Sheikh Abdullah and Land Reformsin Jammu and Kashmir

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august 2, 2014 vol xlix no 31 EPW Economic & Political Weekly130

Sheikh Abdullah and Land Reforms in Jammu and Kashmir

Anirudh Kumar Prasad

Anirudh Kumar Prasad ([email protected]) is with the Department of Political Science, Hindu College, Delhi University.

One of the reasons attributed to the poor agricultural

situation in post-Independence India was its unequal

land relationship. The Congress Party opted for land

reforms as that would transform India into a progressive

nation. As the 1949 Constitution decided in its favour,

the responsibility of implementation was left to the

states. One state which emerged as the leader in

agrarian reforms was Jammu and Kashmir, led by Sheikh

Abdullah. This article reviews the land relations and

agrarian reforms in Jammu and Kashmir and suggests

implications this had for the politics of the state.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is the only state of the Indian Union which enjoys two special “statuses”. Of the two, the fi rst has been conferred upon it by Article 370 of the

Indian Constitution, and the second, the radical land reforms, i e, abolition of landlordism, land to tiller and coop-erative association has been earned by the state. J&K has achieved a unique distinction among all the states of India by introducing land reforms of considerable magnitude, inclu-ding the remission of land revenue on smallholdings (Aslam 1977), and went on to become the most publicised land reforms of the country.

Prime Minister of J&K1 Sheikh Abdullah, soon after coming to power,2 started the agrarian reform programme in the state in 1948, with the abolition of sinecure payments such as jagirs, muafi s and mukarraries. Earlier, the benefi ciaries of jagirs and muafi s3 had a number of privileges at the cost of the citizens within the territorial limits of such jagirs, approximating the rights of the erstwhile maharaja of J&K in matters of fi scal nature. In one stroke, the new state government abolished 396 jagirs/muafi s involving an annual land revenue assign-ment of Rs 5,56,313.4 The government also abolished fi xed cash grants known as mukarraries (2,347) to the tune of Rs 1,77,921 per annum (J&K Today, nd).

These changes were viewed as very revolutionary because they took away the privileges of the erstwhile maharaja and feudal vassals over most of the cultivated areas in the state without payment of any compensation. Land reforms in the state were also seen as correcting a historical wrong against the peasantry and were one of the most important promises of the National Conference’s New Kashmir Manifesto (1944). The state government’s next step in 1948 was to protect the rights of the tenants through amendment of the State Tenancy Act of 1924. Safeguards were provided to the tenants-at-will (tenants-at-will were those peasants who could be ejected from the land at the landlord’s pleasure). Rights of protected tenants were given to the bulk of tenants-at-will; their tenure was secured by making their ejectment illegal.

The change in the tenancy law was followed by the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950, J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972, and J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 (Verma 1994). The most important feature of the reforms introduced as a result of the enforcement of the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950 was that ownership of land in the state was subjected to a maximum ceiling of 22.75 acres.

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW august 2, 2014 vol xlix no 31 131

All holdings above this ceiling were distributed among the tillers.

Passing of this Act led to the expropriation of 9,000 land owners (both in Jammu and Kashmir) who owned among themselves 8 lakh acres, without payment of compensation for the surplus land. Thus, 2.3 lakh acres were transferred to about 2 lakh tillers out of 4.5 lakh acres of land taken away from land owners (Dhar 1989: 235).

Historical Background

It is a well-known fact that the relation between ownership and cultivation of land, and rights and status of the actual cul-tivators determine the conditions under which agricultural production is conducted.

From the early Hindu period down to the twelfth century, ownership of land in Jammu and Kashmir had remained vested in the community. Between the 12th and the 18th centuries ownership of land was vested in kings. Peasants could occupy the land for cultivation subject to pay-ment of an arbitrarily fi xed rent or at the pleasure of the kings or their agents. Some land was earmarked as khalsa (state) land and reserved for the royal household to meet their expenses. In exchange for certain privileges, chosen agents called kardars managed this land on behalf of the royal households. Rest of the land was divided into military circles and granted to army chiefs, subedars and taluqadars. They in turn divided these land grants into khalsa and jagir lands and granted these to their favorites and dependents on the same terms and condi-tions on which they had received them (Bhat 2000: 143).

This system of land management led to the emergence of a hierarchy of landed aristocracy which not only misappropriated land revenue, but also showed no interest in the management of land. Another class of intermediaries called farmers was created through the process of leasing out villages to contractors who were free to make their own contract with the occupants, i e, people who were forced to cultivate a particular piece of land (Bhat 2000: 143).

Thus, ‘people became landlords and tenants by a process different than that obtained during earlier period’. During the period between 18th and 19th centuries, rulers attempted to marginalise the landed aristocracy and dealt directly with the cultivators. However, their efforts were thwarted by the powerful landed interest groups such as the chieftains (called sirdars). These groups were accommodated by assigning them the ruler’s share. This gave birth to yet another class of assignees of land revenue with no proprietary rights in land. These were called jagirdars, maufi dars and mukarndars.

