Page 5 - Lessonnote_Change and Development in Rural Society

➢ Of all the land reforms, the zamindari system was the most effective as it took away
the superior rights of the zamindars over the land and weakened their economic and
political power.
➢ But abolition of zamindari system did not wipe out landlordism or tenancy or
sharecropping in many areas. It only removed the top layer of landlords in the
agrarian structure.
➢ The other major land reforms were the tenancy abolition and the regulation acts.
➢ It attempted to either remove the tenancy law or to regulate rents.
➢ In West Bengal and Kerala, there was a radical restructuring of the agrarian structure
that gave land rights to the tenants.
➢ The third category of the land reform laws were the Land Ceiling Acts.
➢ This act imposed an upper limit on the amount of land that can be owned by a
particular family.
➢ The ceiling depends on factors like kind of land, its productivity and other factors.
➢ Very productive land had a low ceiling while unproductive land had very high ceiling.
➢ According to this act, the state is supposed to identify the surplus land owned by each
household and redistribute it to landless families and households especially the SCs and the
STs.
➢ But these acts could not be effective in most of the states as it had many loopholes.
➢ Due to these loopholes and other strategies, the landowners were able to escape from
having their surplus lands be taken over by the state.
➢ In many cases, the landowners managed to divide the land among their relatives and others
including their servants which was called benami transfers. This allowed them to have
control over their land.
➢ In some places, the rich farmers divorced their wives but continued to stay with them in
order to avoid the provision of the Land Ceiling Act which allowed a separate share for the
unmarried women but not the wives.
➢ The agrarian structure has substantially changed from the colonial time to the present.
➢ Land reforms are necessary not only to boost agricultural growth but also to eradicate
poverty in rural areas and bring about social justice.

The Green Revolution and its Social Consequences
▪ The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s brought about significant changes in
the areas where it took place.

▪ It was a government programme of agricultural modernization.
▪ It was largely funded by the international agencies that provided high yielding
variety or hybrid seeds, pesticides, fertilizers etc. to the farmers.
▪ Green Revolution was only introduced in areas that had assured irrigation because
sufficient water was needed for the new seeds and other methods of cultivation.
▪ As it was targeted mainly in the wheat and rice growing areas, certain regions like
Punjab, western U.P, coastal Andhra Pradesh and parts of Tamil Nadu received the
first wave of Green Revolution.