Are We Not Peasants Too
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Are We Not Peasants Too?Land Rights and Women’s Claimsin India
by Bina Agarwal
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Are We Not Peasants Too?Land Rights and Women’sClaims in India
by Bina Agarwal
About the Author
Bina Agarwal is Professor of E conom ics at the
Institute of E conom ic G row th, U niversity of D elhi, and
author of the aw ard-w inning book A Fi eld of One’s
Own : Gender an d Lan d Rights i n South Asi a. H er
w ork has had national and international im pact, w ithin
both academ ic and policy circles, on the neglected
issue of w om en’s rights in property, especially land.
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is a pam -
phlet series
d evelop ed
to m eet re-quests from all over the w orld for infor-
m ation about innovative and practical
program ideas developed to address the
econom ic roles and needs of low -incom e
w om en. The pam phlets are designed as a
m eans to share inform ation and spark
new initiatives based on the positive
experiences of projects that are w orking
to help w om en generate livelihoods and
to im prove their econom ic status. The
projects described in this and other
issues of SEEDS have been selected be-
cause they have served not only to
strengthen w om en’s productive roles,
but also to integrate w om en into various
sectors of developm ent, both social and
econom ic. A ll projects docum ented in
the SEEDS series involve w om en in deci-
sionm aking, organize w om en locally, and
address broader policy issues that affect
the econom ic roles of w om en.
These reports are not m eant to be pre-scriptive,since every developm ent effort
w ill face som ew hat different problem s
and possibilities. Rather, they have been
w ritten to describe the history of an idea
and its im plem entation in the hope that
the lessons learned can be useful in a
variety of settings. They are also being
w ritten to bring to the attention of those
in decisionm aking positions the vital
roles that w om en play not only in the
econom ies of their individual households
but also in the econom ic life of every
nation.
This edition of SE E D S is m ade possi-
ble by support of the Ford Foundation,
the R ockefeller Foundation, and the
Population Council.
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernm ental institution that
seeks to im prove the w ell-being and reproductive health of current and future generations
around the w orld and to help achieve a hum ane, equitable, and sustainable balance betw een
people and resources. The C ouncil conducts biom edical, social science, and public health
research and helps build research capacities in developing countries. E stablished in 1952,
the C ouncil is governed by an international board of trustees. Its N ew York headquarters
supports a global netw ork of regional and country offices.
Population Council, O ne D ag H am m arskjold Plaza, N ew York, N ew York 10017 U SA
tel: (212) 339-0500, fax: (212) 755-6052, e-m ail: pubinfo@ popcouncil.org
http://w w w.popcouncil.org.
Statem ents m ade and view s expressed in this publication are solely the responsibility of the
author and not of any organization providing support for SE E D S. A ny part of this docum ent
m ay be reproduced w ithout perm ission of the author so long as it is not sold for profit.
N um ber 21, 2002 ISSN : 073-6833
Copyright © 2002 T he Population Council, Inc.
Y E A R S 1 9 5 2 – 2 0 0 2
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 1
Foreword
SE E D S is pleased to publish our tw enty-
first issue, Professor Bina A garw al’s Ar e We Not Peasan ts Too? , exploring the
critical elem ents in securing effective
and independent land rights for w om en.
A lthough the author’s prim ary focus is
South A sia, the analytical fram ew ork and
proposed action plan are of relevance to
Latin A m erica, A frica, the C aribbean,
and eastern E urope—indeed w herever
w om en’s use and control of arable land
are crucial to their econom ic w ell-beingand livelihoods.SE E D S issues 10, 14, and
16 provide readers w ith additional back-
ground to several topics discussed here,
w ith particular reference to N epal, Zam bia,
and India.
Ar e We Not Peasan ts Too? docum ents
the substantial and enduring barriers and
biases obstructing efforts to strengthen
w om en’s relationship to the resource-
generating asset of land. D espite the cen-trality of this issue to reducing rural
w om en’s poverty and im proving their
econom ic status, the author show s w hy
w om en’s independent claim s to land
have been difficult to achieve, even
w here progressive social m ovem ents
and legal reform s have recognized them ,such as in India.
To tackle such obstacles, Professor
A garw al presents a range of cooperative
strategies for enabling w om en to retain
and cultivate the land and show s how
m icro-credit and other program s can be
redirected to increase the am ount and
productivity of land w om en control.
