對于土地政策實施及其影響的評估

An Assessment Of Its Implementation And Its Implications
 

導致印度貧窮的真正原因不應該在疾病或文盲問題中尋找，這些只是癥狀，也不在于印度的習俗、信仰，更不是在二次人口統計數據中找答案，而在于整個國家所基于的經濟機構。

印度擁有一個蓬勃發展的經濟，其GDP在2005至2008年間以平均9.06%的指數增加，外匯儲備不斷膨脹，截至2011年7月29日已達到316.80億美元，。然而，印度的極端財富與其悲慘的貧困和饑餓統計量一樣突出，它已成為一個極端矛盾的國家。農村地區68.84%的印度人中，大多數是窮人，他們被邊緣化，依靠農業作為他們的主要收入來源。在印度超過4億人仍然無法使用電力。[ 3 ] 2008年全球饑餓指數顯示，估計印度有接近3.5億人的食物得不到保障-這意味著他們不確定他們的下一頓飯將來自哪里。該國正努力解決種種問題，如貧困、文盲、營養不良、缺乏安全飲水和衛生設施等。
 

The real cause of India's poverty must not be sought in disease or illiteracy, which are but symptoms, nor yet in Indian customs and beliefs, nor again in the population figures, but in the economic organization on which the whole life of the country is based. [1] 

 

簡介-INTRODUCTION

 

India is blessed with a burgeoning economy whose GDP expanded at the average rate of 9.06 % from 2005-2008 and swelling foreign exchange reserves which touched 316.80 billion dollars as of July 29, 2011. [2] Yet India's plentiful wealth and riches is in striking juxtaposition with its deplorable poverty and hunger statistics and it has emerged as a country of extreme paradoxes. Rural areas home to some 68.84% Indians, most of who are poor, marginalized and depend on agriculture as their main source of income. More than 400 million people in India still don't have access to electricity. [3] Global Hunger Index 2008, estimates that India has close to 350 million people who are "food insecure" - meaning they are not certain where their next meal will come from. The country is grappling with myriad problems such as poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation.

 

The root cause of India's backwardness is the backward nature of its agrarian economy, which continues to be in such a state primarily because of the government's inability to undertake a thoroughgoing land reforms post Independence. To quote Hartwell "there are no examples of industrialisation and growth in any of the major economies of the world, which were not preceded or accompanied by an agricultural transformation". [4] The economic success of East Asia (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) is largely attributed to the fact in all these countries extensive land reforms were undertaken. These land reforms had the effect of eliminating the exploitative landlord class and thereby contributing to rapid economic growth by laying down the basis for an equitable distribution of the benefits of growth. [5] In this context the paper aims to study the features of the land reform policy in India, assess its implementation and document its impact on future development of agriculture and economic development as a whole.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

獨立時期的印度農業情況-AGRARIAN SITUATION IN INDIA AT THE TIME OF INDEPENDENCE

 

The agrarian situation in India at the time of Independence was pitiable. During the four decades preceding 1947, food grain output grew by a mere 12%, while the population grew by over 40%, resulting in a decline in per capita food availability. There was extreme concentration of land ownership and massive prevalence of rack-renting. There was insecurity of tenure which sapped the life out of rural folk and large scale prevalence of usury. All these features cumulatively created conditions whereby there was very little incentive to undertake productive investment in agriculture. The ordinary peasants and sharecroppers were choking under pressure from the "unholy trinity of landlord-moneylender-trader" [6] and had to put up with rack renting and insecurity of tenure. They therefore had little incentive to invest in improving productivity. On the other hand the landlords found it more profitable to "live on extracting rent, usurious interests and trading profit out of an impoverished peasantry, rather than go in for productivity-raising investment." [7] Thorner tried to explain this limit on the generation of higher land productivity in the Indian countryside by using the term "built-in depressor" which refers to "a complex of historical, social and economic factors that acted as a formidable block against the modernisation of Indian agriculture." [8] He further says that the British had left behind in India "perhaps the world's most refractory land problem." [9] 

 

漸進式的改革:土地改革政策的特點及其實現-PIECEMEAL REFORMS: FEATURES OF LAND REFORM POLICY AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

 

