[Land Reforms] Tenancy Reform, Tenancy protection Acts in India: salient features

1. Prologue
2. Land Reform Tool #3: Tenancy Reforms
   1. Element1: Landowner’s right to lease
   2. Element2: Landowner’s right to Personal Cultivation
   3. Element3: Tenant’s right against eviction & high rent
   4. Element4: Tenant’s right to surrender
   5. Element5: Tenant’s Right to ownership
   6. Misc. rights to Tenants

Prologue

in the previous articles, we’ve seen:

Now comes the third tool of land reforms:

Land Reform Tool #3: Tenancy Reforms

• Various State governments have passed the laws to protect the land owners and (superior+inferior) tenants. Collectively these are called tenancy reform acts.
• Such tenancy reform acts, usually have five elements: two for land owners + three for tenants
• but first, let’s once again check the players in a tenancy system, to get a better grip over this tenure/tenancy reform acts:

Tenancy reform acts by and large protect only superior and inferior tenant. Sharecroppers/Laborers get nothing. Anyways, let’s check the salient features of such Acts in various states:

Element1: Landowner’s right to lease

• You own land, but you don’t have the time/money/mood/intention to cultivate by yourself. So you lease it to another farmer and extract ‘rent’ from him (=25-30-40-60-75% of the produce).
• This Land leasing, again leads to system of Intermediaries (middlemen who don’t cultivate) and exploitation of tenants (farmers who actually cultivate).
• Therefore, in an egalitarian/socialist/communist society: Agri.land leasing=undesirable.
• But what is the land owner is a defense personnel, widow, minor, student or physically disabled person – they cannot cultivate land by themselves.
• Hence, leasing is permitted in such exceptional categories of land owners.

Let’s check some examples

Element2: Landowner’s right to Personal Cultivation

• As we saw in Element#1:  Many states permit agri.land leasing (at least when landowner is a soldiers, widows, minor, physically disabled).
• But what if landowner himself wants resume cultivation later on? e.g. soldier comes back to village after retirement, or the minor student becomes an adult, or the widow gets remarried.
• Therefore laws permit the landowner to takeback the land from the tenant, IF he (landowner) wants to resume personal cultivation. let’s check:

So far we saw two elements that protect the rights of landowner viz (1) right to lease and (2) right to personal cultivation. Now let’s check the rights of tenants.

Element3: Tenant’s right against eviction & high rent

• If landowner can evict the tenant according to his whims-fancies=>this system leads to exploitation.
• Hence there should be fixed term and fixed rent.
• Meaning as long as the teant is within that xyz years lease limit and keeps paying that xyz amount of rent, you (landowner) cannot evict him.

Tenure security

• Insecurity of tenure is a big hurdle in the improvement of agriculture. Tenant pays little attention to the soil improvement, digging of well or tube-well and construction of embankment etc. This negatively affects agro productivity.
• Security of tenure is must for social justice as well.
• Hence, Most state made laws to  provide at least 5 years tenure security.
• (meaning once you lease your agri-land, you cannot take it back within 5 years- except for personal cultivation as we saw in element #2. but even there, you can only take back ~50%  of land for personal cultivation.) Anyways, let’s check with examples:

Rent Security

• During British Raj, there was no law to protect farmers against high rents. The Zamindar/ landowner used to determine rent according to their discretion. Often, rent would be ~50-70% of the total produce.
• Result? Tenant farmer has hardly any surplus income left=>can’t buy hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, in short he cannot invest in agri.improvement.
• Therefore, after freedom, most state government passed laws to fix maximum rent in the range of 25-33% of the produce.

Additionally, if a tenant cannot pay rent on time, the landlord cannot approach court to get his cattle, farm-tools and standing crops. (In other words, tenant given protection against attachment even if he defaults on rent payment.)

Limitation: Although states had fixed Maximum rent in 20-50% range, but in most cases, the tenants had to pay rent in the range of 50-70%- especially in the areas with high productivity under green revolution. Corrupt District officials failed to enforce the rent limits.

6^th Five year plan suggested the state governments to pass laws to bring down rents to ensure rents are not above 33% of the produce.

Operation Barga

• by Leftist government in West Bengal
• In the late 70s. Provided following
• registration of Sharecroppers (known as Bargadar)
• Fixed rent: 25% of the produce. Meaning landowner (Jotedar) can only get 25% or 1/4^th of the produce. While Sharecropper (Bargadar) gets 75% or 3/4^th of the produce.
• gave security of tenure: permanent and heritable

Element4: Tenant’s right to surrender

• Ok so far, tenant is given term-security (you cannot evict him before xyz years) and rent security (you cannot charge beyond xyz% of the produce).
• But what if tenant himself wants to stop farming on that land. For example,
  1. he bought his own land at a different place, or
  2. his son gets a decent job in the city and asks him to relocate or
  3. He joins politics and becomes a telecom/coal minister to mint truckload of cash.
• Therefore, most state laws also allow the tenant to voluntarily surrender the land back to the original owner.
• Challenge: Sometimes landowner might use bullying/coercion/gun-power to make tenant sign stamppapers declaring his surrender.
• Solution: Some states also have ‘verification’ procedure. e.g. in Andhra, after Tenant surrenders the land to owner, the Tehsildar will verify whether surrender was genuine or not. But then again- thinking in Bollywood terms: evil Landowner might kidnap Tenant’s family and order him not to complaint to Tehsildar.
• 4^th Five year plan recommended: the Land Voluntarily surrendered by a tenant =>should goto state government and then state government should allot it to eligible poors. But very few states implemented this recommendation

So far we’ve learned

1. Owner’s right to lease
2. Owner’s right to personal cultivation
3. tenant’s right against eviction
4. tenant’s right to surrender

Now to the fifth and final element under Land Tenancy reform acts:

Element5: Tenant’s Right to ownership

Many state laws permit tenant to acquire the land IF he pays 10-20-50times the annual rent to the landowner. Let’s check:

Let’s check some specific provisions of Tenant’s right to acquire/purchase land

Limitation of Right to ownership:

In above examples, we saw how ~50% of tenants in Gujarat and Maharahstra, got ownership rights after paying to landowner. But why didn’t every tenant bought land from his land owner? Because:

1. State laws already gave rent reduction + permanent occupancy rights= these superior tenants were for all practical purposes virtual owners.
2. Hence there was hardly any motivation to try and acquire full ownership.
3. Besides to get full ownership=> need capital (money) and legal complications.

Misc. rights to Tenants

Some states also made laws for:

1. Compensation for tenant, if he made permanent improvements to the land such as, digging of well, planting of trees, construction of farm house, embankment, etc.
2. During natural disaster/flood/drought etc. if government remits land-revenue to the landlord, the latter too will have to remit rent to the cultivator.
3. Landlord cannot receive gift from the tenant and cannot ask tenant to provide him free services. (In other words, Begari removed, Art.23)

In the next article, we’ll see the achievements and limitations of Tenancy reforms undertaken in India.