From mid-19th century, a new type of land tenure came into existence on account of the Treaty of Amritsar signed in 1846. According to this treaty:(a) the British government transferred and made over, for ever, in independent possession to Maharaja Golab Singh of Jammu, and the heirs male of his body, all the hilly or mountainous country, with its dependencies, situated to the eastward of the river Indus, and westward of river Ravee, including Chamba and excluding Lahool; and (b) in consideration of the transfer made to him, Maharaja Golab Singh paid to the British Govern-ment the sum of Rs 75 lakh (Nanak Shahi) of which 50 lakh were paid on ratifi cation of the treaty and 25 lakh subsequently by the end of September 1846 AD (Beg 1995: 406).

Thus, the Kashmir Valley was “purchased” by Maharaja Gulab Singh from the British rulers, and so the ownership of the land in Kashmir Valley from this time onwards was vested with the maharaja of Jammu. The occupants of the land in

Kashmir Valley were called assamis who had to pay, besides land revenue, malikana in recognition of his being the owner of the land (Bhat 2000). The assamis had no right to transfer land on the ground that they were entitled only to its possession as long as they paid land revenue and malikana. “The assami may be defi ned as a man recognised by the State as the lawful occupant of land in Kashmir, and in the Mughal times and thereafter, from the point of view of the State, the status of assami in theory meant nothing more than a tenant-at-will” (Lawrence 1967: 428). Such assamis existed in the districts of Ladakh and Gilgit as well, the source of the maharaja’s owner-ship of land in this case being conquest and not purchase as in the case of Kashmir Valley.5

In Jammu also, considerable areas of land were held by him in ownership prior to the Treaty of Amritsar in 1846, and the occupants of such land were also called assamis/ malguzars. In the case of acquisition of land, for public purposes, the assamis/malguzars were entitled to compensation at only one-third of the prevailing market value. Original occupants of the land held proprietary rights granted by the state deeds. This included big landholders who cultivated their own land. A powerful class of grantees and intermedi aries was a distinct feature of the land tenure system prevalent since the 12th century. In spite of the change of rulers, cultivators suffered impoverishment and tyranny (Bhat 2000).

The rulers in J&K changed many a time, but for tillers, nothing but the means of exploitation changed (Bhat 2000). While this misery and oppression sapped any interest left in the cultivator to improve the land, he continued to cultivate only due to the pressure of the state and the landlord. The state appointed kardars (land agents), giving them enormous powers and made them in charge of circles of villages, which were formed in 1859. The distribution of land among the cul-tivators, the choice of crop, and the allotment of area were decided by the land agents.

The famine of 1877-79 that devastated the Valley of Kashmir provided the impetus for the British government demanding an overhauling of agrarian rights and relations in Kashmir and prompted serious reconsideration of their policy of non- interference in this princely state (Rai 2004). According to Lawrence (1967), the death toll from the famine of 1877-79 had been overwhelming by any standards. Famines in Kashmir were caused by either early snows or heavy rain occurring at the time when the autumn harvest was ripening. Of the 19 great famines which took place in Kashmir, there were two ter-rible famines in the 19th century in the valley, one known by the name Sher Singh, which was caused by the early, heavy autumn snow of 1831 and the other which was similarly caused by continuous rains which fell from October 1877 till January 1878. Sher Singh famine reduced the population of Kashmir from eight lakh to two lakh (Lawrence 1967). According to Lawrence, in the famine of 1877-79 there was an enormous loss of life. “One authority has stated that the population of Srina-gar was reduced from 1,27,400 to 60,000, and others say that of the total population of the valley only two-fi fths survived” (Lawrence 1967: 213).

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The famine had brought to light the inadequacy of the protec-tion afforded to Kashmiri cultivators by the agrarian arrange-ments of the Dogra state. It was pointed out to the authorities that substantial quantities of rice could have been saved and the staggering loss of life averted if cultivators had been permitted to cut their crop before the start of the rains that destroyed the autumn harvest of 1877. But the rigid adherence to the old revenue system, in which assessments were made on the stand-ing crop, delayed the reaping operations (Lawrence 1967: 213).

When Pratap Singh became the new ruler of J&K after the death of his father maharaja Ranbir Singh in 1885, he was not only forced to accept the British interference in the state by stationing a Resident in Kashmir, but also the implementation of wide-ranging reforms in the Dogra state that included regu-lar settlements, which was carried out initially by A Wingate and then by Walter Lawrence. Both these British offi cials were civil servants of the colonial government.

Sheikh Abdullah, in 1931, launched a movement against the maharaja of J&K and among other things, he demanded grant of normal rights to a citizen to hold land as owner. As a result of this agitation, the maharaja was forced to set a commission of inquiry called the Glancy Commission, headed by Bertrand J Glancy, to fi nd out the legitimate grievances of the people and make appropriate recommendations.6 On the recommen-dations of the Glancy Commission, appointed on 12 November 1931, Prime Minister of J&K Colonel Colvin on 10 April 1933 issued a government order directing that the implementation of the recommendations be commenced forthwith.

Among many recommendations, the commission had sug-gested granting of proprietary rights, with the accompanying right to transfer land, to the cultivators who were till then tenant-at-will of government-owned lands. This was achieved at a time when India, including J&K, had not gained Independ-ence (Beg 1995). In J&K, the demand for restitution of the ownership of land to the farmers goes back to 1924 when Viceroy Lord Reading was presented with a 17-point memoran-dum from prominent Kashmiri Muslims to inquire into their grievances.

