Land Reforms Legislation in Karnataka-Myth of Success

A fundamental lacuna in most assessments of the impact of tenancy legislations in Karnataka is that they ignore the size of tenants as a class in the agrarian social structure on the eve of framing of the 1961 Tenancy Act. An attempt is made here to trace the gravity of the problem of tenancy in Karnataka that existed at the time of reorganisation of states in 1956. The analysis is extended to identify the effect of the tenancy legislation in changing the agrarian structure.