The arrival of Lord
Louis Mountbatten in India in February 1947 as the last Viceroy of the British
monarch set the deck for transfer of power in India. The Constituent Assembly had
already come into existence on 6th December 1946 with 482 members of
which 389 came from British provinces while the rest 93 were from the Indian
princely states. The Assembly had eminent personalities of the day as its
member and it included freedom fighters, barristers, educationists, and leading
luminaries from all walks of life. The Constituent Assembly embarked on its job
in right earnest calling its first meeting as early as on 9th
December 1946 and adopted the “Objective Resolution” proposed by Pandit J. L.
Nehru on 13th instant. This “Objective Resolution” set the tone and
tenor of the task at hand of this august gathering. The arrival of Mountbatten
with clear instructions on the transfer of powers expedited this process of the framing
of the Constitution. After independence, the truncated Constituent Assembly with
369 members (299 from British Province and 70 from the Princely States) carried on
with its work and by February 1948 the first draft of the Indian Constitution
was published. The second reading of the Constitution was completed on 17th
October 1949. The third and final reading was completed on 26th
November 1949 and thus after the passage of two years, eleven months and twenty-one
days, the effort of 369 leaders culminated in adoption of Constitution on 26th
January 1950. The Constitution of India was unique in the sense that it was the
longest written constitution in the world and it borrowed the positive features
of a number of Constitutions, thus making it a complete document.
The transfer of powers
to the government of the two dominions namely India and Pakistan on 15th
August 1947 had led to the formation of Government in States also. The popular
government of the States vied with each other in expediting the process of
establishing a welfare state. In Bihar, Congress formed the government under
the leadership of Sri. Krishna Sinha. Krishna Ballabh Sahay was made the
Revenue Minister in Sri Krishna Sinha’s ministry. At the same time, K. B. Sahay along
with his mentor Sri Krishna Sinha and 34 other leaders from Bihar were also the
members of the Constituent Assembly and had contributed to the process of Constitution
writing. K. B. Sahay was keen at changing the land settlement systems
established by the British, especially the Permanent Settlement introduced by
Lord Cornwallis in 1793 in Bihar, Bengal and Gangetic plains, since these were
oppressive to the peasants and was loaded in favour of the Zamindars- a class
which was largely loyal to the British. He was of the opinion that in order to
develop a welfare State, the Zamindari system, which was a natural by-product
of Permanent Settlement, must go. Even during the independence struggle K. B.
Sahay had taken up the issue of peasants’ emancipation from the cruel hands of
Zamindars. During the twenty-eight months rule of the Congress in 1937-1939, K.
B. Sahay, as one of the two Parliament Secretary, under the tutelage of Sri
Krishna Sinha was instrumental in the introduction of a number of measures for the
welfare of peasants. These measures included a reduction in rent; giving
occupancy rights to ryots with absolute right to transfer their holding for
a nominal payment to the landlord and ownership rights to under ryots if
they had tilled the land for the last twelve years. The landlord’s share in
crop production was decreased to 9/20 and all land seized during the period of
1929 to 1937 (bakasht land) were
restored to the previous tenant against payment of the nominal amount. More
importantly, the landlord’s power to realize rent was greatly reduced and their
powers to attach land or charge rent whimsically or to get the tenant
imprisoned for their inability to pay rent were taken away. All these measures
fell short of the actual abolition of the Zamindari System. However, the Sri Krishna
Sinha’s ministry was unable to abolish Zamindari during this period despite all
efforts of K. B. Sahayonly because the constitutional structure of the 1935 Act
did not extend adequate powers to the provincial Ministries. Moreover, the
administrative set-up, of which Zamindars were an integral part, was protected
by Viceroy at Centre and by the Governor at State level.
In this background when
K. B. Sahay took over as the Revenue Minister of Bihar after independence, he
made it his goal to introduce legislation to abolish the Zamindari System. K.
B. Sahay regarded Zamindars as petty rulers whose loyalty rested largely with
the British. He believed that, while at the macro level merger of princely
state was essential for the integration of the nation geographically, abolition of
the Zamindari System was essential for social integration of the nation the
micro-level.