Land Reforms after 1948

One of the main demands of the National Conference movement,7 which was launched in 1931, was the transfer of ownership rights of land from the maharaja to the peasants. Till then, almost the entire area of the Kashmir Valley and a substantial part of Jammu province was regarded as being in the personal ownership of Hari Singh, like the Sarf-e-Khas lands of the Nizam of Hyderabad. This demand was conceded as a result of the freedom movement, and lakhs of petty culti-vators who were till then tenants-at-will got the ownership over their land (Malaviya 1955).

However, at the same time the jagirdars and chakdars who till then had the status of tenants-at-will, acquired vast areas of land through the exploitation of the poorer villagers. The village population was impoverished and these jagirdars and chakdars, taking advan-tage of their poverty, manipulated the sale and purchase of land and accumulated thousands of kanals (8 kanals = 1 acre) of land (Aslam 1977: 60-61).

At the time when Hari Singh signed the instrument of acces-sion with India in 1947, the state was like the rest of the subcontinent of India – an agricultural state. The large majority of the people subsisted in one way or another on the land. The peasants were still living as though in medieval times as serfs. The major portion of the produce of the agri-cultural land was being taken away by the absentee proprie-tor of the land, leaving very little for the actual tiller to live on. The result was that these agricultural labourers who formed the majority of the community had always been living at a subsistence level.

Sheikh Abdullah, after becoming the prime minister of the state in 1948,8 decided to destroy the power of the landed aris-tocracy, and to take the 1931 movement to its logical conclusion by fulfi lling the promises made to the peasants of land reforms in his New Kashmir Manifesto (1944). The document had prom-ised radical restructuring of the society and economy of the state. The introduction to the New Kashmir Manifesto says,

Throughout the lean centuries of history, the poor exploited sons of Jammu and Kashmir have been palanquin bearers of Hindu monarchs, Buddhist rulers and Moghal emperors. The peasant sons of the valleys and mountains have scattered only nine inches of top soil and eked out a bare existence. Now the time has come when they must dig deep into the bowels of the earth and yoke the technique of modern science to the task of getting for themselves a bigger and better morsel of daily bread (Malaviya 1955: 415-16).

According to Korbel (1954), the economic reforms in J&K were introduced by the Sheikh Abdullah government to coun-ter the demand of plebiscite made by Pakistan.

For the party which has the more serious reasons to be fearful of the result of a plebiscite – the government in Srinagar – has been doing everything in its power to delay this day of reckoning. It has been working hard to change the conditions of life under the Maharaja and to bring some relief to the poverty-stricken masses (Korbel 1954: 198).

In its editorial on 11 January 1948 People’s Age wrote:

The game of Pakistani reactionaries and of the imperialist war- mongers can be easily defeated if the peasant masses of Kashmir are assured that feudal autocracy and jagirdari will be liquidated, land will be given to the tillers, and the complete right of self-determination granted to the various nationalities that comprise Kashmir. Kashmir can be saved only by winning over the peasants, and ending feudal autocracy and the reactionary policy of the appeasement of the Maha-raja by the Indian Union government and by really liberating peasants (quoted in Raina 1988: 159).

Immediately after coming to power, Sheikh Abdullah declared the abolition of the privileges of muafi dars and mukkarraree-khwars (recipients of cash grants). Further, he gave priority to the reorganisation of agriculture on a modern and rational basis, through the abolition of landlordism, secur-ing the land to the tiller, and formation of cooperative associa-tions. These steps were taken to free the peasant from the bur-den of the jagirdars and kardars. Besides, waste lands were granted to tillers for cultivation, a moratorium was declared on non-commercial debts, and ejectment proceedings against tenants were stayed for a period of one year.

According to George Mathew (2011), even Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was envious of the Government of J&K for its speed and clarity on the issue of land reforms in the state.

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Three months later, on 18 October 1950, the J&K Big Landed Estates Abolition Act was passed by the J&K assembly, which superseded most of the preceding temporary measures and legalised the sweeping land reforms. The Act was aimed at translating into practice the principle of transferring land to the “actual tillers” of the soil. “Tiller means a person who tills land with his own hand” (Thorner 1976: 48). Khaliqa, a Matipura village peasant, was the fi rst to receive land under the Act. Under this Act, every proprietor, whether he himself cultivated land or not, retained only 22.75 acres of land (besides orchards, grass farms and fuel reserves), and the right of ownership of the remaining land was transferred to actual tillers of land (subject to the maximum that the individual cultivator can possess) free from encumbrance and without payment of compensation. The tiller-owner was, how-ever, liable for payment of land revenue and was assessed on the land that was transferred to him, together with a surcharge of four annas per rupee of land revenue as “land development cess” which was earmarked for use in the rehabilitation of the cultivators and the improvement of land given to them.

According to this Act, the landlord was allowed to keep not more than 20 acres of agricultural land, one acre of land for vegetable gardening, half acre as residential site, and 1.25 acres of orchards – altogether 22.75 acres. Also, it was stipu-lated that the landlord must work on his land; otherwise, it would be expropriated. Provision was also made for the confi s-cation of the property of “enemy agents”, these agents being largely defi ned as persons who had expressed a desire for Kashmir to join Pakistan (Korbel 1954). This expropriated land was to be transferred in full ownership to the maximum of 20 acres to the tenant. All lands which were not under cultivation or not rented and in excess of 22.75 acres were transferred to the government for redistribution.

