A Socio-Legal Study on Agricultural Disparities in Punjab

Abstract

Punjab, historically lauded as the breadbasket of India, confronts profound agricultural disparities rooted in structural inequities of land ownership, credit access, crop diversification failure, and an inadequate legal framework. This paper undertakes a rigorous socio-legal analysis of these disparities by interrogating the interplay between agrarian policy, legislative intervention, and ground-level social reality. Drawing on secondary data from the Agricultural Census of India (2020–21), the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO 77th Round), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) credit reports, and peer-reviewed literature, the study maps the widening chasm between large and marginal farmers across dimensions of income, indebtedness, legal protection, and institutional access. The analysis reveals that existing legislation, including the Punjab Land Reforms Act (1972) and successive national schemes such as PM-KISAN, contains structural limitations that disproportionately disadvantage small and tenant farmers. The paper further examines the contested trajectory of the three Farm Laws (2020–2021) and their implications for the political economy of Punjab agriculture. The findings underscore the urgent need for tenure security reforms, inclusive credit architecture, participatory legislative design, and crop diversification incentives. The study contributes to the Scopus-indexed literature at the intersection of agrarian law, rural sociology, and developmental policy.