SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

emove all impediments on the increased agricultural production. This
necessitated the removal of all elements of exploitation and social
injustice within the agrarian system. It also necessitated to ensure
equality of tenurial status and opportunity to all sections of the rural
population. The government sought to achieve this by the following
measures (Government of India 1974:41):
• abolishing all inter-mediary interests between the state and the tiller of the
soil;
• regulating the rent;
• conferring on the tenants the security of tenure and eventually the
ownershi p rights;
• imposing ceiling on agriculture holdings;
• distributing surplus lands among the landless agricultural labourers and
small holders; and
• consolidation of the holding.
There were also measures to maintain a mmunum level of
agricultural wages (Karanth 1995:25). All these land reform measures
might not have achieved the intended results in entirety. Yet, these have
led to a considerable impact on the rural society and contributed ill
bringing radical changes in the life of the rural people.
Another significant factor in the development of rural India is the
green revolution. It is a result of a package of four measures. These
include the use of high yielding varieties of seeds. increased use of
fertiliser. improved water supplies and better agricultural practices. With
the initiation of agranan revolution, there emerged the
commercialisation of agriculture. Resorting to cash crops by the farmers.
as a result of Green revolution and of advanced and scientific methods
of cultivation, has become an increasingly common phenomenon in most
parts of Indian villages. There are conflicting views, about the effects of
this process on rural people (see Sen 1970). Its occurrence itself, for
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