With this aim in mind,
K. B.Sahay made an in-depth study of the revenue settlement of the British,
particularly the Permanent Settlement Act, 1793. He even visited the National
Library at Calcutta with his close aid Mr. Bajrang Sahay- a lawyer of eminence
of Patna High Court to study the legalities of this Act in order to draft a
suitable legislation as its replacement. This apart, K. B. Sahay also made an
in-depth study of the rural class composition where the Permanent Settlement
was in force. In the 1950s, there were 2, 05,927 regularly revenue-paying,
permanently settled, holdings. They accounted for 90% of the land area. Legally
the Zamindars were considered to be the owners of the land. But in reality, their role was that of government-appointed middlemen who collected revenue from
the title-holders. Revenue used to be paid in cash to the government and it
used to be 90% of the revenue paid by the title-holders to the Zamindars. But Zamindars
had the right to collect any amount of revenue as they wished from the
title-holders. And then there were the title-holders at the second level who
had obtained the right from the owners of the land or from other title-holders
to collect revenue. At the third level, there were the occupancy ryots
who used to pay revenue for the land they had occupied and cultivated the lands
by themselves or with the help of the members of their family or by hired
labourers or with the help of their partners. They could transfer their rights
to someone else. Below them were the non-occupancy ryots who had to pay
revenue for occupying the land on a temporary basis. Then there were
sub-tenants who had to pay revenue for getting land on a temporary basis from
the ryots. At the lowest level of this arrangement were the labourers
who in spite of putting in very hard labour did not have any right on the land
and who were caught in various exploitative agrarian relations. Thus the Zamindars
were nothing more than a middleman, a creeper in the words of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. The Zamindari Abolition legislation drafted by K. B. Sahay tended
to improve the lot of the downtrodden peasants and landless labourers,
relieving them from the cruel clutches of Zamindars.
Ever since the
intentions of the Bihar Government to abolish the Zamindari system became clear
to the clan of Zamindars, they came to unite under the leadership of Raja
Kameshwar Singh of Darbhanga in north Bihar and Raja Kamakhya of the Ramgarh
estate in south Bihar to oppose it tooth and nail. The almost abrupt uprising
of the Zamindars had an alarming effect, so much so that at one stage even
Gandhi came to question the propriety of bringing about social change through
legislative measures. The opposition faced by K. B. Sahay during this period
(1946 to 1948) was unparalleled. K. B. Sahay found himself almost alone in his
crusade for land reforms in these formative years. At a time when politics and
to a large extent, society was controlled by the landed gentry, it was no mean
achievement for K. B. Sahay to come up with the Bill which was sure to cause
convulsions in the tradition-bound, land steeped society. Sure enough, the
entire land owning class controlled by the rajas and Zamindars who went about
displaying the honours and titles bestowed to them by an alien ruler for the
service rendered to the latter, ganged up against him. Apart from legal
maneuvers that they resorted to, the Zamindars made direct appeals to the
national leaders with a view to stemming the tide against them and arresting
the historical process. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who became the first President of
the Indian Republic lent a receptive ear to them and wrote to K. B. Sahay: “Any
hope that you may have of giving satisfaction to tenants by simply getting rid
of Zamindars is doomed to failure unless it is accomplished by some positive
steps for the betterment of the tenants’ lot but I gathered….that you were not
thinking of the next step and that for the present you would be satisfied if
you can remove the Zamindars…. I have never been able to understand the justice
or fairness of depriving a man of the management of his propriety.” In picking
holes in the Act, Dr. Prasad had, perhaps, been influenced by the large number
of memoranda and telegrams, one of which read: “HON’BLE RAJENDRA PRASAD NEW DELHI IN HONOUR GANDHI-JAYANTI APPEALING
PEACE KINDLY DROP ABOLITION ZAMINDARI SAVE COUNTRY CIVIL WAR” sent to him
by the Zamindars. Since they had to eat humble pie they sought to undermine K.
B. Sahay’s political career.
However, K. B. Sahay could go ahead with the
epoch-making legislation despite the bitter opposition it generated among even
a section of the ruling party with the support of Sri Krishna Sinha- the then
Chief Minister of Bihar. Bihar under K. B. Sahay was the first to introduce
legislation to abolish Zamindari. The challenge before K.B. Sahay to present
the Bill on the floor of the House was so immense that an attempt was made to
even physically eliminate him. K. B. Sahay survived this assault and when he
presented the Bill on the floor of Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1947, head
bandaged and bleeding profusely, he was the epitome of agrarian reforms in
independent India. It was a historic moment. The Bill was passed by the Bihar
Government as the Zamindari Abolition Act in 1947. It was further amended in
1948 and published as Bihar Zamindari Abolition Act, 1948. With this Act, the
rights of Zamindars and title-holders on land and at the same time trees,
forests, fish-breeding ponds, markets, mines and minerals, were legally terminated.
And all these rights came to be directly vested with the State Government.
