Current land policy issues in India- R.S. Deshpande

Professor and Head, Agricultural Development and Rural Transformation Unit,
Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India

Land problems in India continue to attract equal attention from policy-makers and academics. The renewed interest in land issues stems from the perceived impact of liberalization and opening up the economy. Tenancy, land ceiling and land administration are being revisited with a new perspective. Among the issues under renewed focus, legalizing tenancy, revising the ceiling limits, quality of land, meeting the challenge of miniscule holdings that are a consequence of marginalization and land administration are dominating the debate. This paper looks at these issues. It sets a background to the emergence of land policy in India from pre-Independence and, after tracing it through various phases, maps out the impacts and emerging challenges. After an analysis of the development of land policy over various planning periods, the issues at stake during the 1990s are reviewed. Finally a case is made for a new land-policy framework that includes reforms to the maintenance of land records, deals with concealed tenancy and non-viable land holdings, and the problem of land quality. These issues have assumed greater importance in the current economic transition in rural areas.

INTRODUCTION

Land policy in India has been a major topic of government policy discussions since the time prior to Independence from British rule. The peasants of the country strongly backed the independence movement and the "Land to the Tiller" policy of the Congress Party because of the prevailing agrarian conditions. The agrarian structure during British administration emerged with a strong historical background (Baden Powel, 1974; Dutt, 1976; Appu, 1996). The land-revenue system implemented by Todar Mal during Akbar's regime can be traced as the possible beginning of systematic efforts to manage the land. This method incorporated measurement, classification and fixation of rent as its main components. Under the various pre- British regimes, land revenues collected by the state confirmed its right to land produce, and that it was the sole owner of the land. British rulers took a cue from this system and allowed the existence of noncultivating intermediaries. The existence of these parasitic intermediaries served as an economic instrument to extract high revenues (Dutt, 1947) as well as sustaining the political hold on the country. Thus at the time of Independence the agrarian structure was characterized by parasitic, rent-seeking intermediaries, different land revenue and ownership systems across regions, small numbers of land holders holding a large share of the land, a high density of tenant cultivators, many of whom had insecure tenancy, and exploitative production relations (Appu, 1996).

Immediately after Independence a Committee, under the Chairmanship of the late Shri J. C. Kumarappa (a senior Congress leader), was appointed to look into the problem of land. The Kumarappa Committee's report recommended comprehensive agrarian reform measures. India's land policy in the decades immediately following its independence was dominated by legislative efforts to address the problems identified by the Kumarappa Committee (NCA, 1976; Joshi, 1987). A substantial volume of legislation was adopted, much of it flawed and little of it seriously implemented.

Several important issues confronted the policy-makers.

1. Land was concentrated in the hands of a few and there was a proliferation of intermediaries who had no vested interest in self-cultivation. Leasing out land was a common practice.

2. The tenancy contracts were expropriative in nature and tenant exploitation was ubiquitous.

3. Land records were in extremely bad shape giving rise to a mass of litigation. It is ironic that the Supreme Court of India in 1989 commented that the revenue records are not legal documents of title (Wadhwa, 1989). This is a sad commentary on the land records of the country.

It is against this background that land policy has been shaped in India. While land-reform legislation remained active, land policies in more recent decades have focused less on land reform and more on land development and administration.

Land policy in India has undergone broadly four phases since Independence.

1. The first and longest phase (1950 - 72) consisted of land reforms that included three major efforts: abolition of the intermediaries, tenancy reform, and the redistribution of land using land ceilings. The abolition of intermediaries was relatively successful, but tenancy reform and land ceilings met with less success.

2. The second phase (1972 - 85) shifted attention to bringing uncultivated land under cultivation.

3. The third phase (1985 - 95) increased attention towards water and soil conservation through the Watershed Development, Drought-Prone Area Development (DPAP) and Desert-Area Development Programmes (DADP). A central government Waste land Development Agency was established to focus on wasteland and degraded land. Some of the land policy from this phase continued beyond its final year.

4. The fourth and current phase of policy (1995 onwards) centres on debates about the necessity to continue with land legislation and efforts to improve land revenue administration and, in particular, clarity in land records.

This paper is an attempt to discuss the critical issues pertaining to land policy in India beginning with the emergence of a post-Independence policy in a historical context, and from a viewpoint of differential provincial policies. Naturally, land reforms predominate the discussion here. Land reforms have been one of the important land policy initiatives in India that have brought a fundamental change in the entire approach towards development. The paper discusses the impact of land reforms and the changing phases of land administration. The focus is on the role and development process of land policy in India in the context of overall changes in India's development policies. It also addresses the political and economic aspects of the policy initiatives, beginning with the various land-reform efforts and finally analysing the recent land development and administration policies. The paper incorporates a discussion on the closely related goals of land policy, i.e. poverty elimination, conflict management, sustainable economic growth and good environmental management. In the final analysis, the paper highlights current issues pertaining to the relationships among land policy, poverty and the development initiatives.

EMERGENCE OF LAND POLICY IN INDIA

Given India's vastness, diversity and various political, economic and social influences from a history of various rulers and foreign conquerors, it is not surprising that land tenurial and administration practices varied significantly throughout the subcontinent at the time of Independence. One common factor was that land policies had been driven by the rulers' efforts to extract land revenue or tax from those working on the land. Throughout much of the country, the rulers appointed Zamindars, or tax collectors, who were contracted to collect land revenue for a given large territory and pay fixed sums to the government (but often extracted as much as they could from the landholders and pocketed the difference). Though tenurial conditions varied significantly from region to region, the numerous tenures could be classified under two broad categories - the Zamindari and Rayatwari systems. The Zamindari system was characterized by one or more layers of proprietary rights between the state and the actual landholder. In the Rayatwari (or peasant proprietorship) system, no intermediaries existed in design but emerged in the process.

