest among these people
because they were on different rungs of the ladder of rights.
My guess is that no more than a quarter of India's population had
a clear interest in a reform which would give title to the land
to a cultivating tenant defined as a man with callouses on his
hands; and this group would divide along faction lines. Some
members could be expected to "desert the cause" because their
other interests in the success and power of their faction out-
weighed their interests in land reform. I doubt that more than a
sixth of the population of India had an overwhelming, primary
interest in land reform. Perhaps four-fifths of the population
were in a general way rather favorable to the idea of land reform
but the interest of most of these in reform was amorphous and
indirect, so that they could not be wrought up over matters of
detail.

"I now come to a most important point: it is very doubtful that
more than a very small minority of clean caste Hindus wanted a
law which would have given title to land to harijans; it is very
doubtful that more than a small minority of middle cultivating
castes wanted a law which would have given title to land to the
clean castes positioned immediately below them in the ritual
hierarchy; it is very doubtful that those who had title to a
small piece of land or a reasonable degree of security upon the
land which they farmed wanted those with less to acquire an
equal amount of security and, Indian values being what they are,
the enhanced status that goes with owning land.

"Indian land reform legislation was not badly drawn, mistakenly
drawn, or corruptly subverted from its original intent. It
was drawn up by legislators as it was because they intended to
draw up the acts the way they did. They wanted to satisfy

V

a sufficiently wide range of interests and attachments so that
1
they could be re-elected and continue to enjoy power.

In Conclusion.

Land reforms in U. P. have reduced the incomes of what were the (few) very largest landowners both absolutely and relatively. But simultanrously they have barred the landless from participating in the rising average incomes of rural India. They have increased the self-confidence and effectiveness of "middle class" and "middle caste" farmers in political life. But they have had no discernable effect upon productivity -- the increase in which are easily accounted for by other events of the past two decades. Finally, further transfers of title from present landholders to the landless will not increase productivity, and are so unlikely to occur as to make efforts ot encourage land reform a waste of time, energy and expertise.

1.

Quite

I do not use the term "enjoy power" in a pejorative sense.
the contrary. The only motive I can think of for becoming a
politician and staying a politician is because one does "enjoy
power. And a politician who does not have power is as useless
to his constituents as a pair of scissors without a hinge pin is
to a seamstress. The business of a politician, including the
legislator, is to act in such a way as to be re-elected by the
majority -- and that is what the MLAs were doing when they drew up
the various land reform acts in the Indian states."

II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Since a bibliography on Indian land reform is being submitted by Dr. Gene Wunderlich and since I do not have the resources here in Knoxville to equal (let alone to improve upon) Dr. Wunderlich's bibliography, I shall instead simply list the very few pieces of the literature which are significant for an understanding of land tenure history and land reform in U. P.

For an analysis of land reform in all of India (including U. P.), the best analysis and commentary is Daniel Thorner, The Agrarian Prospect for India. Delhi: University of Delhi Press, 1956.

For the pre-British period the classic source is W. H. Moreland, The Agrarian System of Moslem India. Cambridge (England): W. Heffer, 1929.

For the period of British rule in the 19th century, the source should be B. H. Baden-Powell, The Land System of British India, Volumes I and II. Oxford: Clarindon Press, 1892; for the 19th and 20th centuries, B. H. Misra, Land Revenue Policy in the United Provinces under British Rule. Banaras: Nand Kishori, 1942.

For the point of view of those who introduced and carried forward the land reform legislation of 1952-54, see Report of the United Provinces Zamindari Abolition Committee. Allahabad: Supt., Printing and Stationery, U. P., 1948.

For the period of British rule and for the land reforms, Walter C. Neale, Economic Change in Rural India: Land Tenure and Reform in Uttar Pradesh, 1800-1955. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.

There is no complete nor thoroughly persuasive study of the effects of the U. P. land reforms, but the best book, a worthwhile one, for this purpose is Baljit Singh and Shridhar Misra, A Study of Land Reform in Uttar Pradesh. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1965.

For the all-India social, economic, and political background, see George Rosen, Democracy and Social Change in India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

There are articles in journals of commentary, in professional journals, and a plethora of dissertations and theses on land reform and consolidation, but few if any are particularly worthwhile.

I list below the full citations for works cited in this paper: