INTRODUCTION:

Land especially arable land is a crucial asset for rural families in India. In fact, it is the main livelihood sustaining asset for majority of rural household depending on agriculture and the most valuable source of security against poverty. Therefore, reform in the land system carries much importance in agrarian economies. Odisha, a predominantly agrarian state¹ in Eastern India at the time of Independence inherited a highly iniquitous agrarian structure that favoured a class of landlords. In fact, the landownership pattern in the state was extremely skewed with 16 percent of households possessing more than 5 acres of land each occupied 35 per cent of the cultivable area of the state.²

The irrational land distribution pattern coupled with the existence of a class of intermediary interest between the tiller and the state in turn encouraged tenancy cultivation as landowners possessing more land than they could cultivate provided land in terms of tenancy to others. Under the system the actual cultivator was subjected to rack renting and exploitation, consequently the cultivator lacked both incentive and ability to improve productivity of land. Hence reform in the tenancy system was sought so as to remove some of the bottlenecks that hampered the growth of agrarian economy and to infuse efficiency and equity in the agrarian set up. In fact, the main objective behind tenancy reforms is to provide protection to the vulnerable tenants including the sharecroppers and tenants-at-will and securing better terms and conditions on which land is held for cultivation by the actual tiller with a view to end exploitation. Tenancy reforms which had been introduced by various states included three major aspects viz., regulation of rent, security of tenure, and conferment of right of ownership on tenants. The article intends to review the measures adopted in Odisha in this regard and the effect of the measures in the tenancy system of the state.

TENANCY REFORMS IN PRE-INDEPENDENCE PERIOD

During the colonial rule the British enacted the Bengal Rent Act, 1859 and later the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885 with the objective of establishing occupancy rights for raiyats in land in zamindari areas and to limit the rent paid by sub-tenants and sharecroppers. However, the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885 as a whole was not applied to Odisha but a few provisions of the Act were extended to Odisha rather in a piecemeal fashion during the period 1891-1896, when the provincial settlement operation under S. L. Maddox was in progress in the state.³

The first major attempt to regulate tenancy in the state was made by the Odisha Tenancy Act, 1913. The Act passed by the Legislative Council of the Province of Bihar and Odisha was meant exclusively for the Odisha division. The Act defined the rights and obligations of all categories of tenants and contained provisions for regulating tenancy relations in the coastal districts, but in the long run it gave scope to large scale subinfeudations under the proprietors.⁴

However the urge for reform in the tenancy system became pronounced in the country in the wake of the great slump in 1930s. A Kisan conference held at Allahabad in April, 1935 under the presidentship of Sardar Patel passed a resolution which among other things demanded “the introduction of a system of peasant proprietorship under which the tiller of the soil is himself the owner of it and pays revenues to the government without the intervention of any zamindar or talukdar”.⁵Again the 50^th session of the Indian National Congress held at Faizpur in 1935 adopted a resolution on the agrarian programme which inter alia urged to provide “fixity of tenure with heritable rights along with the right to build houses and plant trees for all tenants”.⁶

The Congress ministries that came to power in 8 out of the 11 provinces of British India in late 1930s however, adopted measures for providing security to the tenants but they hardly affected the lower strata of the kisans.⁷It may be pointed out here that the Odisha Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1938 conferred on the occupancy raiyat full rights on trees standing on their holdings. Section 27-A of the amending Act further clarified that planting of trees on his holding in any manner would not render the raiyat liable to ejectment. All types of impositions on a tenant over and above the rent lawfully payable to the zamindar were declared illegal and as a deterrent measure for illegal exaction of the landlord or his agent, provision for levy of penalty was provided in the Act.⁸ But the raiyats in Odisha hardly took advantage of the law owing to the realization that litigation so inherent in such a system would cost them more as compared to the benefits they would acquire by the law.

The Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee set up in December, 1947 in its report made important recommendations in the tenancy front and some were given considerations in the framing of the tenancy laws in various states. The Committee in its report stated that ‘land must belong to the tiller’. Further it recommended that sub-letting of land should be prohibited except in certain cases of disability for personal cultivation, that who have been cultivating land continuously for a period of 6 years should automatically get full occupancy rights and that the cultivator should have permanent and heritable right of cultivation subject to certain safeguard against mismanagement.⁹ The Land Revenue and Land Tenure Committee, Odisha in its report submitted in 1949 too made similar recommends in the tenancy front. In fact, the national policy on tenancy reforms gradually evolved; came to be shaped over a considerable period of time and was greatly influenced by the recommendations of several committees and the demands of the peasant organizations.

