ABSTRACT
Radical land reforms have long been recognized, in accordance with the most fundamental principle of democracy, as essential for redressing gross inequalities and highly exploitative social and economic relations in the country. Abolition of zamindari and other forms of intermediary tenure, protecting tenants from arbitrary eviction and high rents and ensuring that they get secure rights of ownership and cultivation over the lands they cultivate, imposition of ceilings on landownership and redistribution of the surplus to achieve a more even distribution of this resource among the rural population, feature prominently both in the academic literature and in the rhetoric of political parties. A comparison with China is quite revealing in this regard. Pre-reform Chinese agriculture was tenant-centred, whereas tenancy had only an insignificant place in India. The rapid growth of non-agricultural and urban-based activities has had the effect of reducing dependence on agriculture as a means of livelihood in relative terms.