The British rulers continued with existing land-revenue policies and procedures with a few but significant modifications. Perhaps most importantly, the British made the tax-collecting Zamindars into proprietors of the estates over which they had tax collection duties. This change was aimed at accomplishing two objectives: simplifying the land-revenue collection process and creating a rural elite with a vested interest in British rule. Unfortunately, it converted the erstwhile landowners into insecure tenants. Over time, many Zamindars assigned their land-revenue collection duties to one or more layers of intermediaries who were also given interests in the land. The historical emergence and perpetuation of intermediaries served the purpose of land revenue administration and political control of the successive rulers, but their numbers swelled. The large patches of land held by them were let to tenants at exorbitantly high rents. That created a disincentive among the tenant cultivators to develop the land, and consequently impacted upon production. Thus, the Colonial Government, out of its interest to administer the country effectively, did not make any substantial changes in the land-revenue system but promoted the class of non-cultivating intermediaries.

At the time of Independence, India faced a major challenge of setting right the agrarian structure as promised during the independence struggle. Thorner and Thorner (1961), in an analysis of the agrarian structure of India, vividly describe the pre-Independence structure as a complex of legal, economic and social relations - a multilayered structure that pulled down the production efficiency in the agricultural sector. A brief review of the literature also reveals a myriad of agrarian relations in India, varying from peasant proprietorship to a pure landlord - serf relationship (Joshi, 1975, 1987; Ladejinsky, 1977). The first task placed before the first Indian parliament was to address land policy. Because India has a densely populated agrarian economy, almost all other developmental initiatives also involved land as a central and a complex issue, as it clearly represented social status and not just the means of production.

While recognizing the need to bring about land reforms in the country, the Constitution of India provided under Article 39 that: (1) the ownership and control of the material resources of the country should be so distributed as best to serve the common good; and (2) the operation of the economic system should not result in a concentration of wealth or a means to production to the common detriment.

The Constitution of India also made land a state (provincial) subject. So, only state (provincial) legislatures have the power to enact and implement land-reform laws. However, the central government played a significant advisory and financial role in land policy based on its constitutional role in social and economic planning (a role held concurrently with the states). The Government of India established a National Planning Commission immediately after Independence to fulfil this role of social and economic planning.

The Planning Commission has prepared a series of Five-Year Plans since 1951. Land policy has been one of the important components incorporated in all the plans. The policy statements are sometimes quite explicit in the plan documents, but are more often implicitly stated. An overview of changes in the land policy as reflected through the various plan documents is given in Table 1. Land reform policy was spelt out in the First Five-Year Plan. The plan aimed to reduce disparities in income and wealth, to eliminate exploitation and to provide security to tenants, as well as to achieve social transformation through equality of status and an opportunity for different sections of the population to participate in development initiatives.

Source: from various plan documents. These are not exhaustive statements but only indicative of the thrust. Gaps in the plan periods were annual plans and full plan documents could not be prepared for these gaps.

The focus and emphasis on land policy has changed during the last 50 years, but the core issues continued to revolve around a just distribution of land resources. Land reforms predominated the land policy issues during the first three decades after Independence. Initially land reforms and community development came more or less together and these interventions were meant to provide a means of production to the millions of poor, who either lacked resources or did not have know-how to use them. Among the first phase reforms were: (1) the abolition of intermediaries, aiming to eliminate the land rights of intermediaries who held large share of the land resources; (2) tenancy reforms based on the hypothesis "tenant efficiency" and expecting an increase in capital growth. In addition to these economic goals, the tenancy reforms were taken as an intervention to provide tenants with more secure and profitable land rights. Efforts to establish ceilings on the size of land holdings followed. These were intended to reduce the concentration of wealth in the hands of few and provide a means of living to others. The second important intervention that was superimposed on the ongoing process of land reforms came in the form of the area-development programmes like the Drought-Prone Area Programme and Desert Development Programme. Both programmes focused on building land resources in ecologically fragile regions and providing employment opportunities to their inhabitants. Another similar intervention came from the policy's emphasis on soil and water conservation through a massive Watershed Development Programme highlighting the qualitative aspect of land. A Wasteland Development Programme to restore biodiversity and manage the environment in drought-prone areas came next in the form of the National Wasteland Development Board. Until the Watershed Development Programme, land reforms dominated the land policy scenario. There is now a fresh debate about the next phase of land reforms.

TENANCY REFORMS: WHAT SUCCEEDED AND WHAT FAILED?

In the earlier phases of land reforms the emphasis was on food production, extending technology and abolishing regressive institutions; poverty as an issue was not explicitly addressed. Raj Krishna (1961) grouped land-reform measures into four groups: liberative, distributive, organizational and developmental. These groups help to clarify the role of land policy as a process of overall development. The liberative measures aimed at the emancipation of the actual tillers of the land from the yoke of the landlord. This was to be achieved by conferring the land title or occupancy rights of the tenant. Fixing of rent was undertaken in a few states, e.g. West Bengal's "Operation Barga", where tenancy was recorded. The distributive measures were meant to achieve this by delivering material resources to the poor as promised by the Constitution of India, especially those who required land as a productive resource. This was to be achieved by redistributing landownership from large landholders to the landless, specifically from socially weaker sections. The tenancy reforms and ceiling on land holding represented liberative and distributive measures according to Raj Krishna's categorization. Organizational reforms aimed at selecting and implementing a particular form of agricultural production practice, with the help of technological change, were introduced in the mid-1960s. These three policies operating together put pressure on land resources, prompting a need for developmental reform. Developmental reforms encompassed other issues interconnected with land policy, which impacted the overall development of the agricultural sector. All four components taken together form a part of the overall distributive and development initiatives that were taken immediately after Independence. Even though Raj Krishna wrote this chapter almost at the beginning of the first phase of land reforms, the description aptly gives a clear theoretical view of the reforms that followed in the next two decades.