POST-INDEPENDENCE PERIOD

One dominant feature in the agrarian set up of Odisha in the tenancy front at the time of independence was the share-cropping system. Evidently at the time of Independence about 15.6 per cent of the cultivable area of the state was cultivated by sharecroppers and 3.5 per cent agricultural families were living as sharecroppers.¹⁰ Under this system, the cultivators who cultivated the land of others on condition of paying a portion of the gross produce of the land in kind or in cash equivalent, were mostly tenants-at-will with no rights on the land and were subjected to eviction from the land at short notice. Most of the tenants were, however, annual tenants and they paid as high as 50 per cent of the gross produce of the land to the landowner as rent but they had no security of tenure. Moreover, following the country’s independence and expecting measures on abolition of intermediaries, the landed proprietors and persons holding varying subordinate proprietary rights in lands resorted to large scale eviction of tenants mostly the share-croppers holding lands on produce rent. This was more evident in the coastal districts of Odisha.¹¹

ODISHA TENANTS’ PROTECTION ACT, 1948

In order to provide some legal safeguards to the share-croppers or bhaga-chasis against arbitrary eviction and excessive levy of rent, and to bring them within the effective purview of the tenancy law, the Government of Odisha enacted the Odisha Tenants’ Protection Act, 1948. It declared that a person who was cultivating any land as a tenant on the 1^st day of September, 1947 would continue to enjoy the right to cultivate such land and it would be unlawful for the landlord to evict such tenant.¹² However, this sort of protection was not available for tenants who were cultivating land of a landholder having less than 33 acres of land. With regard to regulation of rent the Act provided some relief to both the occupancy tenants and non-occupancy tenants by fixing an absolute limit on the rate of produce rent. It prescribed the rate of produce rent at 1/3^rd of the gross produce of the land for occupancy tenants and 2/5^th of the gross produce of the land for non-occupancy tenants. However, it conferred on the landlords the right to evict a tenant for arrears of rent by a decree unless the tenant paid the rent payable under the decree within two months of the passing of the Act. Thus, the Act did not prohibit eviction completely rather it allowed little room for eviction on the ground of non-payment of arrear rent.

But in actual operation the law had marginal impact in the agrarian life of Odisha. This was largely due to the fact that there was hardly 13 per cent of cultivated land of the state where the size of holding was more than 33 acres and the number of household it covered was only 2 per cent.¹³ Further, the Act was not very effective in preventing the eviction of cultivating tenants and in the wake of the operation of the Act eviction of hundred and thousands of tenants from their lands was reported in the state. There were also instances in which some tenants had lost their cases too in the absence of concrete evidence in their favour.

ODISHA TENANTS’ RELIEF ACT, 1955

The Odisha Tenants’ Protection Act, 1948 which had exhibited certain defects in its working was later replaced by the Odisha Tenants’ Relief Act, 1955. It declared that no tenant in lawful cultivation of any land on 1 July, 1954 or any time thereafter could be evicted from such land by the landlord.¹⁴ However, the landlord was given the right to evict the tenant from any land selected by him for his personal cultivation to the aggregate extent of seven standard acres inclusive of the land that was under the personal cultivation of the landlord on 1 July, 1954. It reduced the prevailing rate of produce rent on the gross produce from 1/3^rd to 1/6^th for occupancy tenants and from 2/5^th to 1/4^th for non-occupancy tenants with the object of providing substantial relief to the tenants from the excessive levy of rent. Thus the Act conferred additional rights on the tenants with regard to the quantum of rent and in the matter of eviction. It also increased the consciousness of tenants with regard to their rights and as a result there was a surge in number of cases involving the tenants and landlords in the two advanced district of Cuttack and Puri during 1955-57.¹⁵ But the small cultivators particularly in the coastal districts could not take full advantage of the provisions of the Act as they had to prove their rights in the courts.

ODISHA LAND REFORMS ACT, 1960

A comprehensive act known as the Odisha Land Reforms Act, 1960 was enacted by the Government of Odisha with the object of conferring better rights on agriculturists. The Act as amended in 1965 declared that the right of a raiyat in land held by him would be permanent, heritable and transferable. The law generally prohibited leasing out of agricultural lands but raiyats included in the categories of ‘person under disability’ and ‘privileged raiyats’ were exempted from this restriction.¹⁶ Thus widows, minors, serving member of the armed forces and persons disabled to cultivate land were allowed to lease out lands. Interestingly the Act as amended in 1976 treated a raiyat owing less than 3 standard acres as a disabled person. Further ‘privileged raiyats’ that included co-operative societies, the Lord Jagannath Temple, temples and trusts of public nature were exempted from tenancy restrictions. The Act provided that a raiyat would be liable to eviction for using the land in the manner that render it unfit for agriculture, for leasing out land in contravention of the provisions of the Act.

