Page 212 - SST Class 07

and cooperatives. Government used these Ceiling of land-holdings was another component
factors as its resource for land reformation.
A major problem faced at the time of Zamindari
Abolition Act was the absence of adequate land
records. By 1956, Zamindars were abolished
without the use of coercive method. The aboli- law was passed, exemptions of large families, tea,
tion of Zamindari changed the status of nearly 20
million tenants who became landowners.
Zamindari Abolition Act was passed in different
parts of the country. In U.P., the Zamindari. Tried
to obstruct the passage of legislations on the
abolition of Zamindari. The collusion of
Zamindari and bureaucracy made the implemen-
tation of Zamindari system difficult. The
Zamindars tried to obstruct land reforms through
all the three arms of government – legislature,
executive and judiciary.
Another important component of land reform
transfer of land to tenants was also difficult to
implement. The legislations aiming at tenancy
reforms differed in implementation because of
different political and economic situations preva-
lent in different parts of the country. Tenancy
reform aimed at three objectives :
1. To provide security to those tenants who
had cultivated a piece of land without break
for a fixed number of years.
2. Reduction of rents paid by tenants to a just
level of one fourth production.
3. They give tenants the ownership right over
the land they cultivated.
The government tried its best to get tenancy
rights for farmers. Experiments like operation
Barga launched by West Bengal government in
1978 aimed at successful and time-bound
registration of share croppers to give them
occupancy rights and a crop division of 1:3
between the landowner and the sharecropper.
This reform neutralised the negative role played
by the revenue officials.
Social Science-7 212
of land reforms. The government aimed to fix
ceiling on landholdings and distribute surplus
land to the landless. However, this law was
opposed by State Legislatures. Later, when the
rubber, coffee plantations in the names of family
members or relatives. By the end of 1970, not a
single acre of land was declared surplus in states
like Bihar, Kerala and Odisha.
The second phase of land reforms was instituted
in 1960’s, when Lal Bahadur Shastri was the
Prime Minister, it aimed to start a Green revolu-
tion by introducing technological changes in
certain States of the country, where favourable
conditions for such a change existed. These were
the states of Punjab, Haryana, U.P. and Tamil
Nadu. The government introduced High Yielding
Variety (HYV) of seeds and new technology like
tractors, power, irrigation, fertilisers, etc. to
improve production. The main aim of this
revolution was to increase production by 35
percent by the year 1980.
The first phase of land reforms was a legacy of
the peasant movement of the pre-independence
era. Leaders like N.G. Ranga and Charan Singh
played a decisive role in it. The second phase of
land reform was implemented by the government
to make India self-sufficient in food production.
The three factors which were our concern of
study lead us to the following conclusion :
1. The government at Central, State and Local
Level worked with the objective of provid-
ing land to the tiller of ‘Gopal’ in actuality.
For this, they aimed to abolish the
Zamindari system and introduce technologi-
cal reforms to boost agricultural production.
2. The government used factors like Zamindari
Abolition Act, legislation, ceilings, technol-
ogy and irrigation techniques to improve
production.