Immediately after Independence four important components of land reform were thought of as major policy interventions in building the land policy. These included: (1) the abolition of intermediaries; (2) tenancy reforms; (3) fixing ceilings on land holdings; and (4) consolidation of landholdings. These were taken in phases because of the need to establish a political will for their wider acceptance. By 1960, the whole process of legal enactment of the abolition of intermediaries was completed. This was the most successful component of the landreform process.

The major planks of tenancy reform included security of tenure, termination of tenancy, resumption for personal cultivation by the landlord, regulation of rent and confirmation of ownership rights. Various state laws were enacted between 1960 and 1972. These differed across the states and territories. Owing to the diverse and complicated nature of social and agrarian structure in the countryside, no uniform guidelines could be formulated for the whole country. However, some broad guidelines were given in addition to the directives in the successive plan documents. The consensus on the policy of tenancy reforms favoured neither complete expropriation of landlordism nor the interests of the tenants. In the national guidelines the following measures were communicated to the state governments for incorporation in the state legislation:

• security of the tenancy to be conferred on the actual cultivator;

• fair rent to be fixed between 20 and 25 percent of the gross produce;

• landowners may be permitted to cultivate land for their personal use;

• the surrender of the tenancy rights with mutual consent;

• in respect of some of the area, the landlord - tenant relationship to be ended and the tenant cultivator be brought directly into contact with the state;

• disabled persons, defence personnel and other such exemptions to be allowed to lease their land;

• the term "personal cultivation" should be clearly defined if landlords are allowed to remove tenants in order to resume cultivation;

• tenancy records should be corrected and oral tenancies should be abolished.

Because land is subject to state control in India and the relationship between production and land tenure varies from state to state, the national policy recommendations resulted in differing tenancy reform laws in each state. Some of the basic differences in the tenancy reform laws are outlined in Table 2.

Tenancy is completely prohibited in some states but completely free in others. Punjab and Haryana have not prohibited tenancy whereas Karnataka has a nearcomplete ban on tenancy. Some states have conferred ownership rights on tenant cultivators except for sharecroppers, whereas West Bengal chose to provide owner-like rights only to the sharecroppers. Some states, such as Maharashtra and Orissa, chose to provide different tenancy reform regimes for different areas within the state. Many states allowed tenancy only for certain limited groups of people, often broadly termed "disabled" (referring to physical disability). Orissa law considers a landowner owning less than 3 acres of land as a disabled person. In Rajasthan a student pursuing studies in an educational institution and less than 25 years old is also a disabled person. In Uttar Pradesh, such a student is included if his father is dead. In Uttar Pradesh all minors, women and unmarried daughters are not treated as disabled, unless their husband or father is dead. In Bihar a public servant whose salary is below the given norm is treated as disabled.

Among the various exceptions given under the tenancy acts, provisions allowing the landlords to remove tenants in order to resume personal cultivation assumed greater importance as the dominant landlords took advantage of this clause. The clause was entered with a view to induce the landlord to undertake personal cultivation and also to control absentee landlordism. Tenancy acts in almost all the states allowed the landlord to return land, if required, for personal cultivation, but the terms and definitions differed.

Most tenancy reform laws also contained provisions concerning the ability of tenants to surrender the land back to the landlord voluntarily. These provisions were used by landlords to weaken the impact of the laws. In most states the surrender of land falls under the jurisdiction of the revenue authorities. The authorities allowed such surrender after verification of the voluntary element in the process. The strong relationship between landlords and revenue officials often allowed the landlords to skirt the law's intention (Deshpande, 1998). Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tripura and Andhra Pradesh (Telangana area) did not provide for any surrender by the tenant to the landlord, but some did allow for surrender to the state. Tenants in some states were also given the right to purchase the land. For example, in Maharashtra, where tenancy is not prohibited, the tenant acquires the right to purchase the land after one year from the date of tenancy.

The types of tenancy contracts have also changed since 1971 - 72. Changing patterns in tenancy contracts are presented in Figure 1. There are fluctuations in cash rents and rents in terms of fixed produce over years and across states, but rents in terms of share of produce show a consistent decline. The picture has different shades across regions/states.

The regulation of rent levels was an important aspect of the tenancy reform legislations. The prevailing rent levels differed across the states in the country. The national policy recommended that fair rent payable by a tenant shall be subject to mutual agreement but should be limited to 20 - 25 percent of the produce. Individual states recalculated this for the purpose of their legislations, some using land revenue as a basis and others using the gross value of produce. Most states using the gross value of produce set the maximum rent levels in the range of 25 - 33 percent. Therefore, the variations in the tenancy contracts across states is not unexpected, nor are changes to these contracts over the decades.

The most controversial and debated provision of the tenancy reforms has been the complete or near-complete ban on tenancy in many states. In some states where tenancy is legally allowed, the tenancy reform laws also provided for the termination of tenancy under various circumstances: (1) the tenant has failed to pay rent for the year within the time stipulated in the law; (2) the tenant has been using land for purposes other than agriculture; (3) the land has been made unfit for cultivation; (4) the tenant has not been personally cultivating the land; and (5) the term of the lease period has elapsed or the landlord has returned the land to personal cultivation (Deshpande, 1998). It must be noted that even where tenancy is technically allowed, provisions that give long-term and protected rights to tenants can have the same impact as a ban as they prevent landowners from leasing out their land. The National Commission on Agriculture has asserted that under India's present ratio of agricultural land per capita, tenancy as such cannot and should not be totally banned (National Commission on Agriculture Part XV, pp. 160). Experience and field studies have shown that prohibition on tenancy is not entirely effective. Tenancy continues to exist and some observers note that the ban on tenancy negatively impacts the landless and land-poor (Shah and Sah, 2002). It is interesting that all these restrictions have given rise to a refractory tenancy market. Concealed tenancy and reverse tenancy proliferated as new forms (Nadkarni, 1976, 2002).

