Structure:

Introduction: Briefly mention about land reforms. Mention that it had an effect on casteism too.

Body: Explain the relationship between of caste and land distribution in India. Provide reference to dominant caste theory of MN Srinivas. Explain how this traditional aspect underwent a change after land reforms.

Conclusion: Conclude that land reforms had a few unintended effects on Indian society and one of them was on caste system.

Content:

Introduction:

Redistributive land reform not only enhances production and reduces poverty but is also a part of a democratic revolution that frees the people of the countryside from the fetters of landlordism. An important requirement of genuine land reforms is that the State intervene to ensure access to productive resources, mainly land, to social classes and groups that traditionally have not had access to land and free these classes from social and economic oppression.

Access to land in an agriculture-based rural economy is important because land is a primary means and instrument of production. The social distribution of land in a village economy determines the economic position and power relations between different social groups in the village.

Body:

Ghosh and Chakrabarty (2000), using NSS data on ownership holdings of land, showed that in most States of India the proportion of land owned by SC households was much lower than their share in total population. However, in rural India the proportion of land owned by SC households had increased in the period between 1982 and 1992 . Thorat (2002) noted that in 1993-94 only 19 per cent of all Dalit households were self employed in agriculture while the comparable statistic for non-Dalit/Adivasi households was 42 per cent. According to Thorat, “the limited access to agricultural land and capital assets is both due to the historical legacy associated with restrictions imposed by the caste system and the ongoing discrimination in land market and capital market and other related economic spheres”

Inequality and domination are treated as the basis of the caste system in Hindu society. The lower castes — as per their place in the social hierarchy — are supposed to serve the dominant castes and remain loyal to them. This has been the practice as far back as the history of Indian society can be traced.

The government-initiated land reform measures, distributed land to tillers, ensured the rights of the bargadars (sharecroppers), enhanced the wages of the agricultural labourers and brought about structural changes in the socio-political formation in the rural areas in favour of the Scheduled Castes and the Schedule Tribes.

• It was a process of empowering the people and striking at the root of the exploitative feudal structure of the rural society.
• It led to the opening up of opportunities for social and economic gains for the them.
• It was also a matter of dignity and the means of livelihood for this vast section of people.
• The land reform programme for the first time had ensured and legalised a secured position for dalits and tribals in agrarian society. The uplift of SCs and STs not only meant security of the bargadari tenure and bargadars’ relief from the fear psychosis of remaining under constant threat of facing eviction by the landlords — it also paved the way for a new equation to take over in the rural landscape of West Bengal.
• The upper-caste domination of the zamindars and jotedars was decimated and replaced by people from the SCs/STs, who had so far remained marginalised in agrarian society.

Removal of landlessness among Dalits, along with the provision of group minor irrigation for the lands of S.Cs and S.Ts and certain other supporting measures, will have tremendous cascading effects, bringing significant benefits to the national economy. It will have the following effects:

• Round-the-year agricultural self-employment for S.Cs and S.Ts, eliminating chronic underemployment.
• New possibility of growing high-value agricultural crops and, if activities under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) are extended to this, the possibility of growing high-value horticultural crops.
• Engagement of S.C. and S.T. women in work on their own farms as well as farm-based occupations such as poultry farming and dairying instead of their present work as wage-labourers in other people’s farms.
• augmentation of purchasing power of a large segment of subsistence-level population that is employed as agricultural and other rural labour on low wages;
• creation of new demand for a variety of goods and services which this segment of the population needs but cannot now afford because of their low income; (As NITI Aayog points out, “low wage depresses demand for goods, including manufactured goods, and for services”)
• creation of scope to utilise idle capacity of a number of existing manufacturing and service-providing units and for the establishment of new units;
• large-scale expansion of employment in the manufacturing and service-providing sectors;
• boost to GDP and significant contribution to the goal laid down by the Prime Minister of making India a $5-trillion economy by 2024.