INTRODUCTION

In the arena of human development in Pakistan, land reforms play an important role in
reducing poverty and empowering the poor, especially farmers and the agricultural class.

In countries like Pakistan, the power of the class that owns land is really a monopoly that
has served as a barrier to social and economic progress for the poor. Through land reforms,
landlords' far-reaching power on the local political and economic power is reduced and more
power can be given to the poorer workers on the land.

An additional benefit of land reforms is that it will help to solve the problems caused by the
fact that farmers often use relatively inefficient capital-intensive techniques due to distorted
factor market prices and that small farmers do not have access to the liberal credit subsidies
on imported machinery and capital equipment.

There is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes “land Reform”. Some have
defined it narrowly as a means to provide land to the landless while others have conceived it
broadly as a comprehensive program for the transformation of the entire agricultural
economy. This refers to a public program that seek to restructure equitably and rationally a
defective land tenure system by compulsory and rapid means.

In the entire process of land reforms from initiation to completion- the government plays a
decisive role.

In the words of Kennith H. Parson “ in a very deep sense, land tenure problems are
power problems, problems of disparity in economic, social and political power”

Hence the land reform programs are distinctly PUBLIC PROGRAMS….. undertaken by
government or public agencies to modify the economic basis of politics.

• Most attempts have been just attempts without any serious purpose.

• In the central council of the Muslim league in 1947 there was a large representation
from the very large landlords of Punjab (50%) and Sindh (60%).

• Landlords were the most significant class in the Muslim league comprising 163 of the
503 Muslim league parliamentary members in 1942.

• If the power of landlords prior to 1947 was substantial, the creation of Pakistan
increased their power even further.

• Many of them were able to acquire large tracts of land from the fleeing HINDUS while
others bought lands from moneylenders at cheap rates.

• The 1949 Muslim League Agrarian Committee proposed measures related to land, its
distribution and use.

• The first land reform was imposed in military regime by Ayyub Khan.
 AYUB KHAN 1959 LAND REFORM

The first was in 1959, when land reforms fixed the ceiling for private ownership of land at
500 acres irrigated and 1,000 acres unirrigated. However, this did little to better distribute
the lands in the hands of the country's prosperous rural elite. It was more of a cosmetic
exercise than a significant social change.

One of the problems was that ceilings were fixed in terms of individuals rather than families.
The reforms included generous productivity exemptions as well as separate provisions for
orchards. Instead of portioning out lands, some landlords actually did rather well from the
exercise, receiving generous compensation for surrendering uncultivated land. Barely 35%
of the excess land declared by landowners was actually obtained by the government, with
redistribution benefiting only 8% of subsistence farmers.

• The reforms were meant to put ceilings on large land holdings.

• Land reform 1959 was a result of large land ownership in the hands of very few
landlords.

• According to this land reform, land owners can hold 500 acres of irrigated and 1000
acres of non-irrigated land.

• Approx. 6000 owners owned more than ceiling of 500 acres permitted in 1959.

• Govt. took over 7.5 million acres or 15.4% of total land from landlords in 1959.

• There were only approx 5000 declarants of which only 15% or 763 were affected by
the ceiling.

• The area of land owned by declarents was 5.5 million acres of which only 1.9 million
or 35% was resumed by the govt.

• But the major portion of the land was retained by the owners due to the provisions in
law of transfer of land to the dependents or other family members.

• The very small amount of land was handed over but more part of land i.e. 57% was
uncultivated and non-productive too.

• One of the important features of the 1959 reform was that; land was purchased by
the govt. from the land owners and they were paid Rs. 1-5 per PIUs compensations.
The owners were benefited from this as they handed over the poor quality of the land
and were paid well for them.

• Only 20% of the resumed land was sold to the landless tenants.

• The rest of the land was auctioned to the rich farmers and civil and military officials
at Rs. 8 per PIUs (at fifty half yearly installments @ 4% annual interest rate).
 • This much land can be sold to approx. 67000 small farmers or landless tenants.

• 0.9 Million acres of the land was declared as jagir lands, of which 1/3rd were resumed
by the govt.