The enactment of tenancy legislation in 1962 - 77 appears to have resulted in a sharp decrease in tenancy. National sample surveys (NSS) also record a dramatic fall in the area under tenancy from 23.34 percent during 1952 - 53 to 10.7 percent in 1961 - 62, down to 7.2 percent in 1982. This settled down to 8 percent by 1991 as revealed by the 48th NSS round (see Table 3). Three important points need to be noted here. First, at least part of the decrease in tenancy resulted from landlords evicting their tenants either in anticipation of the laws or using loopholes in the laws. One estimate is that tenancy reform laws led to evictions resulting in the rural poor losing access to about 30 percent of the operated area in India (Appu, 1996). Second, the NSS almost certainly underestimate tenancy: both landowners and tenants are often afraid to reveal tenancy relationships because of the existing legal restrictions. The question of concealed tenancy has been debated and it is recorded that anywhere between 15 and 25 percent of tenancies in the country are illegal and concealed. NSS data show that informal leasing of land is dominated by smaller and marginal farmers. More than 80 percent of the leased-in land is held by this group. Because the tenancy agreement is oral and sharecroppers are weak both economically and politically, they are rarely adequately recompensed. Sharecroppers only have a tenuous hold on the land they cultivate and invariably have to hand over the land to the owner at any time they demand. Third, the tenancy laws helped tenants to acquire ownership or owner-like rights in about 4 percent of the operated area. These benefits were concentrated in a small number of states including Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Assam, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, and Maharashtra (Ministry of Rural Development, 2001).

The agricultural land-lease market has changed substantially in the last 30 years. Five components assume significance in this process.

1. The period of lease that used to be lifelong has been reduced, and in most states the period of lease (in many cases concealed tenancies) is now less than three years.

2. Earlier there used to be little or no supervision by the landlord of the leased land. This has increased as a result of the fear of tenant occupancy and the landlord - tenant relations have become stronger in terms of resource-sharing and cost-sharing.

3. The share of the landowner in investment used to be negligible but that has increased substantially as a consequence of technological advances.

4. The rent that used to be fixed by the landlord has been regulated in a few states, but rarely effectively (West Bengal is an exception). In a few other states where tenancy is undercover, the landlord fixes the rent and this can be 50 - 85 percent of the net produce.

5. During the early years of Independence tenants were exploited and therefore rarely identified themselves with the land they cultivated. However, now the tenants identify themselves with the land. Thus, the tenant cultivator's production efficiency is likely to have increased. This should be true where tenancy has been recorded in the legal and protected framework of the landlease market. But it is important here to take cognizance of two situations: (a) illegal tenancy in a region with a total ban on tenancy and (b) informal tenancy in a region where tenancy is legally permitted but for various reasons the tenancy contract is not recorded. In these two cases the allocation and technical efficiency of the tenant is likely to be low and needs attention.

CEILINGS ON HOLDINGS: REVISITED

Land distribution at the time of Independence was extremely skewed. Fifty-three percent of the land was held by 7 percent of the landowners, whereas 28 percent of landowners with submarginal and marginal holdings owned about 6 percent. The land distribution across the states was also quite skewed as can be seen from the Lorenz ratios of 1952 - 53 (Figure 2, Table 4). Central policy-makers felt that ceilings on landholdings were essential because of three economic compulsions: (1) there was strong evidence indicating an inverse size - productivity relationship, hinting that the aggregate production efficiency is hampered when land is held in large holdings; (2) there was some evidence that large holders of land left large areas fallow thereby perpetuating uneconomic land use; (3) a large proportion of the population were land-based poor who wanted land as an economic resource for their livelihood. It was thought that surplus land could be distributed to such poor people. The general position in favour of land ceilings was based largely on providing social justice and equity and not on the grounds of increasing production and developing agriculture.

Legislation providing for ceilings on agricultural holdings was enacted in two phases, 1955 - 72 and 1972 - present. The second phase was more radical in its content and to a large extent was based on the ineffectiveness of the first phase. The implementation process revealed several loopholes which landlords effectively exploited. Among the major loopholes that existed in the ceiling acts of various states included an ambiguity in various definitions, retrospective transfers, large numbers of exemptions, and the basis of fixing ceiling limits. High ceiling limits exempted a large number of landlords. The national guidelines for this phase were prepared during a Chief Ministers' Conference in July 1972. Consequent to the formation of the national guidelines, all the states modified or enacted their own laws. Among various factors that featured in the debate were the definitions of family, transfers, standard holdings, ceiling limits and exempted categories. The National Commission on Agriculture has asserted that any attempt to lower the ceiling limits might further create uncertainty in the minds of the middle and large farmers that may undermine agricultural production (NCA, 1976, Part XV, p. 162). Many of the matters were intended to simplify the process but in effect complicated the implementation. Ironically, legislation was passed by those who were likely to be affected by it. Mearns (1999) writes: "Various exemptions and loopholes left by individual states allowed landlords to retain control over land holdings, most infamously through benami (nameless entity) transactions, whereby village recordkeepers (patwaris) could be bribed to register holdings in the names of deceased or fictitious persons"

Many analysts of the Indian land-market situation have noted that the process of marginalization is sharply increasing in the country, proliferating the number of holdings considered economically unviable. Moreover, demographic pressures are reducing the size of holdings in the top brackets and leading to marginalization of holdings in the smaller brackets. A recent study on the causes of farmers' suicides in Karnataka noted that the land size has been fast declining making many holdings inefficiently small to sustain a farm family (Deshpande, 2002). India's First Five-Year Plan suggested the concept of an economically viable holding, which was then about 2 acres for self-cultivation. The Maharashtra law defined the economic holding as four permanently irrigated acres. Presently, more than 60 percent of the holdings fall under the definition of marginal and submarginal land holding (less than 1 ha). It must be emphasized that during 1961 - 62 this proportion was only 47 percent.

