Land has always been the single
most important cause of agrarian tension as manifested by the countless
killings and massacres reported from the countryside of Bihar during the last
three decades or so. Yet, very little has been done to sort out the land
related problems that bedevil the State and threaten to tear asunder its
socio-political fabric. And this is despite the plethora of legislative
measures the State has enacted from time to time to counter the factors that
breed violence, to restore peace in the villages and to uphold the lofty
principle that land should belong to its tiller.
Much water has flowed down the Ganga since the Government of Bihar made
its first post independence legislative attempt to abolish the Zamindari System
by passing the Bihar Abolition of Zamindari Bill in 1947. But even after 40
years of the trend setting legislation, the situation has not changed
substantially as underscored by the assertion of Mrs. Uma Pandey in the HT
series “Your Minister”, that her first priority would be implementation of land
reforms., even the zamindari system has not become a thing of the past with
some people claiming zamindari rights on fishing in the Ganga which caused the
killing of a dozen fishermen in Bhagalpur a few months ago.
When the late Mr. Krishna Ballabh
Sahay who, as Revenue Minister in the first Sri Krishna Sinha Ministry, moved
the Bill in the Bihar Legislature, he could not have visualized that 40 years
hence Mrs Pandey would still be mouthing the same platitudes of the
Government’s determination to enforce land reforms with little meaningful
effect on either the tillers or the owners of land. Land reforms had always
been a contentious issue in the State as was transparent even during Mr.
Sahay’s time. If today the late Mr. K. B. Sahay, who later became Chief
Minister, is known as the “Father of
Land Reforms in Bihar”, it is certainly not without reason.
At a time when politics and, to a
large extent, society were controlled by the landed gentry, it was no mean
achievement for Mr. 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 super zamindars who went about
displaying the honours and titles bestowed on them by the alien rulers for
services rendered to the latter, ganged up against Mr. K. B. Sahay. Not only
that, they challenged the Bill in the courts which issued injunctions
restraining the State from implementing it. Finally, the first Bill had to be
repealed.
However, thanks to the support
extended to him by Dr. Sri Krishna Sinha, the then Chief Minister of Bihar, Mr.
K. B. Sahay could go ahead with his epoch making legislation despite the bitter
opposition it generated among even a section of the ruling party. It was
against this none too pleasing background that the Bihar Land Reforms Bill
1949, was passed by the State Legislature in 1950. The Act was set aside by the
Patna High Court, where it was challenged by the Zamindars, as it felt it had
contravened some provisions of the Constitution.
It was now the turn of the
Central Government to bring forward the Constitution (First Amendment) Act to
validate the Bihar Act. The amendment was challenged in the Supreme Court
which, however, held it 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 Raiyatwari System under which raiyats will
hold their land directly under the Provincial Government (of 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 five years.
Apart from the legal man oeuvres 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, lent a receptive ear to them and wrote to Mr. K. B.
Sahay: “Any hope that you may have of giving satisfaction to tenants by simply
getting rid of the 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
property”.
In picking holes in the Act, Dr.
Prasad had perhaps, been influenced by the large numbers of memoranda’s 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, ultimately, to eat humble pie, they sought to undermine Mr. K.
B. Sahay’s political career.
Zamindars formed the Janata Party
which represented feudal reaction and was, essentially, an instrumentality of
the Raja of Ramgarh Kamakhya Narayan Singh, who was the most bitter critic of
Mr. K. B. Sahay, to challenge the Congress in 1952 General Elections.The
reactionary party had to wait till 1957 election to defeat Mr. K. B. Sahay
in Hazaribagh. It is a moot point whether the effectiveness of the Janata Party
had more to do with his electoral reverse than the infighting in the Congress
between him and another top leader Mr. Mahesh Prasad Sinha, who was also
defeated in the same elections.
Since then the State has passed
umpteen legislation to plug the loopholes in the original Act and to meet new
eventualities but there has been little progress on the land reforms front. The
factors that retarded the progress in this sphere are all too well known. As information
regarding the Act began to filter down from the administrative heights in Patna
to the villages, those who had high expectations were the most filled with
disillusionment. The tiller found that the measure had not in the least benefited him.
What could have been the reason?
“A State legislature controlled by essentially conservative forces, more
concerned with the maintenance of status quo than with the need for progressive
change that might affect positively the relationship of the cultivating peasantry
to the land, enacted legislation which was tailored to the interests of the
ex-intermediaries and the super landlord, that is, the State” says F. Tomasson
Jannuzi, an eminent social scientist in his lucidly written in depth study
“Agrarian Crisis- The Case of Bihar”. The Western scholar, who had done
extensive field research in Bihar and submitted a thesis to the London School
of Economics and Political Science based on his findings here, could not have
reached this conclusion without basis. His widely read book provides
enlightening reading.
One’s
got to change the system or one change nothing. One can’t put things right in a
hole-and-corner away.
-
GEORGE ORWELL.
“Courage is the most important of all the
virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue
consistently.”
