4. Man-Land Relations after Independence
After independence, the first goal was to abolish relicts
of colonial times: foreign landed property was nationalized,
and intermediaries' rights created by colonial powers were
abolished. The confiscated land, together with the land owned
by the government, was the land pool used for distribution
to the refugees, who had to be provided with a plot of land
to assure their survival.
As this land proved to be insufficient and the political
call for more economic and social equity became louder, ceiling
legislation was introduced. This, too, was supposed to reduce
the landlords' economic and political power as well as to
obtain land for distribution to the landless during the period
of land reforms. These land-to-the-tiller reforms were introduced
with the argument of justice, but also to absorb the increasing
population on the land, since the slow progress of industrialization
could not provide livelihood for the numerous landless. Shortage
of land for distribution because of the multiple ways of evading
confiscation, but also the distribution policy resulted in
the fact that the majority of tenants, especially share tenants,
were bypassed by land reforms. Governments felt obliged to
issue special laws to reform tenancy. However, they resulted
more in abolishing than reforming tenancy. Many tenants lost
their rights because of the unclear regulation of the "self-cultivation"
clause, and laws were evaded by transferring open tenancy
contracts into disguised ones. The tenants' lot deteriorated
more and more, and perhaps those who lost their tenancy contract
were often better off in other activities in the long run.
The maintenance of feudal relations between landlords and
tenants as well as the reduction in farm sizes because of
the inheritance custom led to production increases in agriculture
that were below the population increase. The development policy
of the time enforced this trend by concentrating an industrial
development while neglecting agriculture. The result was widespread
food shortage and little demand from agriculture for industrial
products and services, the prerequisite for non-agricultural
development. Attempts to improve land management through extension
services, Promotion of cooperatives and general measures of
community development failed.
A transformation in this rather stagnant agriculture was
brought about by the biological-technological and subsequent
mechanica-technological changes introduced by the process
called "Green Revolution" in the 60s. The high yielding
varieties and machinery increased the landowners' production
and income, but had, in time, far reaching consequences for
man land relations. Landowners found it in their interest
to change to self management and dismissed tenants. Cultivation
was done in a more businesslike manner, and land and labour
productivity thus increased. A general economic upswing at
the time absorbed most of the dismissed tenants. Larger farmers
tried to use their resources for participating in modern forms
of agriculture. Labour relations. traditionally regulated
by custom and involving mutual responsibilities though heavily
biased changed to contractual relations. The fact that participation
in the Green Revolution required sufficient and controlled
irrigation limited it to some regions, thus widening the disparities
between the countries' rich and poor areas.
The Example of India:
Prior to independence already, the demand for an agrarian
reform was a component of the leading parties' strategy to
gain power. Independence brought a favourable climate for
such measures, and reforms helped the government to legitimize
its power. The first step in the agrarian reform was to abolish
the "intermediaries", the numerous revenue collectors
who often did not have a definite function. They lost their
rights, however against compensation, and this burdened the
government with great obligations.
Since the measures aimed at abolishing specific legal conditions,
land belonging to the same people under other legal conditions
was not affected, nor was land confiscated that was cultivated
by the owner,. On the contrary, those who, until than, had
not cultivated land were granted the right todismiss tenants
from up to three times an average family holding and start
to cultivate the land themselves. In the absence of a clear
definition of the term "self cultivation", many
manipulations were effected, and numerous tenants lost their
rights.
While the abolishment of intermediaries was successful,
the following attempts to improve tenancy proved ineffective.
The law foresaw measures to strength ten the tenants' position,
but as a compensation before enforcing the law, the landlords
were granted the right to give notice to the tenants if they
wanted to cultivate the land themselves. The unclear definition
of self cultivation was interpreted as "supervision of
cultivation ',and again numerous tenants became labourers
on the same land. As wall, it was possible to re employ them
as sharecroppers as these were not defined astenants in the
laws.
Efforts to limit the amount of landed property and redistribute
land to the landless started only within the course of time
and in steps, the railings being reduced from time to time.
Anyhow, after 30 years, large scale landed property was restricted
and land concentration reduced. Only by dividing land among
family members, could larger areas be held within a family,
but hardly in the hands of individuals. However, in view of
the high population increase, the biased relation between
the landless and the landowners remained the same. The winner
in the whole land reform process was the middle class, i.e.
the small landlords and the larger owner-cultivators. With
more and more emphasis on production increase in the agricultural
policy, they gained economic and political power, and the
more so, when the so-called "Green Revolution" started.
These "progressive farmers" had the necessary information
and resources to participate from the beginning and gained
from the higher yields. Re investing the proceeds in tubewells
and tractors, they developed into commercial farmers and dismissed
their tenants. After some time, they tried to rent in land
from smallholders who did not have the means to participate
in the commercialization of agriculture.
While the dismissed tenants by and large did not fall into
misery because of the general economic upswing in the area
of the Green Revolution, the technological changes had far
reaching consequences. The whole process was limited to the
irrigated areas, thus widening the difference between rich
and poor areas. As well, the polarization between already
rich and poor peasants increased. In them course of time,the
traditional relation between landlords and their dependents,which
included obligations and protection, changed to purely contractual,
unstable relations which soon led to unrest in the countryside.
The changes had political consequences, as the economic power
of the progressive farmers was soon transformed into political
power, and this privileged group safeguarded its interests
against other sections of the population. However, the Green
Revolution also had distributive effects. While it solved
the food production problem at the time, it did not solve
the land tenure problem, but only created new problems in
the man- land relations.
The Example of Korea:
After independence, a number of motives led to land reform.
Political instability and spread of communistic ideas, availability
of land from former Japanese owners, hindrances to productivity
increases and the need to provide subsistence to the large
number of refugees were among the more important reasons.
The main goal of the reform was of an egalitarian type and
included abolition of tenancy, limitation of land ownership
to 3 ha and land to the tiller policy. It was successful in
its intent to improve political stability and provide subsistence
to landles refugees. The new climate led to productivity increases.
Tenancy was reduced, but never abolished. Disguised forms
of tenancy became widespread.
Apart from land reform, government policy neglected agriculture,
and the rural areas became areas of poverty, causing increasing
migration to the cities. With the third five year plan, an
all out effort was made to develop the countryside. This included
a technological change in agriculture to
ease production and fill the food gap, as supporting measures
for a improvement in the institutional support of agriculture
and the living conditions in the rural areas. Both met with
considerable success, but not enough to stop the rural- urban
migration.
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