Role of Land Reforms in Eradicating Land Inequalities in Rural India

Abstract

Land is an ultimate unit of production and its redistribution has implications for reducing poverty, access to agricultural inputs and benefits from the technology led interventions such as green revolution. The distribution of land was highly unequal during the British rule. The government of India since independence has given adequate focus on land policy in most of the every five-year plans. Subsequently, most of the states enacted legislations along with revisions from time to time for abolishing of intermediary tenures, fixing the ceiling limits, consolidating the land, etc. The fact remains that there were wide variations in the implementation of land reforms across the states resulting in wider variations in the distribution of surplus land to poor landless households. The study also points that at India level, land inequalities have decreased, but only a few states such as Odisha, West Bengal, and Kerala were able to implement the land reforms successfully resulting in the decline in land inequalities. Thus, the success of land reform lies in educating, persuasion of large land holders and compelling them to cooperate through coercion, which requires a strong government political will and a bureaucracy with the commitment to achieve the desired results.