PRAGOTI

Roopesh, I don’t have exact figures of the total land distributed in Kerala. However, I can help you to arrive at an approximate data . Both Kerala and West Bengal account for 30-35 per cent of the total land distributed in the whole country.

Mr Mohan Gurusamy of Centre for Policy Alternatives observed that WB and Kerala together "account for 35 per cent of the total of 45 lakhs acres distributed nationally" out of which the share of West Bengal was 13 lakhs acres ( 'People's Democracy' dated March 27, 2005 reproduced an article written by Mohan Guruswamy titled as 'Economic Growth in West Bengal ' ). If this had been correct, the share of Kerala works out to be around 2.75 lakh acres.

Way back in 1989, in a center page article titled as "Land Reforms: forgotten pledge" in 'Indian Express' dated 28/10/1989, Mr K John Mammen remarked that "as per official figures available till June 30,1987 , out of 44.1 lakh acres distributed all over India, Bengal and Kerala account for 30 per cent". A back of the envelope calculation shows that the total land distributed in Kerala then should have been around 2 to 3 lakhs, assuming about 10-11 lakhs acres were distributed in Bengal then.

It appears that Kerala accounts for about 2.5 lakh acres of land distributed in absolute terms and 5 to 7.5 percent in percentage terms, as per my estimate. I may be wrong , if the exact figures are available.

But what is indisputable is that Bengal and Kerala together account for atleast 30 percent of the total land distributed all over india. This is no mean achievement by any standard.

R Maran

Land reforms in Kerala had three basic components. First, security of tenure was to be provided to tenants. All evictions undertaken after the formation of the State were held illegal. The government took ownership of all tenanted land and the payment of rent on that land was stopped. Secondly, ceilings were set on ownership holdings of land. Ceiling-surplus land was to be taken over by the state and redistributed. Thirdly, landless agricultural workers were to be given ownership rights over homestead plots.

Between 1957 and 1993, about 2.8 million tenants were conferred ownership rights (or had their rights protected) and about 0.6 million hectares of land accrued to them. A significant number of landless agricultural workers received ownership rights over the plots of homesteads. Between 1957 and 1996, about 528,000 households were issued homestead ownership certificates. However, there is also a consensus that Kerala’s land reform was not successful with respect to acquiring and distributing ceiling-surplus land to the landless. Only 1.47 per cent of the total operated area had been redistributed between 1957 and 1993. As a result, the component of land reform that directly benefited landless agricultural workers was the distribution of homestead land.

The failure in successfully distributing ceiling-surplus land to the landless was mainly due to the significant opposition that the Communist ministries faced from the Union government, from the judiciary and from landlord-supported political parties in the State. In 1959, the first Communist ministry was dismissed by the Union government before the President of India signed the State’s historic land reform bill. Non-Communist ministries that followed, with the support of landlord classes, successfully diluted every radical ceiling provision in the land reform legislation. With years passing without any serious implementation, landowners resorted to massive land transfers through changes in ownership and possession.

The provision to distribute homestead land to agricultural workers was added on later to land reform laws once it had become clear that the extent of ceiling-surplus land available would be smaller than expected. This addition was made by the second Communist ministry that came to power in 1967. This ministry, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), drafted the State’s most comprehensive land reform law – The Kerala Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1970. This Act gave landless agricultural workers the option of purchasing 10 cents of land in panchayats or townships, for which they were required to pay only 25 per cent of the market value in normal cases and 12.5 per cent of the market value if the landowner possessed land above the ceiling. Fifty per cent of the amount finally payable was subsidised by the state with the remaining 50 per cent to be paid in 12 annual instalments (which was never paid). Thus, even when some components of land reform were not successfully implemented, most agricultural worker households in the State received plots of homestead land free of cost.

Ramakumar