The Zamindars sprung up in quick opposition to
this Act and challenged it in the Patna High Court on grounds of violation of
their Fundamental Rights. The courts accepted their plea and issued injunctions
restraining the State from implementing it. Finally, the Act was set aside by
the Patna High Court, as it felt it had contravened some provisions of the Constitution.
This set the stage for the first amendment to the
Indian Constitution. The Central Government of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru stepped
in to introduce the first amendment to the Indian Constitution to strike down
the Patna High Court verdict. Addressing the Parliament, Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru presented the Statement of Objects and Reasons of this Amendment on 10th
May 1951. This statement was appended to the Constitution (First Amendment) Bill, 1951 which was enacted as the
Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, and read as under:
“Another article in regard to which
unanticipated difficulties have arisen is Article 31. The validity of agrarian
reform measures passed by the State Legislatures in the last three years has,
in spite of the provisions of clauses (4) and (6) of Article 31, formed the
subject-matter of dilatory litigation, as a result of which the implementation
of these important measures, affecting large numbers of people, has been held
up.
The main
objects of this Bill are, accordingly to amend Article 19 for the purposes
indicated above and to insert provisions fully securing the constitutional
validity of Zamindari abolition laws in general and certain specified State
Acts in particular.
14.
Addition of Ninth Schedule.-After the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, the
following Schedule shall be added, namely:-
"NINTH
SCHEDULE [Article 31B]
1. The
Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950 (Bihar Act XXX of 1950).”
Article 31B imposes restriction on Article 31 in
so far as provisions of Land Reforms Acts are concerned. A new Schedule was
added to the Constitution incorporating the Bihar Land Reforms Act (Bihar Act
XXX of 1950). Thus the Bill drafted by Sri. K. B. Sahay and passed by the Bihar
Legislative Assembly as Bihar Land Reforms Act (Bihar Act XXX of 1950) was the
first piece of legislation to get a place in the Ninth Schedule of the Indian
Constitution. It is the genius and effort of K. B. Sahay that gets acknowledged
as the Ninth Schedule of the Indian Constitution which was incorporated through
the first amendment to the document. Henceforth all legislation on land reforms
came to be placed under this Schedule making them immune from the Fundamental
Rights granted under Article 31.
This Amendment to the Constitution was also
challenged by the Zamindars in the Supreme Court which, however, held the
amendment valid. The Zamindars could only take solace from the fact that they
could earn a respite from the law which promised to “replace the Zamindari
system of land tenure by a Ryotbari system under which raiyats will hold their
lands directly under the provincial government (Bihar) and to transfer to the
Provincial Government all the rights of proprietors and tenure holders in land,
including rights in forests, fisheries and minerals” for as long as 5 years.
As an epilogue to this story of
the first amendment to the Indian Constitution, it is worth mentioning that K.
B. Sahay had staked his political career in ensuring passage of the Zamindari
Abolition Bill. His grit and determination can well be judged from the fact
that no leader after him ever had the courage to take up these reforms with the
same authority and strength. No wonder he is regarded as the “Iron man of Bihar” on the same
line as Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel is regarded as the “Iron Man of India”. By
eliminating the Zamindars and their fiefdom K. B. Sahay was successful in the integration of the nation at the village level and therefore can well be
regarded as the “ChhotaSardar”.
His leadership qualities and his contribution were acknowledged by the leading
newspaper of Bihar of those days in the following words: “The genius of Mr. K. B. Sahay
was not restricted to land reforms only. Bihar has not produced a better
administrator than Mr. K. B. Sahay. He was ruthless. All the files of the
departments he held charge in various capacities were almost on his fingertips,
so prodigious was his memory. No officer could bluff him. During the regime of
Dr. Sri Krishna Sinha he was the main spirit behind all the reform measures
introduced by the Congress government. And he had the traits of a soldier; he
was straight forward in his dealings and quick in decisions-right or wrong.
Efficient and smart as he was he could not tolerate slackness and inefficiency.
Not a few institutions in this state of Bihar owe their origin to the zeal of
Mr. K. B. Sahay-the one time Iron Man of Bihar.”(The
Indian Nation, 04.06.1974). It was this administrative skill of politicians
like K. B. Sahay that had put Bihar on a high pedestal and had led Appleby
Committee to declare Bihar to be India’s best-administered state in those days.
It is high time the nation acknowledges the contribution of this son of the
soil and the Government of India issues a special commemorative postage stamp
in his name in the freedom fighters series. This will be a fitting tribute to
this forgotten hero whose single-handed effort led not only to the abolition of
Zamindari system in India and paving the way for social justice in the process but
also caused to be instrumental in effecting an amendment to the Indian
Constitution for the first time.
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