As far as the question of paying compensation to the ex- proprietors was concerned, the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act left the matter to be settled by the Constituent Assembly of the state, and till such time for the expropriated land the gov-ernment was to pay the former owner for the fi rst year after expropriation an amount equal to three-quarters of the land revenue of the expropriated land, for the second year two-thirds, and for the third year and subsequent years half of such land revenue, these sums never to exceed Rs 3,000 per year (Korbel 1954). With a view to check and safeguard against the evasion and circumvention of the law, the Act declared all transfers of land made after April 1948 to be null and void. This included the transfer of land consequent on partition, whether the transfer was affected by an order or decree of any court or an act of the parties, if it was found that such transfer was made mala fi de or with an intention to defeat the object of the enactment (J&K Today nd).

Under the new law, the interest of the ex-proprietor in any land which was transferred to the tiller was not liable to attachment or sale in execution of a decree or any other process of any court, civil or revenue, and any attachment existing at the date of transfer or any order for attachment passed before such date ceases to be in force. Similarly, all suits and

Addressing the annual session of the National Conference on 14 June 1951, Nehru said:

But perhaps the greatest reform was in respect of land and agrarian matters. The abolition of big Zamindari system, which was the ideal all over India had been given effect to here more swiftly than else-where...These were achievements of which any country might be proud ...(Dhar 1989: 242).

This is also a fact that the leadership of the National Conference opted for India for accession, and not for Pakistan, because they were sure that their radical agenda of bringing about reorganisation in the agrarian structure would not have been possible in a feudal Pakistan.

The government’s next measure not only gave economic re-lief to peasants, but also brought about a fundamental change in their status. In October 1948, the State Tenancy Act of 1924, which provided for the maximum rental to be paid by a tenant to his landlord, was amended and the severities caused by its operation stopped. The amendment provided tenants-at-will rights of protected tenancy in respect of 2.13 acres of wet land or 4.13 acres of dryland in Kashmir province and about double the size in the Jammu province, and placed restrictions on ejectments of tenants from land. The amendment fi xed the maximum rental payable by a tenant to his landlord, in respect of tenancy holdings exceeding 12.5 acres, at one-fourth of the produce (or cash thereof) in the case of wetlands (including those growing paddy, wheat, maize, sugar cane and linseed) and at one-third in the case of drylands. Previously, the tenant had to surrender more than half of his produce to the landlord as rent. According to the provisions of this amendment, a ten-ant who had cultivated the land of his landlord for seven months before the commencement of the Tenancy Act was entitled to the privilege of a protected tenant.

The tenancy reforms benefi ted nearly three-fi fths of the peasantry, cultivating about 7 lakh acres out of the 22 lakh acres composing the total cultivated area of the state (J&K Today nd; Kashmir Marches Ahead 1958). These reforms gave relief to impoverished peasants of the state but did not bring about the abolition of the landlord system which was at the root of their poverty and suffering. In order to bring about a fundamental change in the production and ownership rela-tions in agriculture, the Sheikh Abdullah government in April 1949 appointed a Land Reforms Committee under the chair-manship of Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg, minister for revenue, agriculture, forests and cooperatives, to prepare a plan for the abolition of big landed estates and transfer of land to tiller.

The New Acts

In J&K, there were about 22 lakh acres of cultivated lands belonging to the maharaja, his jagirdars and chakdars (a class of landlords). The landlords rented these lands to the peasants under inhuman feudalistic conditions of tenure. But, before the committee could prepare and submit its report, Sheikh Abdullah on 13 July 19509 announced sweeping land reforms in a speech from the National Conference platform (Bamzai 1973).

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proceedings pending in any court of law at the date of the transfer of land, and all proceedings upon any decree or order passed in any such suit or proceedings previous to the date of transfer in respect of any interest in the land so transferred, were stayed. All holdings between two and 12 acres of self-cultivating properties were made inalienable. The tiller was not allowed to transfer the newly acquired property without governmental permission. No one other than a Kashmiri citi-zen was entitled to acquire land. If a proprietor or tiller dies without heir, or transfers the land or any interest therein in contra vention of the law, or sublets it continuously for two har-vests, he loses the rights of ownership, which lapses to the government (J&K Today nd).

In most cases, the government failed to receive the land tax from the peasants for the simple reason that they had no money to pay. As a logical consequence, former owners rarely had any indemnity paid to them – for precisely the same reason. The Constituent Assembly on 6 November 1951 appointed an 11-member committee to examine and report on the desirability or otherwise of the payment of compensation for lands expro-priated under the provisions of the Act.

Acting on the report of the committee, on 26 March 1952, the Constituent Assembly of the state decided to confi scate all landed estates without any compensation (Korbel 1954).10 At the time when the Act was passed, there were 1.5 lakh absen-tee landlords holding 11% of the land, and cultivating peasants numbering nearly 8 lakh holding 32% of the total cultivated area of the state. There were 3 lakh peasants who had no land, but cultivated 10% of the total cultivated area. All these fi gures tell of how large an area was held by the absentee landowners and how little was with those who themselves cultivated the land. About 1.45 lakh acres of land was owned by 472 proprie-tors, and 1,886 owners held 1,40,760 acres of land. There were about 9,000 proprietors whose holdings exceeded 20 acres of land, out of which nearly 5,62,000 acres were transferred to the tillers under the Abolition Act (J&K Today nd).“The success of the Act of 1950 can be very well appreciated from the fact that out of 9.5 lakh acres of land distributed throughout the country till 1970, about half (i e, 4.5 lakh acres) was distributed in J&K alone” (Verma 1994: 94).

