Land Reform and Rural Poverty in India

In a continuing attempt to better understand the problems of rural poverty in India, the Near East South Asia Bureau of A.I.D. sponsored the preparation of three papers on land reform in India, plus a day-long

seminar in Washington on April 17 where they were discussed.

This semi

nar came a month and a half before A.I.D.'s Spring Review of (world-wide) land reform issues. While the results of this seminar will be one of the

inputs into that broader effort, India is sufficiently important and unique to warrant separate treatment.

The papers covered a general survey of India's land reform program and its effects (Gene Wunderlich, Economics Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Land Reforms in India") plus two case studies, one on Uttar Pradesh (Walter C. Neale, Department of Economics, University of Tennessee, "Land Reform in Uttar Pradesh") and one on Bihar (F. Tomasson Jannuzi, Department of Economics, University of Texas, "The Agrarian

Structure in Bihar

Attempts at Change and Some Implications"). Parti

cipants included staff members from both A.I.D. and State, plus Raj Krishna, EDI/IBRD and University of Rajasthan, who provided comments on the topic

in general. Altogether between 15 and 20 persons attended and participated in what was a provocative, free-wheeling discussion.

The breadth of the discussion, plus the number of issues and conflicting opinions presented, make a straight-forward summary less than completely useful. Instead, the attempt is made herein to use these, plus other materials, to build a reasonably consistent picture, one which is more sustainable than any other we might develop on the basis of the presentations made to us. The reader interested in other viewpoints and more background should turn to the papers themselves.

Some Introductory Problems

At its core, land reform involves the redistribution of ownership rights to land. But since regulation of arrangements governing the use

of land can accomplish similar goals, control of tenancy, share-cropping, rents and wages are often discussed in the same breath. One is also likely to find issues related to the promotion of cooperatives and the distribution of inputs raised under this heading. The term land reform, being a good word in the lexicon of political rhetoric, tends to pick up any and all schemes for rural uplift that are put forward. We will try to stick to its narrower definition and refer to other proposals by name whenever confusion may arise.

Further

The situation is further complicated by the fact that distinctions between landless laborer, tenant, share-cropper and land-owner are easier to draw in principal than in practice. A man may lease in one parcel of land, lease out another and work as a part-time laborer on a third. more, even when he plays only one role, what he calls himself may be suggested to him by local laws: where tenancy is illegal one finds few tenants but many share-croppers and landless laborers. These facts make much of

*

the data collected on land use patterns difficult to interpret, if not outright useless. It also makes it difficult to identify just who it is that

* In a study of two Punjabi villages it was found that between 1950 and 1960 the number of tenant families decreased from 27 to 7, the number of cultivating owner families increased from 100 to 116 and the number of landless labor families increased from 26 to 85. Apart from continuing population pressure this shift is related to the tenancy reforms introduced at the beginning of this period. But another unexpected development, also related to the tenancy reforms, was the growth of a new land tenure arrangement known as sanjhee in which, for a share of the crop, hired laborers look after and sometimes manage the whole farm operation for owners, many of whom do not live on the land.

sanjhee arrangement is not recognized in law, the revenue records indicate that land under such arrangements is under owner cultivation. See J.S. Uppal, "Implementation of Land Reform Legislation in India - A Study of Two Villages in Punjab," Asian Survey, Vol. IX, No. 5, May 1969, DD. 362-371.

land reforms are supposed to be helping and to determine whether in fact they have been helped. One is forced to base one's argument on first-hand observations and intuition to a greater extent than is comfortable.

Finally, the situation is enormously complicated by India's diversity, which is especially great in the rural area. This is perhaps the main weakness of the generalizations made in this paper.

Expected Effects

Generally, land reform is advocated in the hope that it will (1)

reduce social unrest, (2) increase productivity, and (3) increase employComments and doubts were raised about each of these

ment in agriculture.

expected effects.

1. On social unrest. The argument here is that the inequities of

rural life cause social conflict and must be eliminated to reduce such

For others,

conflict. Typically this argument involves the assertion that discontent among the underprivileged is rising. For some this rise is the result of growing aspirations, caused by the spread of education and the knowledge, thanks to the Green Revolution, that things can be different. actual inequalities are believed to be rising, as a consequence of the unequal spread of the Green Revolution, resumptions of holdings by owners and the growing use of money wages in place of traditional tenancy arrangements.

Still others provide examples indicating inroads made

for the first time by outside agitators.

But there are no reliable data to prove or disprove such assertions;

income and status do not seem to be leading to increasing discontent,

where some movement towards reducing such inequalities can be discerned,