From 50 Years Ago: Land Reform Is Dead, Long Live Land Reform!

Land Reform Is Dead, Long Live Land Reform!

The report of the Task Force on Agrarian Relations under the Chairmanship of the Land Reforms Commissioner, P S Appu, is a strikingly candid document. Going through it the only conclusion that can be reached is that genuine and radical land reforms are simply not possible within the established social and political order. Based on the report of the Task Force, guidelines are reported to have been issued to state governments for implementation of the land reforms programme in the Fifth Plan. But if the constraints on implementing the programme so sharply underlined in the report are taken into account, the guidelines completely lose all operational and practical value. To be sure, the programme contained in the guidelines has everything to commend it. But where are the instruments and sanctions to ensure that even a fraction of this programme is carried out? The guidelines completely evade this issue […].

Referring in particular to the slogan of “land to the tiller”, it says quite forthrightly that this objective will never be achieved in the prevailing conditions of our society.