Agriculture | CUET PG Economics | Notes

Background

Agriculture in India after 1947 inherited a colonial structure marked by extreme inequality in land ownership, exploitative tenancy, stagnant productivity, and periodic famines. The post-independence state saw agrarian transformation as central to both economic development and social justice, leading to sustained policy intervention across land relations, credit, markets, and technology over the following seven decades.

Agrarian Structure

At independence, Indian agriculture was characterized by three broad tenurial systems inherited from British rule: the Zamindari system prevalent in Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Madras, under which zamindars acted as intermediaries between cultivators and the state; the Mahalwari system found in Punjab and parts of the United Provinces, based on joint village responsibility for revenue; and the Ryotwari system in Bombay and Madras presidencies, where cultivators held direct settlement with the state. This layered structure produced widespread absentee landlordism, insecure tenancy, and rack-renting, with actual cultivators often reduced to sub-tenants with no security of tenure.

Zamindari Abolition

Abolition of intermediary tenures was the first major land reform undertaken by state governments beginning in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. Legislation was enacted in Uttar Pradesh (1950), Bihar (1950), Madhya Pradesh, Bombay, Madras, and other states to abolish zamindari and other intermediary rights, bringing an estimated twenty million cultivators into direct relationship with the state. Compensation was paid to former zamindars, generally on a graduated scale favoring smaller landholders among them. The reform transferred proprietary rights but did not by itself redistribute land among the landless, since it primarily converted superior tenure-holders’ rights rather than breaking up large operational holdings.