After almost three decades, land reform has
returned to the centre stage of policy making.
The month-long march that brought 25,000 of India’s poorest peasants
and farmers to New Delhi on October 29 was a dramatic indication that
in the midst of its runaway economic growth, India is at war with
itself over land and natural resources. The goal of the march, called
the Jan Adesh Yatra or “people’s directive march” was to put land
reform back onto the national agenda.
There are many elements to this struggle. The acute state of agrarian
distress is driving small and even middle class farmers to suicide in
large numbers. There is also increasing resistance from huge numbers of
indigenous tribal communities being driven out of land and forests by
development projects and extractive industries. Small and marginal
farmers are losing their holdings and becoming landless.
In a country that is still based largely on agriculture, where a vast
majority of people live in villages, over 170 million are estimated to
be landless in India, and another 250 million own less than a fifth of
a hectare. Approximately 40 million people have been displaced by land
acquisition.
Realities
Land ceiling laws have been very poorly implemented: roughly 55 per
cent of ceiling surplus land distributed to tribal families remains
under the illegal control of landlords.
Then there is about 33 million hectares of available arable wasteland.
Instead of distributing this to the poor and landless, the government
is trying to keep it for jathropha plantations controlled by the agro
fuel industry. The landless poor migrating to cities face a daily
battle for space, even in slums and on the pavements, and for the right
to live and work there.
The government acknowledges there is violent resistance from Maoist
groups in almost a third of the districts of the country. The
reason for extremism is plain to see: denial of development and justice
to the very poor drives them to violence as a final form of protest.
Many of the marchers came from these areas of conflict.
Most of New Delhi’s burgeoning middle class is indifferent to public
protest, beyond the inconvenience and irritation at the delay it causes
them because of the congested traffic. In recent times, the spaces for
democratic dissent have shrunk, and it seemed as if the rulers were
succeeding in keeping the reality of distress and expressions of
dissent away from public consciousness.
The march was led by the Ekta Parishad, a group that works with the
rural poor and believes in the Gandhian tenants of non-violent civil
disobedience. It was supported by a coalition of groups working on
issues of land rights for the poor. The demands were encapsulated in a
“Draft National Land Reform Policy”, drawn up by the Jan Adesh Yatra
leadership in consultation with other groups and submitted to the Prime
Minister while the march was on.
It advocated distribution of land to the landless, protection to the
land rights of farmers affected adversely by the onslaught of
development and industrial projects, implementation of land ceiling
provisions, tenancy rights, the right to homestead land for all
citizens, and women’s rights to land titles.
New policy
The government agreed to the adoption of a National Land Reform Policy
and to the creation of a National Land Reforms Council headed by the
Prime Minister. A committee within the Rural Development Ministry would
serve as secretariat for the council and take up the “unfinished agenda
of land reforms”. Both the committee and council would include
representation from outside the government, particularly from members
of the land reform movements. They would announce a detailed National
Land Reforms Policy that the council would implement.
This achievement must be seen in the context of the offensive launched
on land reforms in current economic and development paradigms. Along
with market globalisation and economic growth, there has been a tidal
wave of attacks on the land rights of the rural poor. And there have
been sustained struggles by people’s groups to fight back.
After almost three decades, land reform has returned to the centre
stage of policy making. In the dialectics of democracy, the people must
force accountability of governments to promises that it made.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Nov262007/editpage2007112537778.asp