The entire emphasis of placing ceilings on landholdings was to detect surplus land that was above economic holding size, acquire that land and redistribute it among the landless who require an economic base. However, redistribution failed in most states. Acquiring surplus land was not effective and as the acquisition was meagre the redistribution was also insignificant. This failure was mainly a consequence of the associated political process and the village-level politicization of the issues. The relationship between the bureaucrats and politicians substantially fuelled this. A government document states: "It is widely recognized that the chief reason for the poor implementation of land reforms has been the lack of political will. It would not be surprising to expect so, if we appreciate the realities of the rural situation and development of Indian politics" (quoted in Rao, 1990). Even the microlevel studies noted that the functioning of land tribunals (local level bodies established to implement the land reforms) was not transparent and doubts were raised about the functioning of unofficial members (Thimmaiah and Aziz, 1983). The surplus land distributed does not form even 2 percent of the total net operated area, and even this small share was concentrated in only six states (West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Rajasthan) (Ministry of Rural Development, 2001).

Despite the limited success in the redistribution of surplus agricultural land, ceiling laws have succeeded in keeping a check on concentration of land in the hands of a few. A large number of experts now agree that the further lowering of ceilings and further implementation of ceiling laws is no longer a feasible option of engendering social equity. Marginalization of the size of holdings, with the proliferation of miniscule holdings, has emerged as a new challenge.

CONSOLIDATION OF HOLDINGS

Of all land-reform components, the consolidation of holdings has received least attention because of the timing of its attempted implementation and political process through which it went. During the early 1970s it was observed (see National Sample Survey 26th Round, 1971/72) that many landowners held several fragmented parcels scattered across the revenue villages. This was an easy escape from the Land Ceiling Act and therefore it was felt that landholding of an individual holder should be consolidated. The economic efficiency was also an associated argument. Legislation on consolidation was adopted in some states in order to reduce inefficiency in operations and cultivation. For the most part, these laws and associated consolidation programmes have failed to achieve their goals because of a lack of political will and administrative difficulties. The legislation was difficult to formulate and did not consider the reality of the caste system within the farming communities, and the local processes of politicization. Except in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, consolidation programmes have not made any impact. Although legislative provisions for consolidation have been adopted in 15 states, these laws included too many get-out clauses. For example, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal provide only for voluntary consolidation; it is more or less similar in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra. Given its importance and the extremely unsatisfactory results of this programme, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of the legislation and to rethink an institutional solution.

Demographic and economic pressures naturally cause fragmentation of land and marginalization of holdings can be seen as an important outcome of this. There are different views on the process and economic impact of the fragmentation of holdings. As can be seen from the data (NSS, 1992; Mearns, 1999), the number of parcels per holding has been declining: 5.7 in 1961 - 1962; 4 in 1982; 2 in 1992. Thus, theoretically there is little justification for consolidation in the usual manner. But the numbers of holdings smaller than 1 ha and especially those smaller than 0.5 ha have been increasing over the decades. This process causes concern. One successful approach has been taken by a few groups of small and marginal farmers in Karnataka and Maharashtra. These farmers came together to cultivate a particular crop (strawberries, tomatoes, gherkins or rose onions) on a contract basis with a price for the produce agreed in advance with the contractor. They could therefore overcome the viability threshold to cultivate such investment-intensive crops. This experiment provides an institutional alternative to consolidation of holdings.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF LAND OWNERSHIP

In India, land has always been associated with social status and has historically remained in the control of certain social groups. Social stratification is strong in India and is based on the caste system. The main caste groups are Brahmin, Vaishya, Kshatriya and Shudra, and each main group consists of hundreds of subcastes. Some groups are not included in this classification, especially the tribals and other groups with limited access to productive resources. The caste groups are associated with specific occupations and work; hence, they can be categorized into land-associated castes and other castes. The land-associated castes are usually the traditional cultivators. The social structure in terms of caste itself was geared to the mandatory segregation of groups associated with cultivation, trade, teaching along with priesthood and other services. This segregation of social structure was associated not only with the political base, but also with the landownership pattern in the country. The power relationship derived advantage from this social segregation, and the emergence of political power in the country can be easily associated with caste groups. Although land reforms became a prominent post-Independence policy initiative (in order to keep the commitment made by many of the leaders of the independence movement), the landassociated caste groups wielded significant political power after Independence, so the very interests of those responsible for lawmaking were tied with the implementation of the law. Naturally, as a result the landreform laws were either not thoroughly implemented or were manipulated with the help of administering institutions (Deshpande, 1998).