The National Conference government, in order to review the working of land reforms in the kandi (dry) areas of the state, appointed a committee under the chairmanship Justice Janaki Nath Wazir in 1952,11 who, in his report, recommended that the maximum unit for a proprietor in Kashmir kandi should be fi xed at roughly 28 acres and for a proprietor in Jammu kandi at 34 acres, against the present uniform unit of 22.75 acres. The committee also recommended that lands at-tached to Gumpas (Buddhist religious institutions) in Ladakh should be excluded from the operation of the Act.

Opposition to the Reforms

Commenting on the issue of paying compensation to the former landlords, Sheikh Abdullah stated that

neither his government, which had inherited a bankrupt treasury, nor the penniless tiller was in a position to compensate big landlords for

their land. He related the new measure both to Communist agitation in the state and to the confl ict with Pakistan, and suggested that ‘agents of Pakistan jagirdars in whose grip those areas are at present will not allow these measures to be implemented, and so it is for the people of those areas to rise and overthrow their enslavers’ (Bekker 1951: 328).

When the National Conference government decided to carry out the land reforms in the state, especially the resumption of the jagirdari system, the opposition to the reforms came not only from the head of the state, Hari Singh, in the form of withholding of assent, but also from the Indian government, especially Union Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel who did not trust the leadership of the National Conference (Navlakha 1996). V Shankar, private secretary to Sardar Patel, on 4 May 1948 wrote to Sheikh Abdullah:

Honourable Minister (Sardar Patel) has asked me to request you to see Panditji (Prime Minister Nehru) about it (withholding of assent to the resumption of jagirs) inviting his attention in particular to the fact that these jagirs are being sought to be resumed without any payment of compensation whatever, which is quite contrary to anything that we are doing in the Indian Dominion. It is also to be borne in mind that probably the jagirdars would be mostly non-Muslims (Hindus), and this measure would probably create a certain amount of discontent and ill-feeling against the government among the minority community (Raina 1988: 162).

The credit for the historic decision of the land reforms was given to the government for their foresight at a time when no-body in Pakistan and very few in India had thought of making the experiment. But, the reforms were not above criticism.

According to Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta (quoted in Kashmir after 9 August 1953 (1955: 13)),

Credit must be given to him and to the National Conference for intro-ducing land reforms in the State at a time when nobody in Pakistan and very few in India had thought of making the experiment. But the reforms in Jammu and Kashmir were introduced in a huff. The Land Reform Committee of which his policy-maker, Mirza Afzal Beg, was the chairman, had neither concluded its deliberations, nor had the committee submitted its report and the recommendations to the government. Suddenly – presumably on account of political exigencies – he thought of abolishing the big landed estates and transferring land to tillers. The question had not been examined in all its details and no regular plan had been prepared when one fi ne morning he an-nounced the reforms from the National Conference party platform. The law had not been prepared and the assent of the Head of the State which was necessary before the reforms of such a far reaching character could be announced had not been obtained. Though the announcement was regularised later on, the breathless hurry in which a time-old system was abolished without even proper obse-quies, left every one wondering. The result was that the reforms were not implemented properly. Avenues of corruption were opened and the ‘the gift was bereft of the benefi t’. The ceiling of holding was put arbitrarily no matter if the land was irrigated or dry. Some tillers got less while others got more.

Daniel Thorner (1953), who visited the valley in 1953 noticed similar grievances from the people of the villages he visited. He was informed that some of the well-off families in the village, when they got wind of the impending land reform, had gone through the legal forms of breaking up their joint fami-lies. People with money and connections were able to acquire more land than was due to them under the Act. Those who already possessed large landholdings were in the best position

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to receive additional allotments. According to him, the bitter-est complaints were about the government’s procurement policy and the malfunctioning of the cooperatives. “Yet, whatever the defects in implementation, the fact of agrarian change could not be denied. Many tillers have become landowners and some land has even gone to the landless” (Thorner 1976: 50).

Keeping in view the total sociopolitical turmoil and post-partition development throughout the subcontinent the agrarian reforms of early fi fties were defi nitely radical. Smooth transformation, irrespec-tive of the reasons which made it possible, of agrarian set-up added an element of uniqueness to it. Number of anomalies in the pattern of land tenure crept in over the years. For instance, the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act carried with it certain discrepancies such as uni-form fi xation of ceiling without giving due weight to fertility of soil and geo-physical contiguity. Similarly, no ceiling was imposed on holding size of protected tenants who illegally sublet their land violat-ing the spirit of land reforms. Hence the government in 1963 set up a Land Commission to fi nd out the various discrepancies which had crept in over the years in the land tenure pattern. The recommendations of this Commission formed, by and large, the basis of Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reform Act, 1972 (Repealed) (Bhat 1989: 102).