It also provided that the rent payable by cultivating tenant was not to exceed one-fourth of the gross produce or value there of.For guaranteeing security of tenure to the tenants, the Odisha Land Reforms Act (as amended in 1965) provided that the landlord could resume on three months notice only a prescribed portion of the land leased out but failure to cultivate the resumed land within a period of one year would call for restoration of the land to the tenant whose tenancy had been terminated. The Act provided that a tenant could not be ordinarily evicted from the land by the landlord except on grounds of using the land that makes it unfit for agriculture, failure to cultivate the land personally and failure to pay the rent in stipulated time. However it provided that a person either as a raiyat or a tenant having no permanent and heritable right in respect of any site on which his dwelling house or farm house stands, after the commencement of the Act was to be treated as a raiyat in respect of the whole site or a portion thereof provided it does not exceed one-fifth of an acre. The provision was also made applicable with respect to the dwelling houses constructed by agricultural labourers, village artisans and the sites on which such houses stand.

The Odisha Land Reforms Act as amended in 1973 (Act 17 of 1973) further provided that a tenant would become raiyat in respect of the land under his occupation on an application made by the tenant to that effect within 2 years from the operation of the amended Act. i. e, 2 October, 1973. Section 36 further provided that in the absence of application of the tenant to claim raiyati right, the revenue Officer could initiate action on that behalf on his own motion.¹⁷ Section 36-C of the Act also laid down that a tenant would become a raiyat in respect of the land that was leased out to him after 1^st October 1965 in contravention of provisions of the act provided an application to that effect would have been made to the Revenue Officer within two years from the commencement of the Odisha Land Reforms (Second Amendment) Act, 1975 or the date on which the land was let out, whichever was later.

It is true that provisions exist in statute for protection of tenants and conferment of occupancy right on them, but in practice not many tenants in the state have taken benefit of the laws as establishing tenancy rights over land was difficult for most of the tenants. However by June 1991, an extent of 40,470.669 acres of land has been settled on raiyati basis in favour of 46267 sharecroppers in the state ¹⁸It may be pointed out here that legal provisions in favour of the tenants were ineffective in certain circumstances especially when the tenancy agreements were oral and rent receipt had not been provided to the tenants for payment of rent. Moreover the highly defective land records, the prevalence of oral leases, absence of rent receipts and the ignorance of the tenants with regard to the legal provisions made the tenancy laws largely ineffective in the state. The point to note here that the proportion of holding with partly or wholly leased in land called ‘tenant holding’ though declined from 15.2 per cent in 1981-82 to 9.9 per cent in 2002-03 at All- India level¹⁹ no significant change was taken place in Odisha with regard to this during the said period. On the contrary, data indicate (see table-1) an increasing trend in the percentage of tenant holding and leased-in area in the state during the aforementioned period.

Table -1

Percentage of tenant holdings and operated area leased in for Odisha

_________________________________________________________

Year Percentage of Percentage share of

tenant holding leased-in area

1981-82 18.2 9.9

1991-92 16.9 9.5

2002-03 19.4 13.0

Source: Some Aspects of Operational Land Holdings in India, 2002-03, NSS 59^th round, January- December 2003, Report No. 492.

Further in 1971-72, 41.8 per cent of leased in area of the state was under sharecropping, 13.8 per cent and 7.8 per cent of leased in area were under fixed produce and fixed money respectively.²⁰ But the enactments of several tenancy laws have not introduced significant change in the tenancy system in the state. Around 17 per cent of households leased in land in the state in 1981-82. After three decades i.e. in 2003, 15.70 per cent of rural households leased in land in the state, quite greater than the all-India average of 11.52 per cent. The ratio of land leased in to total area owned in 2003 was over 14 per cent in Odisha but at All-India level it was only 7 per cent.²¹ Sharecropping continues to be the most dominant system of leasing of land in the state.

Table -2 Changes in share of different types of tenancies in total leased-in area in Odisha

Terms of lease 1981-82 1991-92 2002-03

Fixed Money 5.1 19.7 11.1

Fixed Produce 8.1 4.7 7.8

Share of Produce 42.0 50.9 73.0

Others 44.8 24.7 8.1

All terms 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: Operational Land Holdings in India, 1991-92, NSS 48^th round, January-December 1992, Report. No. 407 and Some Aspects of Operational Land Holdings in India, 2002-03, NSS 59^th round, January- December 2003, Report No. 492.

