Mains Marathon

Approach

• Give a brief introduction about land reform and green revolution.
• Mention the failure of land reform and its impact on unequal growth of agriculture in different parts of the nations.
• End with a fair conclusion.

Answer

Land Reform:

• The process of land reform after independence basically occurred in two broad phases. The first phase, which started soon after independence and arguably continued till the early sixties focused on the following features:
  • Abolition of intermediaries zamindars, jaghirdars, etc.
  • Ceilings on size of landholdings
  • Land Consolidation
  • Corporatization and community development programmes.
  • Tenancy reforms involving providing security of tenure to the tenants, decrease in rents and conferment of ownership rights to tenants.
  • This phase has also been called the phase of institutional reforms.
• The second phase, beginning around the mid- or late sixties saw the gradual ushering in of the so-called Green Revolution and has been seen as the phase of technological reforms.

Green Revolution:

• The Green Revolution was an endeavor initiated by Norman Borlaug in the 1960s.
• He is known as the 'Father of Green Revolution' in world. It led to him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in developing High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) of wheat.
• In India, the Green Revolution was mainly led by M.S. Swaminathan. The Green Revolution resulted in a great increase in production of food grains (especially wheat and rice) due to the introduction into developing countries of new, high-yielding variety seeds, beginning in the mid-20th century.
• The Green Revolution, spreading over the period from 1967-68 to 1977-78, changed India’s status from a food-deficient country to one of the world's leading agricultural nations.

Some important factors of the failure of the land reforms:

• Lack of authentic records, absence of financial backing, absence of a comprehensive approach, Improper Implementation, legal hurdles, Insufficient political will, administration's casual attitude.
• The primary concern that had made them to be sympathetically disposed towards land-reforms was not the improvement in living standards of small peasants, but rather “increasing marketable surplus” in order to feed the towns and provide raw materials for industry.
• However, when other technical, apolitical methods of raising surpluses from large-farms without disturbing the class-structure - were proposed, their support for land-reforms dwindled, and with it dwindled the State’s commitment to pursue such radical measures.

Impact of Failure of land Reform on Green Revolution:

• The Green Revolution has given birth to regional disparities in economic development.
• It has so far affected only 40 percent of the total cropped area and 60 per cent is still untouched by it.
• The most benefited areas are Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh in the north and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south.
• It has hardly touched the Eastern region, including Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa and arid and semi-arid areas of Western and Southern India.
  • The agricultural lands allotted to farmers for these reasons were very small which was not suitable for the purpose of green revolutions.
• The Green Revolution affected only those areas which were already better placed from an agricultural point of view.
  • Unfortunately, many small farmers could not afford the cost of machinery because it was extremely expensive. In addition to the high initial cost, money was needed for fuel and repairs also.
• Thus, the problem of regional disparities has further aggravated as a result of the Green Revolution.

Land-reforms succeeded in breaking the land-monopoly but gave birth to more unequal distribution of these land resources among the peasantry. The Green Revolution widened income disparities also. Overall, the Green Revolution was a major achievement for India as a nation. It gave India an unprecedented level of national food security despite a few reasons that were highly beneficial while few were not able to take benefit out of it.