This Act ended the rights in land of those who personally never cultivated, and also reduced the ceiling limit to 12.5 standard acres of land. With the enactment of this new Act, the old system of the landlord-tenant relationship came to an end.

Even the new Agrarian Reforms Act of 1972 was found wanting in many ways. While enforcing the Act, it was found that many landowners who depended heavily on income from land and wanted to cultivate the land personally could not own or cultivate the land. Some tillers had to pay higher rent than what they were paying before the enforcement of the Act. In order to remove these discrepancies, the Reforms Act of 1972 was replaced by the Reforms Act of 1976 (amended) which, after its enforcement, came into effect on 1 May 1973 (Bhat 1989). The Act of 1976 also fi xed a ceiling of 12.5 stand-ard acres including orchards with certain conditions.

It further seeks to bring about the complete peasant proprietorship of land by eliminating landlord-tenure relationship wherever it exists within the ceiling limit of 12.5 standard acres. It has kept option for the petty landlord to resume for his personal cultivation that fraction of his holdings which is equal to the fraction of that produce which he was recovering as rent from the tiller. Tiller shall become the owner of the rest of the land left with him. Unlike the previous Acts tenant should be deemed to have become the owner of the land right from the enforcement of the new Act but shall have to pay compensation for the land which he owns within a period of 10 years from the date of en-forcement of the Act (Bhat 1989: 103).

The land reforms in the state were made more effective by taking measures to relieve the distress of rural and poor debtors by preventing creditors from charging excessive interest. Along with the Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976, was also passed the J&K Debtors’ Relief Act of 1976, and the J&K Restitution of Mortgaged Properties Act of 1976. These Acts were passed to provide relief to debtors as it was done in the 1950s. According to Tara Singh Rekhi (1993), as recommended by the land com-mission and the subsequent agrarian reforms by the govern-ment, the absentee landlordism vanished from the state, tenancy system was abolished and the ownership rights of land were vested in the tillers. The total number of benefi ciar-ies from the transfer of land to the tillers from 1951 up to 1985 stood at 11,22,918 (see Table), whereas during the period from 1980 to 1985, the number of benefi ciaries was 5,38,000 (Rekhi 1993).

Outcomes of the Reforms

According to George Mathew (2011: 25), land reform

was a watershed in the history of J&K and a measure, the fi rst of its kind in the subcontinent, lauded by different sections of society and people belonging to different walks of life in the country. The land reform greatly helped the marginalised sections, especially the scheduled castes to become landowners.

According to another research on land reforms in the state by Ashish Saxena (quoted in Mathew 2011), during the 1950s-1970s, out of total surplus land of 84 acres, mainly taken away from Rajputs and Mahajans, 70.24% was allotted to scheduled caste tenants. A radical inter-generational shift in the occupa-tion pattern of the scheduled castes in terms of landless agri-cultural labourers to landowning peasants from grandfather (nil) to 47.1% in the present generation has taken place.

However, Verma (1994) has different views on the outcomes of the agrarian reforms in J&K. For him, the land reforms were not suffi cient to extinguish the class differences between the higher and lower sections in the farm sector. With the intro-duction of better irrigation facilities and high yielding crop varieties, new classes of rich peasants and orchard owners have become dominant and stifl ed efforts towards equity in the countryside. The increasing inequalities in the agrarian sector may be attributed to the defective ceiling laws, circum-vention of laws by the landed peasantry and exemption of orchards from the ceiling laws. Dhar’s opinion on the land reform is also quite similar to that of Verma.

Land reforms in Kashmir involved a gigantic redistribution of owner-ship holdings both horizontally and vertically. These reforms led to the total restructuring of land tenure system. By and large it achieved its aims but it brought forth new problems. …Establishment of peasant proprietorship in Kashmir, however, led to the concentration of more land in the hands of rich peasantry. It abolished absentee landlords but created Kulaks at the site of the land (Dhar 1989: 256-57).

For Thorner (1953: 1002),

Land reform in Kashmir has clearly done away with the jagirs, and has weakened the position of all the great landlords. It has distinctly ben-efi ted those individuals who, at the village level, were already the more important and substantial people. It has done the least for the petty

Table: Land Transferred to Tillers in J&K from 1951-52 to 1980-85S No Year Land Transferred Number of Number of (in Acres) Tillers Beneficiaries

1 1951-52 92,927 30,418# 2,98,922

2 1952-53 66,755 50,189 1,70,165

3 1953-54 36,619 32,260 1,15,831

4 1980-85 1,06,000 3,08,000 5,38,000

Total 3,02,301 4,20,867 11,22,918

# However, Aslam (1977: 62) puts this figure at 80,418 quoting Economic Development in Figures (Jammu and Kashmir), Director of Information, Srinagar. Source: Rekhi (1993: 127).

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tenants and landless labourers, these two categories being the largest in the countryside. By not paying the compensation to the dispos-sessed absentee landlords, Kashmir has escaped the financial burden which several of the states of India have found so onerous.