Even before India shed off its colonial yoke in 1947, the issue of how the agrarian question will be resolved became a major bone of contention within the nationalist movement. Two prominent groups emerged in this debate. On one hand were the "institutionalists" who put forth the argument that what India required was a radical reorganization of land ownership patterns which will bring about not only a democratization of rural society, and revive the independent "peasant economy" but would also increase the productivity of land. They raised the slogan "land to the tiller". [10] They also argued in favour of the view that smaller land holdings will lead to higher productivity. [11] On the other end of the spectrum were those who argued that the solution did not lie in redistribution of land but on reorientation of the landlords, by motivating them to cultivate their own land using wage labour and making use of modern technology. According to them land reforms would only break up land into small and unviable holdings which will pose difficulties in application of modern technology. [12] #p#分頁標題#e#

 

However the actual land reform policy was not based on ideology but was shaped by politics of those times. The Indian State opted to reorganize the agrarian relations through redistribution of land, but the manner adopted was not comprehensive and radical. In most cases land reform implemented was partial. [13] It was described as "sectoral or sectional reforms" by various authors. [14] The aim of these reforms was to remove all such "motivational and other impediments to increase in agricultural system" and secondly to remove all forms of exploitation and social injustice within the agrarian system. [15] Under the government of India directions, the state governments [16] passed legislations in an attempt to secure the objectives of land policy laid down in the Five Year Plan. The Plan called for abolishing intermediary tenures, conferring ownership rights on tenants, regulating rent and tenancy rights, imposing ceilings on holdings, distributing the surplus land among the rural poor, and facilitating consolidation of holdings. There was strong emphasis on abolition of Zamindari not only because they were highly oppressive in their functioning but also because they had identified themselves as staunch supporter of the colonial government. [17] In the wake of these directives from the government, a huge number of legislations were passed by different states within a very short span. These large number of legislations led Thorner to remark that they could be "the largest body of agrarian legislations to have been passed in so brief a span of years in any country whose history has been recorded" [18] 

 

對于土地改革的實施的評價-AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF LAND REFORMS

 

No matter what was mentioned on paper, the actual implementation of these legislations and their impact on the agrarian structures remained an entirely different story. Below I make an attempt to assess the implementation under various sub-headings:

 

ABOLITION OF INTERMEDIARY

 

Often the reduction in the status of the traditional rent receivers (the zamindars/ intermediaries), as per the legislations enacted, has been hailed as a through going agrarian revolution, liberating the cultivators from a long period of subjugation. The conflicting opinion is that, this measure while costing the state governments a lot in terms of compensation paid out to erstwhile zamindars, failed to bring about any fundamental change in economic and social situation in the rural areas. Therefore there is a need to examine both these situations in greater detail before siding with either of the positions. [19] 

 

It was largely observed that the intermediaries managed to circumvent the legislation by exploiting the legal loophole in it, which allowed them to hold unrestricted title to land under their "personal cultivation". The definition of personal cultivation was not clearly spelled out. It did not require either manual work or yearlong residence near farm, nor was there any clear provision requiring supervisory activity on the part of the landlord. Hence land which was retained by the landlords under the pretext of personal cultivation thus could continue to be cultivated by sharecroppers if necessary disguised by agricultural workers. [20] Also the anticipation of land reform legislation brought about a massive wave of eviction of tenants. Although some state legislation provided an upper limit to the land that could be resumed for personal cultivation, the zamindars in connivance with the bureaucrats managed to retain control over land much above the legal limit. [21] Some landlords delayed the implementation of the legislation by destroying their records. Another strategy by which they escaped the legislation was by redistributing land on paper among relatives.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Even the Zamindari land which was made available to redistribution was allocated amongst the "cultivating castes" in the village, irrespective of the fact whether they performed any farm work or not. [22] The transfer of land from intermediaries to cultivators was therefore not transfer to actual tillers of the soil. The sub tenants and sharecroppers drew practically no benefit from these reforms, [23] except in those regions where the peasantry was politically mobilized and could exert pressure from below. [24] For example the implementation of land reforms was much more effective in regions like Kashmir, Kerala and West Bengal.

 

However despite their overall failure, land reforms succeeded in weakening the hold of absentee landlords over the rural society who had reigned till this time as semi-feudal chiefs. It altered the power structure in villages by assisting in the emergence of a "class of substantial peasants and petty landlords as the dominant political and economic group" [25] . It laid down the basis for the possible development of Indian agriculture on capitalist lines. Though such changes were far from satisfactory it was an important beginning nonetheless.