Recognizing that new policies and politi-
cal w ill are required to foster and sustainsuch experim ents, the author ends w ith
a sum m ary of how w om en are organizing
to place w om en’s access to land at the
center of national and global agendas.
In this spirit, SE E D S hopes that Ar e
We Not Peasan ts Too? w ill inspire grass-
roots w om en’s groups, N G O s, innovative
donors, policym akers, and others from
around the w orld to share exam ples of
how they have established strategies thatincrease w om en’s access to this crucial
asset. Let us hear from you!
— Sandy Schilen, SE E D S E ditor
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Introduction
In 1979, over tw o decades ago, a group
of poor w om en from W est Bengal m ade
the follow ing dem and of their elected vil-
lage council: “Please go and ask the gov-ernm ent w hy, w hen it distributes land, w e
don’t get a title. A re w e not peasants? If
m y husband throw s m e out, w hat is m y
security?”(personal com m unication, Vina
M azum dar, 1992). This dem and under-
lined these w om en’s clear recognition
that their fam ilies alone could not guar-
antee them econom ic security. W hat they
also needed w ere fields of their ow n.
A Neglected Issue
In largely agrarian econom ies, arable land
is the m ost valued form of property and
productive resource. It is a w ealth-creat-
ing and livelihood-sustaining asset. For a
significant m ajority of rural households it
is the single m ost im portant source of
security against poverty. Traditionally, it
has been the basis of political pow er and
social status. For m any, it provides a senseof identity and rootedness. It is an asset
that has a perm anence that few other
assets possess. In som e com m unities,
ancestral land also sym bolically stands
for continuity of kinship and citizenship.
W hile m any of these links are w ell rec-
ognized at the household level, their im -
portance specifically for women has re-
ceived little attention. Indeed, the issue
of w om en’s rights in land (and m ore gen-erally in property) has been, until recent-
ly,largely neglected in both research and
policy. In fact, in alm ost all developing
countries, large-scale surveys and agri-
cultural censuses collect property-relat-
ed inform ation only by households, w ith-
out disaggregating by gender. N epal is arecent exception w here such data w ill
now be collected in its census. In m ost of
South A sia, including India, therefore,
w e still have to depend on sm all-scale
surveys and village studies to assess
w om en’s access to land. These sources
reveal that typically few w om en ow n
arable land and even few er effectively
control som e.
The social and econom ic im plicationsof this are w ide-ranging. M illions of
w om en in A sia, A frica, and Latin A m erica
depend critically on land for a livelihood.
The typical process of agrarian transfor-
m ation under w hich labor shifts from
agriculture to nonagriculture has been
slow and gender-biased. In m any coun-
tries, those w ho have m oved to nonfarm
w ork are largely m en, w hile w om en have
rem ained substantially in agriculture.H ence a disproportionate num ber of
those still dependent on land are w om -
en. In India, for instance, 58 percent of
all m ale w orkers but 78 percent of all
fem ale w orkers, and 86 percent of all
r u r a l fem ale w orkers, are in agriculture.
Indeed the gen der gap has been grow-
i n g . W om en’s dom estic w ork burden,
low er m obility, lesser education, and
few er investable assets lim it their entryinto nonagriculture, and also their range
of nonfarm options. M oreover, the na-
ture of w om en’s agricultural w ork is, to a
2 • SEEDS
Are We Not Peasants Too?Land Rights and Women’s Claimsin Indiaby Bina Agarwal
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 3
greater extent than for m en, casual in
nature. Relative to m en, w om en also con-
tinue to have low er real w age rates and
low er average real w age earnings in both
agriculture and nonagriculture.
A s m ore m en shift to urban or ruralnonfarm livelihoods, a grow ing num ber
of households w ill becom e dependent on
w om en m anaging farm s and bearing the
m ajor burden of fam ily subsistence. The
percentage of de facto fem ale-headed
households is already large and grow ing.
E stim ates for India range from 20 to 35
percent. These include not just w idow s
and deserted and separated w om en, but
also w om en in households w here them en have m igrated out and w om en are
effectively farm ing the land. These w om -
en w ill shoulder (and m any are already
shouldering) grow ing responsibilities in
agricultural production but w ill be con-
strained seriously by their lack of land
titles.