Sheikh Abdullah, being a far-sighted leader, knew from his experiences since 1931 that bringing radical change in the state and fighting the Dogra Maharaja would not be an easy task without active support of the entire Kashmiri society. For Rai (2004) agrarian reforms in Jammu and Kashmir were not as radical as they were made out to be. She finds “indications of the compulsions to placate a variety of special interests within Kashmiri society, including Pandit concerns, under which Abdullah had to operate” (Rai 2004: 281-82) while implement-ing land reforms. According to her, the radical promises made in the New Kashmir Manifesto (1944) were diluted by the ruling party so that there was no social instability in the coun-tryside. Corruption in the National Conference machinery mitigated the harsher aspects of the reforms for the big land-owners. Smelling a nexus between the National Conference government and Kashmiri Pandits, Rai asks how come Pandits did not oppose the agrarian reforms.

It is said that over 30% of the land in the valley belonged to (the Pandits) prior to the reforms, much of which had been obtained at the time of the first settlement of the 1880s. An equally large proportion was obtained through purchase after 1934, when proprietary rights were granted to Kashmiri cultivators following the agitation of 1931-2. Considering that the Pandits comprised approximately 5% of the Kashmiri population, their control of over 30% of the land speaks for significantly large holdings. However, Pandits did not resist

the abolition of big landed estates quite as shrilly as did their Dogra counterparts (Rai 2004: 283).

According to her,

an arena in which the National Conference made conspicuous conces-sions to Pandit privileges was in administrative employment. Their primary vocation...being employment in government service, 10% of the state jobs were reserved for Pandits. While it is true that a much larger proportion of 50% was reserved for Muslims, the smaller num-bers of the Pandits made this an impressively generous allowance. Indeed the Pandits were getting much more than their proportion of the population entitled them to and, through the liberality of the National Conference, were said to be better represented in the state services than they had ever been before (Rai 2004: 284).

Conclusions

As expected, India’s most-publicised land reform became a success. This achievement has been attributed largely to the political will of the leadership of J&K, especially that of Sheikh Abdullah, and the special status granted to the state under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. This Article of the Indian Constitution, originally intended as an interim meas-ure, gave exemption to J&K from the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles. Sheikh Abdullah, to whom Maharaja Hari Singh had handed over the reins of the state after signing the Instrument of Accession to India, had sought such an exemption so that his government could implement the promises made in his New Kashmir Manifesto.

As expected, there was also a strong reaction against the land reforms because majority of the beneficiaries were poor

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Notes

1 The chief minister in J&K was earlier designat-ed as prime minister. However, this was changed when the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (Sixth Amendment) Act, 1965 was passed on 10 April 1965.

2 According to Alastair Lamb, Sheikh Abdullah became head of the J&K Emergency Govern-ment on 29 October 1947 (with the title of Chief Emergency Administrator), with Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed as his deputy and Mirza Afzal Beg as a minister. This Emergency Government, however, continued to operate under the general supervision of the prime minister or Diwan, who until March 1948 remained Mehr Chand Mahajan (Lamb 1992: 144-45). Accord-ing to Khushwant Singh, Sheikh Abdullah was appointed Director General, Administration – the fi rst Kashmiri Muslim to hold this post (Abdullah 1993: 97).

3 Muafi s were land revenue assignments, and there were two types of muafi s: religious and non-religious. In religious muafi s, one-third of the amount of the land revenue was received by the muafi dar in cash and two-thirds in kind. In the case of non-religious muafi s, the whole of the assigned land revenue was received either in cash or kind, or both. The government totally abolished the non-religious muafi s and also terminated the right to receive the assigned land revenue in kind, in respect of religious muafi s. To receive grain in the name of religion, and that too at exploitative rates, was absolute per-version of the spirit of religion (Malaviya 1955).

4 According to Mirza Afzal Beg (1995), who held the revenue portfolio in Sheikh Abdullah’s government, there were 396 jagirdars and muafi dars in the state and they annually appro-priated an amount of Rs 5,66,313 out of land revenue, whereas J&K Today (nd) puts this amount at Rs 5,56,313.

5 In 1834, Ladakh was annexed by Maharaja Gulab Singh with the help of his general Zorawar Singh, and it was fi nally incorporated into the Dogra state in 1842 after crushing a Ladakhi rebellion.

6 Apart from Bertrand J Glancy, who was a senior offi cer in the Political Department of the Government of India, the other members of the commission included Khawaja Ghulam Ahmad Ashai (Muslim nominee from Kashmir), Chaudhari Ghulam Abbas (Muslim nominee

from Jammu), Pandit Prem Nath Bajaj (Pandit nominee from Kashmir), and Pandit Lok Nath Sharma (Pandit nominee from Jammu).

7 In October 1932, Sheikh Abdullah founded the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference. On 11 June 1939, it was renamed as the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.

8 According to Alastair Lamb (1992), Sheikh Abdullah on 5 March 1948 was appointed prime minister as head of an Interim Govern-ment of the state of J&K.

9 13 July is celebrated every year in Kashmir as Martyrs’ Day in the memory of those who died following a clash with the police in 1931.

10 However, according to Jammu and Kashmir Today, the date on which it was decided by the Constituent Assembly was 13 March 1952 (J&K Today, nd: 15).

11 Justice Janaki Nath Wazir was a former judge of Lucknow High Court and subsequently Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir High Court.

References

Abdullah, Sheikh Mohammad (1993): Flames of the Chinar: An Autobiography, abridged and translated from the Urdu by Khushwant Singh (Delhi: Viking).

