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In India, the need for land reform can be traced to peasants’ aspirations to own the land they cultivate, obtain tenancy rights thereupon, or seek rationalisation and reduction in rent. Land reform generally reflects public policy of land redistribution for the benefit of the landless, the tenants and the small farmers. It aims at diffusion of wealth, increase in income and productive capacity. There is a shortage of land and uneven distribution of ownership. Agriculture in India is small peasant based and as such land reforms assume greater importance, not only in the context of social justice and equitable distribution, but also from the point of view of production and agricultural trade. Not surprisingly, it received top priority on the policy agenda at the time of Independence.
Moreover, land reform policy has economic, social and political dimensions. The economic dimension of land reforms involved the ownership of land by a small group that did not actually cultivate but exploited the actual tillers who were the tenants and agricultural labourers. On the other hand, because of inadequacy of returns and absence of surplus with the tenants, they could not undertake improvements on land. The landlords, having no personal interest in the lands they owned, did not take interest in investing on land improvement. As a result, land productivity went on declining. This explained the dynamics of underdeveloped agriculture.
As far as the sociological dimension is concerned, traditionally, the upper castes owned land and the lower castes were the tenants/agricultural labourers. Even today, we do not find the lower castes owning land in any significant measure and the upper castes working as tenants/agricultural labourers in India. This social dimension perpetuated the social inequalities. It is here that the economic inequality created under the economic dimension got reinforced by the social inequality in agrarian relations.
Coming to the political dimension, it may be noted that, historically, the owners of land have been supporters of the governments in power. This was much more evident during British rule in India. Because of the numerical minority position of the former zamindars and the later landlords and their economic stranglehold over the tenants, they depended on the government
for their protection, (thus promoting their own self-interest). At the same time, the government depended upon them for its own survival so long as tenants, though large in number, did not organise themselves against the exploitative political and social systems. This has been the experience of almost all countries that faced agrarian problems.