 

LAND CEILING LEGISLATION

 

The fate of the land ceiling legislation was also doomed from the very start, because even before it was imposed, anticipation of such legislation caused a "chain of bogus land transactions all over the country." [26] Also land holding were reduced in size on paper by pro forma transfers to family members. As the Third Five Year plan observed " on the whole, it would be correct to say that, in recent years, transfers of land have tended to defeat the aims of the legislation for ceilings and to reduce its impact in the rural economy." [27] Yet the legislation was advocated on the grounds of social justice.

 

TENANCY REFORMS

 

Tenancy legislation was enacted was to provide fix fair rents and provide security of tenure to tenants. Gunnar Mydral calls this type of approach that seeks to ameliorate the plight of the tenants while leaving the landlord in possession of his land as a "compromise solution, both politically and economically". [28] The implementation of Tenancy Reform laws also met with failure on account of illiteracy and ignorance of tenants, and even when they were aware of their rights, they were too socially and economically weak to claim the same. [29] Economically the tenants depended on the landlords who also serve as moneylenders for credit and other necessities of life. Socially the tenants usually belonged to backward and scheduled castes. In many cases tenants were bullied into "voluntarily" renunciation of their leases. Another weakness of such a legislation was that its implementation was left to civil servants who were not adequately qualified for the job and were generally hostile to tenants. [30] #p#分頁標題#e#

 

Thus to conclude Land Reforms in India have largely been a failure is well substantiated by available data. Between 1947-2007, the number of households that received land is just 5.4 million. Between this 60 year period the amount of land redistributed was only 4.89 million acres of land, which accounts for less than 2 % of the total cultivated area. [31] . The total extent of land over which tenants are conferred ownership rights accounts for less than 4 per cent of the total area cultivated. [32] 

 

IMPLICATIONS OF PIECEMEAL LAND REFORM POLICY ON AGRICULTURE

 

The Nehru-Mahalanobis years (from 1947-1964) which favoured industrialization, in the context of a larger development strategy treated agriculture as a "bargain sector", i.e. sector where output can be increased with very little additional investment. [33] Although between 1951-52 and 1959-60, there was a significant increase in production, however this was due to favourable monsoons and expansion of acreage and not yield. [34] Production stagnated by the mid-60s and two failed monsoons one after the other in 1965 and 1966 pushed the country to the brink of famine. By the mid-60s, however, it was clear that Nehru-Mahalanobis needed to be discarded. With the death of Nehru in 1964, there was a decisive shift in India's agriculture policy. The period between 1964 and 1967, saw a fundamental shift in strategy from an institutional model to a technocratic one. The new model had three components: economic, technological and organisational. The economic aspect constituted price incentives, credit support, input subsidy support and marketing support, in order to motivate farmers to produce more. Second component required investments in technology to increase yields; and third called for creating new institutions to support the other two components. [35] 

 

In pursuance of such a strategy an Intensive Agricultural Development Programme (IADP) was launched, under direct supervision of the Ford Foundation in 1961, initially in 14 districts on an experimental basis. It was later extended to 114 districts (out of a total of 325) under the name of Intensive Agriculture Areas Programme (IAAP) in 1965.The experiments of intensive agriculture were extended to cover the entire country after 1966-7. It is this New Agricultural Strategy (NAS) that is credited with what came to be known as the 'green revolution'.

 

The Green Revolution led to a substantial increase in agricultural output. The output of food-grains shot up from 89 million tonnes in 1964-65 which was the best year before the NAS came to be implemented, to around 107 million tonnes by1973-74. [36] It solved India's food shortage problem to a great extent. This was a credible achievement as M. S. Swaminathan pointed out; it "established the linkage between sovereignty and food self-sufficiency". [37] #p#分頁標題#e#

 

However there were severe limitations to this strategy. Green revolution completely bypassed the issue of inequality in agrarian relations and avoided the question of reforms altogether. This caused the benefits of the green revolution to remain unequal with a "region-wise, crop-wise and class-wise concentration of production." [38] The focus of the NAS was on regions that were well-endowed with irrigation, on just two crops (rice and wheat) and on sections of the peasantry that could mobilize the investment necessary to adopt the new technology. [39] Green revolution techniques called for higher investment which due to lack of access to credit was difficult for small farmers to adopt. The tenants, particularly insecure sharecroppers, were even worse off because due to the rising income and land values, landowners ejected them from their land and brought the land under their direct cultivation. [40] There is ample of evidence to show that the benefits of green revolution were unequally shared with the bulk of the gains accruing to the big farmers, thereby further exacerbating the disparity between big and small farmers.