In the course of the last five decades all social groups have confronted the process of shrinking holding sizes, but the politically weak felt it more acutely. It must be noted here that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are the groups that have the highest concentration of poor in India. It can be observed that the share of landholdings belonging to Scheduled Castes is declining at a sharper rate than the general trend. Marginalization is a clear phenomenon in this group. Furthermore, their participation in the land-lease market is also marginal and concentrated on small fragments of land. Only 82 000 ha were leased by the cultivators belonging to the Scheduled Castes in 1990 - 91, which is about 0.62 percent of their total operated area. Of this, more than 34 percent comes under the marginal farmers' group. The tenancy contracts are generally constructed in terms of share of produce or fixed money rent. The number of holdings under the group defined as marginal farmers is increasing and that under the group large holdings is declining. The number of marginal farmers with less than 1 ha belonging to Scheduled Castes, however, is increasing much faster than those in other social groups. Moreover, the number of small farmers (those owning 1 - 2 ha) belonging to Scheduled Castes is declining, while the number of small farmers belonging to other social groups is increasing. This is clearly reflected in the average size of holding, which is decreasing more rapidly for Scheduled Caste households than for other social groups (Table 5). The sharp decline in the land base of the Scheduled Caste is quite alarming, and has happened even in the presence of legislation, which makes the land transfers from Scheduled Castes to other castes difficult.

TABLE 5
Distribution of ownership holding among weaker sections

Size class	Scheduled Caste		Scheduled Tribe		Others
	1982	1992	1982	1992	1982	1992
Marginal (less than 1 ha)	26.6	30.2	12.0	18.7	10.9	14.9
Small (1 to 2 ha)	22.71	22.2	18.8	22.7	15.6	17.5
Medium (2 to 4 ha)	24.0	20.4	29.2	27.7	22.6	24.7
Large (above 4 ha)	26.8	27.2	40.0	30.9	50.9	42.9
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Source: NSS, Land Holding Survey 37th round No. 330 1982 & 48th round No. 399 1992, Central Statistical Organisation, Delhi.

LAND: POVERTY AND POLICY ISSUES

In the context of globalization, it is clear that the small and marginal farmers are handicapped when it comes to participation in domestic and foreign markets. Their competitiveness is hampered by the crops they produce, by market imperfections and by a lack of access to available information. Other factors that inhibit India's farmers in competitive world markets include the small size of landholdings and low throughput of production. It is difficult for the small and marginal farmers to grow the commodities that are in demand in the world market, mainly because of the high cost of cultivation of these goods and their limited knowledge of them. In order to overcome this problem it is important to encourage entrepreneur groups (as suggested earlier), which can take the risk of competing to grow the crops with a domestic and international demand.

Although there is no direct correlation between land-policy initiatives and agricultural growth, the available evidence may not be significant enough to suggest a relationship. However, oppressive land relations were certainly barriers to growth, and land reforms have created preconditions favourable for growth. Because the majority of India's population depend upon land for their livelihood, poverty issues are also closely associated with land policy. Besley and Burgess (2000) gave robust evidence of a link between poverty reduction owing to tenancy reforms and abolition of intermediaries. They also inferred that land reforms also benefited the landless. A reconciliation of this with the process of the marginalization of landholdings in rural India is, however, an analytically challenging task. The dilemma is this: reform measures have helped in poverty reduction, but the average size of a poor landowner's holdings has decreased. Further evidence in this context is V.M. Rao's pertinent observation:

"This identification is based on three premises about the role of land reforms and common lands in the emerging development strategy. First, they have to serve as a link helping integration of growth policies with poverty alleviation programmes. Such integration is necessary to focus the development strategy as a whole - and not merely the individual schemes and programmes - on the rural laborers and poor. Second, at the ground level, land reforms and improved access to common lands need to be part of a package of measures specifically designed to the requirement of different subgroups of rural laborers and poor. Third, the ultimate goal of land reforms and other structural reforms is to promote the emergence of a viable and modernized peasantry consisting of small farmers and providing as much room as possible for the landless to enter the peasant sector."

(Rao, 1990)

Therefore, even though a direct relationship between land policy and poverty cannot be established, an influence can be inferred.

The poor in rural India are located mostly among the landless agricultural labourers, and marginal and smallholder farmers. NSS data (Rao, 1992) indicate that landlessness is the best predictor for poverty in India. In a cross-section analysis of the states in India, the empirical data suggest that marginalization is fast increasing. Trends differ across various regions and social groups, but it is clear that the landbased poor are becoming poorer because of marginalization. India's land policy interventions during the last five decades can be assessed based on their impact on various parameters, including alleviation of poverty, conflict management and equity, sustainable economic development, environmental impact, and production efficiency. The land policy interventions have had varying impacts across the states, depending in large part on the agrarian situation and the extent to which a given policy was implemented. Table 6 presents perceptions gathered from the literature about various policy interventions (Joshi, 1975, 1987; Appu, 1996; Mearns, 1999; Sinha and Pushpendra, 2000; Das, 2000; and various state volumes published by Sage publications under the series edited by Yugandhar and others). Table 6 ranks the overall impact using a three-point scale namely significant (sig), negligible (neg) and partial (par). An important limitation of this approach is the subjectivity associated with the judgement.

Poverty alleviation could be significantly impacted by the first three phases of land reform, but the DPAP and DADP have made little inroad. Similar results are seen in respect of conflict management and equity, but a significant change was recorded in this area because of the computerization of land records. DADP, DPAP and Wasteland Development Programmes could impact environmental management significantly. Similarly, these could influence sustainable growth in some pockets. The major contributor to sustainable growth came, however, from the abolition of intermediaries and the ceiling on land holdings, which together have put a pressure on economic use of resources. While production efficiency is not a direct derivative of land policy, its components can help. The abolition of intermediaries, land ceilings and the consolidation of holdings (wherever it could be done) have certainly contributed. The Watershed Development Programme has been one of the important land policy interventions in the recent past and has impacted poverty alleviation, conflict management and environmental management significantly. However, its influence on production efficiency was not very significant (Deshpande and Narayanamoorthy, 1999).

