BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 56 of 142

Correct — C, Land ceiling. The stem is the textbook definition of a ceiling, word for word: a statutory upper limit on the area of agricultural land a person or a family may hold, with anything above the limit declared surplus, vested in the State and redistributed to the landless and to marginal cultivators. It is the third of the four planks of India's post-Independence land reform, and it is the only one of the four that fixes a *quantity*. That is the whole discrimination in this question — the other three options each describe a change in the *relationship* between people and land, not a cap on how much of it one household may own. Because land is a State subject under Entry 18 of the State List, there is no single national ceiling: every State passed its own Ceiling Act, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, and each set its own limits, graded by the quality of the land, so an irrigated double-cropped holding faces a much lower ceiling than dry unirrigated land. The ceiling laws were also the most litigated part of land reform. Parliament had already had to insert Articles 31A and 31B by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, precisely because agrarian reform measures passed by State legislatures were being held up by 'dilatory litigation'; the same amendment retrospectively validated thirteen zamindari abolition enactments. Ceilings then met the same resistance a decade later, and in Bihar the surplus land actually redistributed fell far short of what the Acts promised.

• (a)Abolition of intermediaries — The first plank of land reform and the one that came earliest — it removed the zamindars, jagirdars and other rent-collecting intermediaries who stood between the State and the tiller, bringing the cultivator into direct contact with the government. It changes who the peasant pays, not how much land anybody may keep. Bihar's own zamindari abolition legislation belongs here, and it is the measure the First Amendment of 1951 was written to protect.
• (b)Tenancy reforms — The second plank: regulating the rent a tenant pays, giving security of tenure so a tenant cannot be evicted at will, and in several States conferring ownership on the tenant of the land he cultivates. It governs the terms on which land is leased and worked. A tenant made secure under these laws may still be farming a very small plot, and a landowner is not capped by them at all.
• (d)Land consolidation — The fourth plank, chakbandi — merging a farmer's scattered fragments into one compact block so that irrigation, mechanisation and boundary maintenance become economical. It changes the shape and location of a holding while leaving its total area exactly as it was, which is the precise opposite of what a ceiling does.

India's land reform programme after 1947 had four distinct components, and questions of this type test whether you can keep them apart. First, abolition of intermediaries — removing zamindars and jagirdars so the cultivator dealt directly with the State. Second, tenancy reform — fixing fair rent, granting security of tenure and, in places, conferring ownership on the tenant. Third, ceiling on holdings — a statutory maximum with the surplus acquired for redistribution. Fourth, consolidation of holdings — reassembling fragmented plots into compact blocks. The first two were reasonably successful in law if not always in fact; the third was the least successful anywhere in India, because ceilings were fixed high, exemptions were numerous, and landholders reorganised titles among relatives, trusts and benami holders faster than the revenue machinery could measure them. The voluntary alternative ran alongside the statutory one: Vinoba Bhave began the Bhoodan movement at Pochampally on 18 April 1951, when a landlord gave 100 acres for the landless, and Bihar became one of its largest theatres.

Read the stem for the noun it is defining rather than the topic it belongs to. Every option here is a genuine land-reform term, so 'land reform' does not narrow anything; what narrows it is that the stem describes a *maximum size*, a number of acres or hectares. Only one of the four is a quantity rule. Test each: abolition of intermediaries removes a person from the chain; tenancy reform rewrites a contract; consolidation rearranges plots on a map. None of them mentions an amount. The ceiling does nothing else. The same test works in reverse and is worth practising, because BPSC returns to this set: if a stem says 'scattered fragments merged into one block' the answer is consolidation, if it says 'security of tenure' it is tenancy reform, and if it says 'zamindars removed' it is abolition of intermediaries. One further caution — ceiling limits are not uniform across India, because land is a State subject, so no single acreage figure can be quoted as *the* ceiling.

• A land ceiling fixes the maximum agricultural area a person or family may hold; the excess is declared surplus, vested in the State and redistributed, chiefly to landless and marginal cultivators.
• Land is a State subject under Entry 18 of the State List, so every ceiling law is a State Act with its own limits, graded by irrigation and cropping intensity — dry land carries a much higher ceiling than irrigated double-cropped land.
• The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 inserted Articles 31A and 31B because agrarian reform measures were being held up by 'dilatory litigation', and validated thirteen zamindari abolition enactments with retrospective effect.
• The four components of land reform are abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reform, ceiling on holdings and consolidation of holdings — only the third caps the size of a holding.
• The Bhoodan movement began at Pochampally on 18 April 1951, when V. Ramachandra Reddy donated 100 acres after Vinoba Bhave's appeal — the voluntary counterpart to a statutory ceiling.

• Treating consolidation of holdings as a size rule. It merges fragments into one block and leaves the total area untouched.
• Assuming a single national ceiling figure exists. Land is a State subject, so limits differ by State and by land quality, and no one acreage can be quoted for India.
• Believing ceilings admitted no exemptions. They admitted many — for plantations, orchards, cooperative farms and religious or charitable trusts among others — which is a large part of why so little surplus land was actually recovered.

BPSC gives the definition and asks for the term, keeping all four options inside the same syllabus block so that a candidate who half-remembers the topic still has to know which plank does what. UPSC comes at land reform through its outcomes and exceptions — which statement about ceiling laws is correct, what the Bhoodan movement began with, what the Tebhaga peasants were demanding — rather than asking a term to be named.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Chakbandi, or consolidation of holdings, is aimed primarily at

  • (a)Fixing the maximum land one family may own
  • (b)Merging a cultivator's scattered plots into a compact block
  • (c)Abolishing rent-collecting intermediaries
  • (d)Conferring ownership rights on tenants

  Answer(b) Merging a cultivator's scattered plots into a compact block — it changes the layout of a holding while leaving its total area unchanged, unlike a ceiling law.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, 'Land, that is to say, rights in or over land, land tenures' falls in the

  • (a)Union List
  • (b)Concurrent List
  • (c)State List
  • (d)Residuary powers of Parliament

  Answer(c) State List — Entry 18, which is precisely why ceiling limits and tenancy rules differ from State to State instead of being fixed nationally.