 

After the spurt in production in the phase of green revolution the food grain production tapered off. Indian agriculture has not seen any big technological breakthrough since the 1960s and agriculture has stagnated since then. This has led to the call for new or a second "Green Revolution" for agricultural sector in recent years from various quarters. [41] The institutional option of radical land redistribution has been completely forgotten. In this regard it is worth quoting Mydral that "there can be no progress in India's agriculture and food production unless the social institutions are adapted to the technical requirements of scientific agriculture, just as large scale irrigation and drainage system of flood protection require institutional arrangements in harmony with technology" and further "promotion of social and economic equality is a pre condition for attaining substantial long term increases in production." [42] 

 

IMPLICATIONS OF PIECEMEAL LAND REFORM POLICY ON OVERALL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

 

There is ample evidence from all parts of the world that well designed land reforms can go a long way in contributing to reduction in poverty, increase in efficiency, and is capable of establishing the basis for sustained growth. There is a consensus amongst the experts that land reforms in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, played a major role in overcoming the legacy of colonialism. Moreover economic theory is now clear that a one-time redistribution of assets can, in an environment where markets are imperfect, be associated with permanently higher levels of growth. This is in sharp contrast to what has been predicted by earlier development models most notably by Kaldor and Kuznets. Redistribution can actually be good for growth. [43] If a land reform program is well designed, it can have a large impact on equity as well as productivity.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Utsa Patnaik argues that land reform is important not only from the point of redistributive justice but there is ample evidence in history that it is equally necessary from the view-point of a "faster rate of transition of higher productivity through rapid capital formation within the agrarian sector, which in turn affects the rate of industrialisation through the rate of expansion of the domestic market for mass consumption goods and through the supply of wage goods and raw materials to industry" Inability to implement a thoroughgoing land reform thus has repercussions as it retards the development of productive forces, it restricts labour mobility and wages depressed through the use of extra-economic relations.If we contrast the experiences of India and China, equal distribution of land ownership is shown to have made a significant contribution to human development indicators, in China as compared to India.

 

Another way the inability to carry out a thoroughgoing land reform has affected economic development in India is by the elite capture of schemes. Elites and elite capture have been defined as -"actors who have disproportionate influence on the development process as a result of their superior social, political or economic status" while elite capture refers to the "situations, where the elites shape development processes according to their own priorities and/or appropriate development resources for private gain" [44] . In India, the elite capture is visible in many development projects initiated by the government. Elite capture is almost certain to occur in the absence of effective empowerment of the weak groups in highly unequal and caste-based societies. [45] Inability to carry out throughgoing land reforms has perpetuated inequality in the Indian villages. The extremely inegalitarian character of the agrarian structure is clearly one of the root causes for the failure of the Community Development Programme launched in 1952 with lofty aims. The bulk of the benefits of the programme went to substantial landowners. The landless agricultural workers, sharecroppers and small peasants derived very little benefit from it. [46] 

 

Other development programmes which were launched later on met with the same fate. The NREP (National Rural Employment Programme) and IRDP (Intensive Rural Development Programme), meant for the rural poor, have also led to the further enrichment of the rural rich through the building of infrastructure facilities such as roads and through the contract work for materials transport undertaken by the tractor- and truck-owning landlords, as well as supply of materials like bricks from landlord-owned brick-kilns. [47] 

 

The most recent rural development programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is facing "resistance from landlords whose control over labour is threatened by the availability of employment opportunities outside their authority" [48] #p#分頁標題#e#

 

結論-CONCLUSION

 

In short it wouldn't be wrong to conclude that failure to undertake a radical and comprehensive land reform post Independence has perpetuated inequality and has determined India's growth trajectory, and as long as long as these structural inequalities in the Indian society persists, the fruits of development are bound to be most unevenly distributed with the weaker sections receiving the smallest portions.