Land quality issues dominated policymaking during the 1980s and continued thereafter. Initially, the soil and water conservation programmes were undertaken in a few selected states to merge into the wider National Watershed Development

TABLE 6
Policy interventions and their perceived impact

Policy interventions	Poverty alleviation	Conflict management/ equity	Environmental management	Sustainable economic growth	Production efficiency
Abolition of intermediaries	Sig	Sig	Par	Sig	Sig
Tenancy reforms	Sig	Sig	Neg	Par	Sig
Ceiling on size of holding	Sig	Sig	Neg	Sig	Par
Consolidation of holdings	Neg	Neg	Par	Par	Sig
Computerization of land records	Neg	Sig	Neg	Neg	Par
Drought-Prone Area Development Programme (DPAP) and Desert Development Programme (DDP)	Par	Neg	Sig	Sig	Par
Watershed Development Programme	Sig	Sig	Sig	Par	Par
Wasteland development	Par	Neg	Sig	Par	Par

Note: impact levels are perceived as Sig, significant; Par, partial; Neg, negligible.

Programme for Rainfed Agriculture. This stemmed from a mid-term appraisal of the Seventh Plan and continued thereafter. Even though the main focus of the programme was to conserve soil and water resources, increases in income and productivity were an essential component.

The programme went through a phased implementation, various models of which operate throughout the country:

1. A state-implemented programme with the help of existing line departments, focusing more on technical parameters.

2. A state - non-governmental organization (NGO) partnership, largely implemented by the latter. This model allows a good institutional set up and focuses on people's livelihoods. Its flexibility is also one of its constraints.

3. Experiments outside of the ambit of state agencies, funded and implemented by NGOs.

The watershed development initiatives have had an impact on the quality of land as well as on the income of the beneficiaries. However, their impact on a sustainable environmental system is not very significant or at least not well documented (Deshpande and Narayanamoorthy, 1999). The DDP has been effective in certain pockets but the wasteland development initiatives have yet to make a significant mark. Bearing in mind the longer gestation period of these interventions, it would be misleading to consider tangible benefits alone. Other positive benefits of such programmes may be considerable.

A systematic forest policy in India dates back to 1855 when Dietrich Brandis, a German botanist, was appointed as the first Inspector General of Forests in India. The purpose was to bring the commercial exploitation of forests under state control. The first Forest Act came into being in 1865; this gave power to the state to declare any land cover with trees as government forest by notification. The profitability and growing commercial potential of the forest caused a further amendement to in the Forest Act of 1878. The Indian Forest Act was passed in 1927; it tried to make the law uniform in different regions of the country. However, Provincial laws were coexisting with the Central law. The 1927 Forest Act was the baseline for independent India's forest policy. Until 1988, forest was considered as the sole property of the state, and state had all the rights to manage and appropriate the revenue generated from forests. However, with the emergence of the concept of joint forest management (JFM) and community forest management (CFM), management and revenue-sharing with the local people (often through Panchayat or similar parallel political institutions) was considered by many states as a method of involving people and giving them rights on the forest resources. The main emphasis of the 1988 Forest Policy was to halve forest degradation, retaining as well as enhancing the quality of land use in this sector. The policy also aims to create a partnership between forest dwellers and forest development authorities.

Women in India have traditionally been deprived of property rights. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 provided property rights to the daughters, widow or mother of a dying property owner. Women's property rights still meet with strong social opposition and even now the rights are not easily transferred. Gender equity in land rights is promoted on the basis of welfare, efficiency, equity and empowerment (Mearns, 1999). The Eighth Plan (1990 - 95) called for providing gender rights and asked the states to make provision in the Land Ceiling Act.

CURRENT PHASE

Independent departments at federal and state government levels handle land and agricultural administration. In one way, this helps to monitor land outside agricultural use separately from agricultural land, but the lack of integration creates uneasy administrative regimes. Moreover, there are several different departments responsible for various aspects of land administration, land data, and land legislation. Unfortunately, these do not work with perfect coordination, which gives rise to various problems. The spread of administrative regimes makes land-policy decision-making and implementation difficult.

The Department of Land Resources in the Central Ministry of Rural Development has the primary central government responsibility for addressing issues related to land administration, particularly of degraded land. This department oversees a range of programmes that set the national framework. The Department of Land Resources also works as an advisory and coordinating body for the implementation of land reform, and helps in arriving at a consensus among states on the changing emphasis in land reform. For example, recently the Department of Land Resources convened a national workshop focused on tenancy reform, which drew together a group of experts to review the current situation in land policy. The question of opening of the leasing market was debated and there was a general consensus that the leasing of land should be liberalized. However, no firm decisions were made in the workshop. Subsequently, however, the National Agricultural Policy focused for the first time on the policy of leasing and suggested a liberalization of leasing legislation, an increase in land ceilings, and allowing for contract farming.

The Department of Land Resources at the central level also issues guidelines for strengthening land revenue administration and updating land records. It has recently initiated a large-scale programme for computerizing land records. The department has also initiated various activities focused on wasteland (droughtprone areas, desert development, integrated wasteland development, technology development, extension and training, investment promotion and support for NGOs/voluntary organizations for such activities).