Aslam, Mohamed (1977): “Land Reforms in Jammu and Kashmir”, Social Scientist, 6(4): 59-64.

Bamzai, Prithivi Nath Kaul (1973): A History of Kashmir: Political, Social, Cultural, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (Delhi: Metro-politan Book).

Beg, Mirza Afzal (1995): “Land Reforms in Jammu and Kashmir” in Verinder Grover, The Story of Kashmir: Yesterday and Today, Volume 2 (Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications), 406-10.

Bekker, Konrad (1951): “Land Reform Legislation in India”, The Middle East Journal, 5(3): 319-36.

Bhat, M S (1989): “A Profi le of Agrarian Science in Jammu and Kashmir” in M L Sharma and R K Punia (ed.), Land Reforms in India: Achieve-ments, Problems and Prospects (Delhi: Ajanta Publications), pp 99-111.

– (2000): “Land Distribution in Rural Jammu and Kashmir: An Inter-temporal Analysis” in B K Sinha and Pushpendra (ed.), Land Reforms in India: An Unfi nished Agenda, Vol 5 (New Delhi: Sage Publications), pp 139-69.

Dhar, D N (1989): Socio-Economic History of Kashmir Peasantry (Srinagar: Centre for Kashmir Studies).

J&K Today (nd): Jammu and Kashmir Today, Minis-try of Information and Broadcasting, Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir after 9 August, 1953 (1955): Kashmir after 9 August 1953 (Srinagar: Lalla Rookh Publications).

Kashmir Marches Ahead (1958): Kashmir Marches Ahead: A Review of Progress (Srinagar: Lalla Rookh Publications).

Korbel, Josef (1954): Danger in Kashmir (New Jersey: Princeton University Press).

Lamb, Alastair (1992): Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1946-90 (Karachi: Oxford University Press).

Lawrence, Walter (1967): The Valley of Kashmir (Srinagar: Kesar Publications).

Malaviya, H D (1955): Land Reforms in India (New Delhi: Economic & Political Research Depart-ment, All India Congress Committee).

Mathew, George (2011): “Land Reforms: Jammu and Kashmir Shows the Way”, Yojana, October, 55: 24-26.

Navlakha, Gautam (1996): “Invoking Union: Kashmir and Offi cial Nationalism of ‘Bharat’” in T V Sathyamurthy (ed.), Social Change and Poli tical Discourse in India: Structure of Power, Movements of Resistance, Volume 3: Region, Reli-gion, Caste, Gender and Culture in Contem porary India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 64-106.

Rai, Mridu (2004): Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir (Delhi: Permanent Black).

Raina, N N (1988): Kashmir Politics and Imperialist Manoeuvres: 1846-1980 (New Delhi: Patriot Publishers).

Rekhi, Tara Singh (1993): Socio-Economic Justice in Jammu and Kashmir: A Critical Study (New Delhi: Ideal Publications).

Thorner, Daniel (1953): “The Kashmir Land Re-forms: Some Personal Impressions”, The Eco-nomic Weekly, 5(37): 999-1002.

– (1976): The Agrarian Prospect in India, second edition (New Delhi: Allied Publishers).

Verma, P S (1994): Jammu and Kashmir at the Political Crossroads (New Delhi: Vikas Publi-shing House).

Muslims, and those who lost their lands were powerful Hindu landlords having strong ties with the erstwhile ruler and other important political leaders in New Delhi. There were also reports of an anti-reform movement launched by the “Praja Parishad”, but it cut no ice. Needless to say, these reforms were not only extremely popular in the Muslim- dominated areas of the state, but were also equally popular in the areas dominated by “Harijans” (scheduled castes) and lower-middle-class Hindus.

Owing to post-Partition developments, particularly the in-ternational confl ict over Kashmir and immense popularity of Sheikh Abdullah, the opposition to the agrarian reforms could not even fi nd any outside patronage. Involving all Kashmiris in a “nation-building” programme and the articulation of the notion of “Kashmiriyat” were some of the strategies adopted by the state government to not just defl ect the rising opposi-tion to the reform programmes, but also to strengthen its pop-ularity and acceptability in the post-Dogra regime and tighten its hold over the state.

Although reforms in the land relations in the state continued even after the removal of Sheikh Abdullah from power

in 1953, his successors in Srinagar were not accepted by the “people” as their own leaders, rather they were seen as “rulers” who were imposed on them by New Delhi. The people of Kashmir were neither anti-Pakistan, nor pro-India; they were, in fact, pro-Sheikh Abdullah because of his untiring implementation of the radical agrarian reforms. So, the people of Kashmir were ready to go anywhere Sheikh Abdullah would take them. This is where the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah becomes crucial as someone who fought for social, economic, political and cultural rights since 1931, whereas his successors lacked his strength, charisma and, above all, the legitimacy.

Prime Minister Nehru knew the importance of Sheikh Abdullah as far as India’s relations with J&K were concerned. The governments in New Delhi, over the years, in their eager-ness to integrate the state with India and do away with the “interim measure” of Article 370, eventually separated the people of the state from India. New Delhi’s relations with J&K could have become an example of a true federal system in practice, but it is presented more as an example of asymmetry in the Indian federation.

Documents

Sheikh Abdullah and Land Reformsin Jammu and Kashmir