Land Reform Assignment

Topic Land Reforms
Ayub Khan & Zulifkar Ali Bhutto
Submitted To: Ma’am Mariam

Submitted By: Mohsin Javeed
Class: BSCS 1st Evening
GCUF Sahiwal Campus
Land reform in Pakistan Land reform:
Re-distribution of land amongst small landowners by expropriating land from large landowners.
Breaking up large land holdings and there by changing the pattern of land ownership to stop the
concentration of land in a selected few hand.
Why Land Reform is important:

Society has peculiar social economic and political consequences. Society becomes stratified.
Manorial system hampers social progress and landless peasants remain politically weak.
Therefore, unable to seek solutions to the problems. Concentration of land is deemed as an
undesirable to social and economic equality.
Ayub Khan’s reforms 1959:

A ceiling of 500 acres for irrigated and 1000 acres for un-irrigated land. Land was to be
redistributed amongst to tenants already cultivating the land. Permanent proprietary rights to
occupancy tenants. Idea of “subsistence holdings” of no less than 50 acres was proposed.
However, Ghulam Ishaq Khan was dissented with the majority opinion on the land ceiling. He
proposed the ceiling of 150 and 450 acres of irrigated/un-irrigated land for individuals and
300/900 acres limit for families (irrigated/un-irrigated).
Effect of 1959 reforms:

The recommendations were put into force through the Martial Law Regulation No. 64 on
February 7, 1959. 2.5 million acres of land was resumed, 2.3 million of it distributed amongst
183,271 tenants and small owners. The resumed land was around of 4.5 % of the total cultivable
land in Pakistan. Just 0.65 million acres was distributed amongst the farmers who had holdings
below subsistence level (12.5 acres). The government overtook only 35% of the holdings. In
1947, Less than 1% of farm owners control more than 25% of agricultural land. After the 1959
reforms, less than 8.5% of farm owners control more than 42% of agricultural land. However,
average holding per landlord was still 7,208 acres in Pakistan and 11,810 acres in Punjab due to
the state’s inefficiency.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Land Reforms:

He promulgated on March 1, 1972, Martial Law Regulation No.115 of 1972, often called Land
Reforms Regulation 1972. The ceiling on land holdings was lowered to 150 and 300 acres for
irrigated and un-irrigated land respectively. The reforms failed to produce the expected results. A
second wave of reforms were introduced through the Land Reforms Ordinance, 1977. Ceiling on
land holdings was reduced to 100 acres for irrigated land and 200 acres for un-irrigated land.
Effect of the 1972 and 1977 reforms Under the 1972 reform:
1.3 million acres of land was resumed. 0.9 million of that was distributed amongst 76,000
beneficiaries. Under the 1977 reform: another 1.8 million acres of land was resumed. 0.9
million acres was distributed amongst 13,143 beneficiaries. By the end of the Ayub Khan and
Bhutto’s measures had benefited only 272,000 out of the total 10 million eligible rural
population. Only 4.5 million acres of cultivated land (less than 10% of the total) were
redistributed.
Legal Problems and fate of Land Reforms

On 5 July 1977, Zia ul Haq overthrew the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He brought with
him the notion of Islamization. He created the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) for the first time. Aim
being to review whether a law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. FSC created Shariat
Benches in the High Courts and Supreme Court. Qazalbash Waqf it claimed that its possession of
hundreds of acres of land was merely to serve humanity. In total, 67 Shariat petitions were filed
in various courts challenging the land reform legislations.
The majority judgment held that fixing a ceiling on landholdings was not adverse to Islamic law.
But the Peshawar High Court declared the ceiling on landholdings as un-Islamic. After 12 years
in 1989 the Appeals were filed, and final decision was delivered to judgment of the “Shariat
Appellate Bench” of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The judgment was split 3-2 in favour of
declaring the various questions raised on land reforms as un-Islamic. The two ulema judges had
opinion that land reform was un-Islamic. Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani arguing that the land
reform legislation was repugnant to the injunctions of Islam
Individual property rights in Islam are the same as rights over other categories like goods. Islam
has imposed no quantitative limit (ceiling) on land or any other commodity that can be owned by
a person. If the state imposes a permanent limit on the amount of land which can be owned by its
citizen, then such an imposition of limit is completely prohibited by the Shariah. The order to
spend surplus on the poor is not a mandatory order which can be normally enforced by the state.
The objective of the Islamic welfare system is the sustenance of the poor. The state’s welfare
role is limited. The dissenters on the bench, based their opinion on the concept of social welfare
and equality in the Islamic state.

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Topic Land Reforms

Ayub Khan & Zulifkar Ali Bhutto

Submitted To: Ma’am Mariam

Why Land Reform is important:

Ayub Khan’s reforms 1959:

Effect of 1959 reforms:

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Land Reforms:

Legal Problems and fate of Land Reforms

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