Revisiting the 1972 Land Reforms Debate in Mysore State: Social Justice, Political Power, Administrative Implementation, Legal Implications and Redistribution

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Abstract The debate on land reforms in Mysore State during the early 1970s represented a significant moment in the evolving discourse on agrarian transformation, social justice and redistribution in post-independence India. This article revisits the 1972 seminar on Land Reforms in Mysore State, organized by the Institute of Development Studies, University of Mysore, with particular attention to five papers that addressed different dimensions of the land question. Drawing on a close reading of Devaraj Arasu’s discussion of social justice, Donna and Surindar Suri’s analysis of the political dimension of land reform, D. K. Naiker’s examination of implementation problems, V. Krishnamurthi’s discussion of the legal implications of succession and fragmentation, and R. N. Achyutha’s analysis of the redistribution of surplus land, the article argues that these contributions should not be viewed as isolated interventions. Taken together, they reveal an interconnected framework through which land reform was understood as a process extending from the normative justification of reform to its political negotiation, administrative implementation, legal sustainability and redistributive outcomes. The study particularly highlights the gap between legislative intentions and their translation into social and economic transformation. It also examines the tensions between social justice and agricultural productivity, private property and the social purpose of land, political feasibility and radical reform, and redistribution and the long-term viability of holdings. The article argues that the 1972 debate is historically significant not as a retrospective assessment of the success or failure of land reforms, but as a contemporary record of the expectations, concerns and institutional challenges surrounding agrarian transformation in Mysore State. It concludes that the effectiveness of land reform depended upon the interaction of social justice, political power, administrative capacity, legal sustainability and meaningful redistribution. Keywords Mysore State; Land Reforms; Agrarian Transformation; Social Justice; Political Power; Land Redistribution; Administrative Implementation; Succession; 1972 Land Reforms Debate

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