Land law

Land Reforms in Pre-Independence India

1. Land and Real Estate Laws Land Reforms in Pre-Independence India Submitted By:- Dhruv Jain

2. Land Land is considered as an important element of life and is highly valued in most of the world. Land is useful to man in many ways as a source of food, for place to live, for wood, for place to work etc., In India , Before colonial rule the land used to be in the hands of the community as a whole . However during the British Raj this has changed.

3. Lord Carnwallies has introduced Permanent Land Settlement for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1793. According to this, the tax farmers appointed by the british rulers will be converted as various Land Lords. Under this rule they have to pay fixed commission to East India Company. Thus these intermediary are formed, called as Jagirdars and Jamindar .

4. Land Reforms in India Land reforms refers to an institutional measure directed towards altering the existing pattern of ownership, tenancy and management of land. It entails “a redistribution of the rights of ownership and/or use of land away from large landowners and in favour of cultivators with very limited or no landholdings.”

5. Objectives of land reforms Restructuring of agrarian relations to achieve an egalitarian structure Elimination of exploitation in land relations Actualization of the goal of “land to the tiller” Improvement of socio-economic conditions of the rural poor by widening their land base Increasing agricultural production and productivity Facilitating land-based development of rural poor Infusion of a great measure of equality in local institutions

6. Reasons for enactment of land laws by Britishers The Bengal Rent Act of 1859 This Act placed restrictions on the power of landlords' to increase rent or evict tenants. However, the Act only protected fixed-rent tenants and did not protect bargadars or agricultural labourers . But it only protected those fixed-rent tenants who could prove they had cultivated the land for 12 consecutive years. Constant cultivation was difficult to prove due to poor records and the Act resulted in an increase in evictions by Zamindars to prevent tenants from possessing land for the required time period.

7. Reasons for enactment of 2 nd Act by Britishers The 1885 Bengal Tenancy Act This Act also sought to protect long-standing tenants, and was similarly ineffective. During this period, another form of landholder emerged in Bengal. The Jotedars were a rich class of peasants who reclaimed and gained control of large quantities of uncultivated forests and wetlands outside the territory governed by the Permanent Settlement. The Jotedars refined some of this land through the direct supervision of hired labour or servants. Nevertheless, the bulk of the Jotedars ' land, like much of the land in Bengal, was cultivated by Bargadars .

8. In the 1940s, the Tebhaga movement called for a smaller crop share payment and also created the slogan, "He who tills the land, owns the land." The movement is given credit for shaping post-Independence land reform legislation in West Bengal. The 1949 Constitution left the adoption and implementation of land and tenancy reforms to state governments. This led to a lot of dissimilarity in the implementation of these reforms across states and over time. After India Independence, the government took major step to eradicate the systems of Jamindaris and Jagirdari , to remove intermediaries between state and peasant. This was the first legislature taken by almost all the states called as Abolition of Jamindari / Jagirdari systems Act.

9. Emergence of Tenants Following the Land Settlement Act, 1793, The farmers purchase lands from the Land Lords and hire it for their agricultural use. These people who hired the land are called Tenants.

10. Tenancy Systems At the time of independence, these existed many types of proprietary land tenure in the country. Ryotwari System Mahalwari System Jamindari System Jagirdari System

11. Ryotwari System Introduced by Thomas Munro in 1820. Major areas of introduction include Madras, Bombay and parts of Assam. In Ryotwari System the ownership rights were handed over to the peasants. British Government collected taxes directly from the peasants. This existed in Madras since 1772 later extended to Bombay Presidency. Under this system., every registered holder of the land is considered as proprietor. The responsibility of paying land revenue directly to the government was of cultivator himself and there is no intermediary between him and the state. They had liberty to sell / lease / gift the property to any one and could not be evicted from the land as long as he pays the land revenue. The settlement under this system was done on temporary basis.

12. Mahalwari System Mahalwari system was introduced in 1833 during the period of Lord William Bentick . The land ownership is held as joint ownership with the village body. The land can be cultivated by tenants who can pay cash / kind / share. It was introduced in Central Province, North-West Frontier, Agra, Punjab, Gangetic Valley, etc of British India. The Mahalwari system had many provisions of both the Zamindari System and Ryotwari System. In this system, the land was divided into Mahals . Each Mahal comprises one or more villages. Ownership rights were vested with the peasants. The villages committee was held responsible for collection of the taxes.

13. Zamindari System Zamindari / Jamindari System was introduced by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 through Permanent Settlement Act. It was introduced in provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Varanasi. Also known as Permanent Settlement System. Zamindars were recognized as owner of the lands. And they were given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants. Under this system the whole village was under one landlord. The persons interested can work in the jamindars land as tenant / labourer based on the agreement with the jamindar . The jamindari system was known to be more exploitive, as the jaminder used to fix / hike the prices of land when ever they wished to do so.

14. Jagirdari System Almost as similar as Jamindari system. The jagirdar is powered to control the unproductive masses of village by engaging them in agrarian activities. As the land was controlled by states in india and the relationship between production and land tenure varies from state to state, national policy recommendation resulted in differing tenancy reform laws in each state.

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