APART from these two major acts, many other agrarian laws have been legislated over all these years : the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Bihar Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1954; the Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956 and (Amendment) Bill, 1970; the Bihar Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1970; the Bihar Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 1970; the Bihar Public Land Encroachment (Amendment) Ordinance, 1970; the Bihar Privileged Persons Homestead Tenancy (Amendment) Bill, 1970; the Bihar SC, ST, Backward Classes and Denotified Tribes Debt Relief Act, 1974 ; the Bihar Moneylenders Act, 1974; and the list is still lengthening. But given the loophole-ridden content of these laws, such procedural bottlenecks as inadequacy of land records and rent rolls, and above all, the naked nexus between the landed rich, government officials and the police, nobody dares expect these laws to have any significant influence on the agrarian reality of Bihar. And to be sure, this widespread suspicion is corroborated all the more by the findings of the scholars and at times, even by various committees and commissions appointed by the government itself. As the Working Group on Land Reforms (under the National Commission on Agriculture) put it,
By their abysmal failure to implement the laws, the authorities in Bihar have reduced the whole package of land reform measures to a sour joke. This has emboldened the landowning class to treat the entire issue of agrarian reform with utter contempt. Elsewhere in the country, the law evaders have a sneaking respect for the law enforcing authority. Their approach is furtive— their method clandestine. In Bihar, the landowners do not care a tuppence for the administration. They take it for granted. Their approach is defiant — their modus operandi open and insolent.
(A Field Study: Agrarian Relations in Two Bihar Districts, Mainstream, Vol. 11, No 40, 2 June).