Thiruvananthapuram: It was the Communist movement’s decision to approach exploitative land relations as a mere class issue that led to the weakening of the land reforms experiment in the state, according to political commentator K Venu.
“The communists were not willing to acknowledge the role played by caste in land relations,” Venu said in response to the DC article, ‘Landless for Life’, which appeared on November 30.
In the feudal system prevailing at that time, only Ezhavas, Christians and other backward caste minorities were allowed to hold land on lease (paattam).
“Scheduled castes and tribes did not have such rights and were mere workers in such leased land,” Venu said. When the Land Reforms Act was passed, land rights passed on to those who had tenant rights like Ezhavas and Christians and not the SCs or STs, the original tillers, who received just ownership rights on their hutments (‘kudikidappavakasham’).
“The land reforms experiment would have been more progressive had SCs and STs too were granted land rights,” Venu said.
He said Communists saw the initiation of land reforms as a “bourgeois responsibility”. “E M S Namboodirippad himself had stated that his government was taking over a job that should have actually done by the Nehru Government at the centre,” Venu said.
The communists intended land reforms as a strategy to end the exploitative landlord-tenant relationship. “Taking on capitalism was not part of their democratic revolutionary agenda.
This was precisely why they did not touch the big plantation owners. That was left for later, for the next phase of their struggle the communists called the socialist revolution, which unfortunately is yet to begin” Venu said.
