Land Reform in India

Land reform in India, centered on the abolition of the zamindari system in the years following independence, was widely regarded as independent India' s most consequential agricultural policy undertaking. Under zamindari, intermediary landlords held extensive rights over agricultural land between the cultivator and the state, a structure with roots in Mughal and colonial-era revenue administration; states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Assam and Bombay each passed their own Zamindari Abolition Acts beginning even before the Constitution of India took effect, removing the zamindars' intermediary rights and transferring them to the state and cultivators directly. The reform faced sustained legal challenge, including a Supreme Court ruling that it violated the constitutional right to property, prompting the Indian government to amend the Constitution to narrow that right and allow the reform to proceed.