Which of the following is regarded as the most successful component of land reform in India?
- A.Abolition of intermediaries
- B.Imposition of ceilings on holdings
- C.Distribution of surplus land
- D.Voluntary land gifts under Bhoodan
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, abolition of intermediaries. The laws passed between 1948 and the middle of the nineteen fifties ended zamindari, jagirdari and similar tenures across the country and brought about twenty million cultivators into direct relation with the state, and the First Amendment of 1951 secured those laws, so the class of rent collecting intermediaries disappeared. Option B is wrong because ceilings were fixed late, carried wide exemptions and were evaded through benami transfers. Option C is wrong because very little surplus land was ever declared, and less still was distributed, because of litigation and poor records. Option D is wrong because the Bhoodan movement, though morally powerful, collected land that was often of poor quality and distributed only a part of it. Examiners expect the contrast: intermediaries abolished successfully, ceilings and redistribution largely unfulfilled.
Read the full article: Land Reforms in India: Tenures, Ceilings and Tenancy
Practice Questions
View allThe Permanent Settlement of 1793 was introduced by which Governor General?
- A.Warren Hastings
- B.Lord Cornwallis
- C.Lord William Bentinck
- D.Lord Dalhousie
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In 1793 he settled the land revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha permanently with the zamindars, who were recognised as proprietors so long as they paid a demand fixed for ever, and the cultivator was left without any recorded right in the land.
Read the full explanation →The Ryotwari system of land revenue is associated chiefly with which official?
- A.Holt Mackenzie
- B.Thomas Munro
- C.John Shore
- D.Lord Cornwallis
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Working with Alexander Read in the ceded districts and later as Governor of Madras, Munro settled the revenue directly with each cultivator, the ryot, who was recognised as the owner of his field so long as he paid, with the demand revised every twenty or thirty years.
Read the full explanation →Which amendment of the Constitution added the Ninth Schedule in order to protect land reform laws from challenge?
- A.First Amendment, 1951
- B.Fourth Amendment, 1955
- C.Seventeenth Amendment, 1964
- D.Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
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Courts had begun to strike down zamindari abolition laws as a breach of the right to property, so Parliament inserted Articles 31A and 31B and created the Ninth Schedule, in which a law can be placed to put it beyond challenge on the ground that it takes away a fundamental…
Read the full explanation →Operation Barga, the programme to record and protect sharecroppers, was carried out in which state?
- A.Kerala
- B.West Bengal
- C.Bihar
- D.Maharashtra
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From 1978 the state government ran a campaign to enter the names of sharecroppers, known there as bargadars, in official records, which gave them a permanent and heritable right to cultivate and a legally fixed share of the crop, and it is quoted as the most effective tenancy reform in…
Read the full explanation →The Bhoodan movement was started in 1951 by whom and at which place?
- A.Jayaprakash Narayan at Sitabdiara
- B.Vinoba Bhave at Pochampally
- C.Mahatma Gandhi at Sevagram
- D.N.G. Ranga at Guntur
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Walking through the villages of the Telangana region in 1951 he asked landowners to treat the landless as their own kin and to gift a share of their land, and the first such gift at Pochampally began the Bhoodan or land gift movement, later extended as Gramdan, the gift of…
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