Abolition of the

Intermediaries
Abolition of the intermediaries was started as the first agrarian
reform measure to redistribute the agricultural resources equitably.
Reasons Behind the Abolition of Intermediaries:
Before independence the Indian rural economy and polity
had been dominated by some big landowners. They
could acquire lands by paying a very small amount of
money to the British government.
In addition to that, an intermediate class was also
developed by the British government to simplify their
tax collecting system. The people of this class had no
direct connection with land and agriculture, but they
could capture land easily and this had no limit. So the
small and marginal farmers were exploited and forced
to transfer land to the big landlords. As a result of this,
rate of employment decreased and so was the
productivity.
The sharecroppers had been exploited by both the
intermediaries and the big landlords. So they lost their
interest to work completely.
After independence when the Government of India
started agrarian reform, the main issue was the
abolition of intermediaries. Otherwise redistribution of
lands would have been extremely difficult for the
Government.
Process of the abolition:
The government took the land from the intermediaries. The
small landowners were compensated by the government for
giving their land. The amount of this compensation was
inversely proportional to the amount of revenue earned from
the land.
Effects:

 Government expenditure in the agricultural sector has

escalated due to the compensations that have to be
given for the loss of land brought about bu\y the
imposition of ceilings.
Many intermediaries were not in a position to start a new
way of income. So the government had to arrange
pension scheme for them which was again a huge
burden.
Despite the bad effects, due to the abolition of the
intermediate classes not only more than twenty million
farmers in India had been connected directly with the
government but also the tax revenue from the rural
area increased.
The increase in tax revenue compensated the huge
burden of the government mentioned above.
The financial security of the farmers improved and as a
result of that, productivity and rate of employment also
increased. But this measure had no effect on the
numerous sub tenants of India.