It is now accepted in India that the recording of land rights, and their periodic updating, is an essential prerequisite for an effective land policy. During the Seventh Plan Period (1997 - 98) a Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Computerization of Land Records (CLR) was introduced with 100 percent financial assistance from the Central Government for pilot projects in a few selected districts (Gulbarga in Karnataka, Rangareddy in Andhra Pradesh, Sonitpur in Assam, Singhbhum in Bihar, Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Morena in Madhya Pradesh, Wardha in Maharashtra, Mayurbhanj in Orissa, and Dungarpur in Rajasthan). These pilots were undertaken with a view to removing problems inherent in the manual maintenance and updating of land records, and to ensure the issue of timely and accurate copies of Records of Rights to landowners by the local land revenue officials. The main objectives of the scheme were to: (1) computerize ownership and plot-wise details for issue of timely and accurate copy of the Records of Rights to the landowners; (2) achieve low-cost, easily reproducible storage media for reliable and long-term preservation of land records; (3) provide fast and efficient retrieval of textual and graphical information; (4) create a Land Information System (LIS) and database for the agricultural census. By the end of the Eighth Plan (1997), 323 districts in the country were to be brought under the computerization of land records scheme. During the first year of the Ninth Plan (1997 - 98), 177 new project districts were covered. The available feedback from our fieldwork and other sources clearly indicate that the scheme has been slow to progress. Many bottlenecks are also emerging in the process, including: (1) delayed transfer of funds to the final implementing authority in the field by the state governments; (2) a delay in the development of appropriate software tailored for the specific requirements of different states; (3) a lack of adequate training facilities to the revenue staff who handle computers in the field areas; and (4) unavailability of private vendors to enter data. In addition to these, an administrative system for the computerization has not been clearly set up. It is operated under the state-government revenue departments, sometimes with only partially trained staff. Therefore, a quantum change in this process is needed.

Proper land records continue to be a major problem even after five decades of land policy interventions. Computerization alone may not solve the problem and land surveys involve heavy costs. The body appointed by the Planning Commission recommended the Torrens System for land records in order to provide clear title to land. The Government of Maharashtra has taken steps to introduce the Torrens System on a pilot basis. The scheme provides for the conversion of the present presumptive titles to land into conclusive titles, which requires the updating and publication of the Records of Rights. The scheme is being implemented in two districts and the pilot process may come out with a fool-proof scheme.

TOWARDS THE NEXT PHASE

In recent years, the government's land policy interventions have focused on the correction and computerization of land records, improving the land survey process, and improving land quality through the reclamation of degraded wasteland and forests. Land reform implementation is almost thinning out as a priority. In fact, the important policy discussions now centre on whether certain land-reform interventions should be reversed; particularly whether the land ceilings should be increased and whether tenancy restrictions should be liberalized. Marginalization of land holdings and land administration are also of major concern.

Policy discussions concerning rolling back land ceiling laws have assumed prominence. It is argued that the current ceiling limits hinder investment in agriculture and diversification to high-tech agriculture. It is questioned that there are no limits on investment in other sectors, yet agriculturalists face a restriction on increasing the size of holding. Added to this the average size of holding is sliding down in successive censuses because of nationalization of the smaller holdings. Putting a bottom ceiling on the smallest size is worth considering given the present political and administrative climate in the country; rolling back the land ceiling limits seems to be a difficult political option. It is argued that economies of scale could be achieved by allowing larger holdings and that large farms would also attract greater investment in the agriculture sector. This is necessary before it is possible to generate an exportable surplus and to participate effectively in the world market. Pooling small farms together to form formal or informal groups of producers for purposes of marketing may be a way to achieve this goal. This was successfully attempted in Karnataka, growing rose onions and gherkins for export.

The second policy option being actively discussed in a countrywide debate is the desirability of liberalizing the current restrictions (sometimes prohibitions) on agricultural tenancy. The argument that liberalizing tenancy restrictions will have a pro-poor impact has gained ground. It is felt that a majority of the beneficiaries from tenancy liberalization will be small and marginal farmers. Presently, most concealed tenancies give no protection for the tenant or the landlord. Moreover, informal (or concealed) tenants cannot gain access to capital from banks and financial institutions. A recent study of a spate of farmers' suicides in Karnataka found that many of them were informal tenants who borrowed from moneylenders and could not pay back because of high interest rates (Deshpande, 2002). Legalizing tenancy will also help to bring the small and marginal tenants within the ambit of institutional credit. If legal status is conferred on the tenant, this may not leave room for imperfections in the tenancy market usually caused by concealed tenancy and unilateral fixation of land rent. It is also expected that opening the lease market will attract much-needed private investment in agriculture. It may be possible to prevent possible imperfections by restricting the upper limit and allowing leasing of land up to that limit. The limit should also serve as a threshold to allow only those who have ownership of land below such a limit. Similarly, the tenant as well as the owner should have a guarantee of protection of their interests. Interestingly, the National Commission on Agriculture referred in 1976 to the need for new amendments in tenancy reform to overcome the problems of concealed tenancy as well as reverse tenancy (NCA, 1976, pp. 159 - 60). Leasing in land belonging to the disempowered people should be regulated, with a proper intervening authority to help protect them from unscrupulous dealings

CONSPECTUS

Land policy in post-Independence India has evolved through different phases. These include: two phases of land reform; attention to issues pertaining to quality of land through the Drought-Prone Area and Desert Development Programmes, Wasteland Development and Watershed Development Programmes designed to reclaim environmentally degraded land. These policy interventions have had varying impacts on poverty and the overall development process. It is difficult empirically to segregate the influence of the changes in land policy on poverty, environmental management, sustainability and production, but available studies indicate that land-reform measures have had a significant impact on equity and poverty. The measures dealing with the quality of land have a partial to significant impact on environmental parameters. In addition to these, other land-policy instruments were used for the purpose of transforming development policy effectively. In the previous section we have indicated the key areas for the purpose of action and major policy interventions required. The key areas for future land policy action include legalizing the tenancy market, contract farming, and watershed and wasteland development to assume greater significance. Such interventions involve important implementation issues relating to the political economic aspects of the reform measures and reform of the institutions. Future research should be directed towards establishing the institutional framework to fit these issues into a broader policy-making process.

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the anonymous referees for very useful comments, and to Mr Amalendu Jyotishi and Mr Mohan Kumar for help in word processing.