• The purpose to resume the land was to transform non generating revenue land into
revenue paying tracts.

• The land reforms allowed farmers to have their lands valued in PIUs, up to maximum
36,000 PIUs. PIU is basically a unit measure of land productivity.

• This value 36000 PIU was far greater than ceiling of 500 acres of land. By this the
land owners showed false value of land productivity and acquired more land than 500
acres that could be up to 1800 acres as to keep up with the 36,000 PIU.

• Because of these above mentioned reasons it was evident that the land reforms of
1959 could not reduce the feudal power of landlords.

THE BHUTTO REFORMS OF 1972

A second attempt at land reforms was made by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972. This
time, the ownership ceiling was reduced to 150 acres of irrigated and 300 acres of
unirrigated land. However, although these reforms looked good on paper, the impact was
totally diluted when they were actually implemented. Less than 0.9 million acres of land was
acquired for redistribution, which was about one-third of the land resumed under the 1959
land reforms. Once again, the ceilings were in terms of individuals rather than families. That
meant a number of large landowners have managed to keep their holdings within an
extended joint family framework and have given up only some marginal, not very
productive, swampy lands.

• The 1972 reforms were different from those of 1959 in many respects.

• Bhutto reforms were based on the social democratic learning’s of the Pakistan
people’s party.

• According to Bhutto his land reforms would: effectively break up the iniquitous
concentrations of landed wealth, reduce income disparities, increase production,
reduce unemployment, streamline the administration of land revenue and
agricultural taxation, and truly lay down the foundations of a relationship of honor
and mutual benefit between the land owner and tenant plus more revenue.

• The motive of People’s party was the breakup of large estates to destroy the feudal
landowners as it was a national necessity to observe equality.

• Ceilings were lowered down in 1972; 150 acres irrigated and 300 acres unirrigated
and a number of exemptions were removed.
 • The main point in this reform was there was NO compensation given to landowners
on receiving excessive land from them as the idea was to nationalize the private
assets for national interest.

• Good part was that lands were distributed free of cost among the landless people,
moreover the peasants who acquired land in 1959 and had outstanding dues, their
dues were written off and were not required to make any further payments.

• 42% land in Punjab and 59% in Sindh was declared to be the land above ceilings. In
all 0.6% was resumed, far less than the 1959 figure.

• It constituted of 0.001% of the total farm area in the country.

• The evaluation of land was both in acres and PIU’s which again created a problem as
the landowners used to retain the larger.

• PIU evaluation was 12000 PIU’s for the land + 2000PIU’s extra for tractors and
tubewell owners.

• This resulted in unequal distribution as one used to get away with 12000 PIU’s having
400 acres of land in Punjab, and 480 acres in Sindh.

• With exemptions of tractors and tubewells, a family could have retained up to 932
acres in Punjab and 1120 in Sindh.

• Only 50,548 persons benefited from the redistribution of 308,390 acres during 1972-
1978.

• Only 1% of the landless tenants and small owners benefited by these measures.

• 6% of the land resumed still needs to be distributed after 38 years and the land
resumed in 1972 is still held with the government.

CONCLUSION

In both of the above-mentioned cases, what went wrong was not the intention, but the
implementation of land reforms. They had to be implemented by the ruling class which was
also the class that was going to be negatively affected by them. Of course, there was no way
these could be implemented realistically speaking because of this.

And so land reform remains a great possibility in Pakistan, but not a reality. According to the
Federal Land Commission, only 1.8 million hectares (or less than 8% of the country's
cultivated area) have been resumed so far. Of these, 1.4 million hectares have been
distributed to 288,000 beneficiaries.

Today in Pakistan, land ownership still remains highly concentrated. More than half of the
country's total farm land is in farms of fifty acres or more.

Nonetheless, although meaningful land reforms in Pakistan may be difficult to implement,

especially given the current feudal structure of power in the country, it is still necessary to
work towards reforms that will work. The key is solving the issue of how to implement
reforms by a body other than the landowning classes which sees these changes as
detrimental to them and has and will try to circumvent the process.