On the other hand restriction on tenancy has given rise to informal and concealed tenancies with terms of lease being shorter and seasonal obviously to circumvent tenancy provisions. Further provision exists for regulating rent, but the provisions are not strictly adhered to in land tenancy and various government reports and studies conducted at village level have shown that the rent paid by the tenants were usually much higher than the stipulated amount.²²Besides, the concession of allowing the landlords to resume land for personal cultivation have secured the eviction of mass of tenants. It may be noted that the concession was given with the object of inducing the cultivating landlords to undertake personal cultivation and to control absentee landlordism. However, the landlords have taken advantage of this loophole in the laws and though no accurate data is available on how many tenants have been evicted in the state, it is openly confessed at the national level that tenancy reform was an impetus for ejectment of tenants throughout the country.²³

CONCLUSION:

Thus the tenancy reform measures designed with the objective of strengthening the land right of the ‘tiller of the soil’ however, have not effected the desired change in the agrarian structure in the state. Sharecropping continues to be the main form of tenancy in the state. In fact, the proportion of area under share tenancy in the state has increased over the years. In 1981-82, 42.0 per cent of leased in area was under share tenancy but it increased to 73.0 per cent in 2003. However, the attempts to regulate tenancy or putting restriction on tenancy by legislative means have not ended the system and the system continues in concealed form obviously in illegal manner but admittedly it has become less exploitative. This apparently points to the fact that tenancy cultivation forms an important means of livelihood for the poor especially the landless, the marginal and small farmers in the state.

REFERENCES:

1. In 1950’s around 80 per cent of the working population of the state depended on agriculture for their livelihood.

2. Government of Odisha, Report of the Administration Enquiry Committee, Vol. I, Cuttack, 1958, p. 167.

3. N.C. Behuria (ed.), Odisha State Gazetteers, Vol. 1, Cuttack, 1990, p. 349.

4. N. Senapati and D. C. Kuanr, Odisha District Gazetteers, Puri, Cuttack, 1977, p. 409.

5. P. S. Appu, Tenancy Reforms in India, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume. X, No. 33/35, Mumbai, August, 1975, p. 1339.

6. Ibid.

7. A. R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Bombay, 1976, p. 193.

8. Government of Odisha , Land Tenure and Land Reforms in Odisha, Cuttack, 1962, p. 68.

9. H. Venkatasubbiah, Indian Economy since Independence, Bombay, 1958, p. 59.

10. B. Sahoo and G. Dharmalingam, Land Reform and Management, Bhubaneswar, 2006, p.118.

11. J. K. Samal, Agrarian History of Odisha under the British Rule, Delhi, 1993, p. 183.

12. Government of Odisha , Odisha Acts and Regulations 1948, Cuttack, 1961, p.7.

13. Report of the Administration Enquiry Committee, op. cit., p. 167.

14. Government of Odisha, Odisha Acts, Regulations and Ordinances 1955, Cuttack, 1956, p.31.

15. Report of the Administration Enquiry Committee, op. cit., p. 143.

16. Government of Odisha, Odisha Land Reforms Code, Cuttack, 1987, p. 11.

17. Ibid, p. 28.

18. B. Sahoo and G. Dharmalingam, op. cit., p. 122.

19. National Sample Survey Organization, Some Aspects of Operational Land Holdings in India, 2002-03, NSS 59^th round, January- December 2003, Report No. 492, Govt. of India, 2006, p. 29.

20. M. Swain, Peasant Agriculture and Share Tenancy in Odisha, New Delhi, 1998, p. 87.

21. National Sample Survey Organization, Household Ownership Holdings in India, 2003, NSS 59^th round January- December 2003, Report No. 491, Govt. of India, 2006, pp. 27-28.

22. R. Mearns, and S. Sinha, Social Exclusion and Land Administration in Odisha, India, Policy Research Working Paper 2124, The World Bank, South Asia Region, Rural Development Sector Unit, 1999, p. 13.

23. Tim Hanstad et al, Improving Land Access for India’s Rural Poor, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume XLII, No. 10, op. cit., 2008, p. 50.

Received on 25.02.2014 Modified on 11.03.2014

Int. J. Rev. & Res. Social Sci. 2(1): Jan. – Mar. 2014; Page 69-72