M oreover, the m ale biases in land
ow nership and transfers that have been
noted in m any developing countries arein danger of being replicated in new land
reform initiatives and property rights
form ulations. For instance, agrarian
reform is a m ajor policy issue in post-
apartheid South A frica; and new private
property rights in land and other assets
are now being constituted in E astern
E urope and the form er U SSR. H ere new
gender inequalities are already being
created (M eer 1997; Verdery 1996).It is therefore tim ely and essential to
exam ine in m ore detail w hy it is im por-
tant for w om en to have effective and
independent land rights, w hat obstructs
their realizing their claim s, and w hat
could be done to im prove the situation.
W hile these issues are discussed here
largely in the Indian or the South A sian
context, m any are also relevant to other
developing regions and to the transitioneconom ies. A nd although the focus here
is on arable land, since that is such a cru-
cial form of property and m eans of liveli-
hood in South A sia, m any of the argu-
m ents and concerns could be extended
to cover w om en’s rights in a dw elling
house or in other form s of property.
Defining Land Rights
Rights (in any form of property) are de-
fined here as claim s that are legally and
socially recognized and enforceable by
an external legitim ized authority, be it a
village-level institution or som e higher-
level body of the State. Land rights can
stem from inheritance, transfers from the
State, tenancy arrangem ents, land pur-
chase, and so on. They can be in the form
of ow nership or usufruct (rights of use),
and can encom pass differing degrees of
freedom to lease out, m ortgage, bequeath,
or sell.
Three additional distinctions are rele-
vant here. First, there is a difference
betw een the legal recognition of a claim
and its social recognition, and betw een
recognition and enforcem ent. A w om an
m ay have a legal right to inherit proper-
ty, but this m ay rem ain m erely on paper
if the claim is not recognized as socially
legitim ate or if the law is not enforced.
Second, there is a distinction betw een
ow nership and effective control. It is
som etim es assum ed incorrectly that
legal ow nership carries w ith it the right
of control in all its senses. In fact, legal
ow nership m ay be accom panied by
restrictions on disposal, as am ong the
Jaffna Tam ils of Sri Lanka and severalcom m unities in Latin A m erica, w here a
m arried w om an needs her husband’s
consent to alienate the land she legally
ow ns. Third, w e need to distinguish
betw een rights vested in individuals and
those vested in groups.
O ur concern here is w ith w om en hav-
ing effecti ve and independent rights in
land, effective rights being rights not
just in law but also in practice; and inde-pendent rights being rights that w om en
enjoy in their ow n capacity and indepen-
dent of those enjoyed by m en.
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4 • SEEDS
Why Land Is Importantfor WomenMy ban gles ar e br oken ,
my d ays of sham e are gone.
I have one small son , on e calf, one field.A calf to feed, a son to nu r tu r e
but the field, baiji [sister] this half
acr e of ear th
to feed m e, to r est m y h ead.
—M alli, a R ajasthani w idow
(author’s interview s, 1987)
E ffective and independent land rights
for w om en are im portant on at least four
counts: w elfare, efficiency, equality, and
em pow erm ent.
Welfare
It is w ell accepted that land access can
notably reduce a household’s risk of pov-
erty, but for several reasons land solely
in m en’s hands need not guarantee fe-
m ale w elfare.
First, there are persistent gender in-
equalities and a bias favoring m ales in
the distribution of resources w ithin house-holds,including allocations for basic nec-
essities such as health care, education,
and, in som e regions, even food. Biases
in food and health care are revealed es-
pecially in anthropom etric m easures (e.g.,
w eight and height for age, w eight for
height, etc.), m orbidity rates, and m ost
starkly in fem ale-adverse sex ratios.
In contrast, direct land transfers to
w om en are likely to benefit not just w om -
en but also children. E vidence both fromIndia and from m any other parts of the
w orld show s that w om en, especially in
poor households, spend m ost of the
earnings they control on basic household
needs, w hile m en spend a significant
part of theirs on personal goods, such as
alcohol, tobacco, etc. (D w yer and Bruce
1988). This, in turn, affects child w el-
fare. Children in rural India are found
m ore likely to attend school and receivem edical attention if the m other has m ore
assets (Duraisam y 1992). A m ong m ar-
ginal farm er households in K erala (south
India), the m other’s cultivation of a hom e
garden (the output of w hich she con-
trolled) w as found to have a consistent-
ly high positive effect on child nutrition
(Kum ar 1978). In urban Brazil, the effect
on child survival probabilities w as found
to be several tim es greater w hen assetincom e accrued to the m other, com pared
w ith w hen it accrued to the father, and
the positive effect on the health of daugh-
ters w as especially high (Thom as 1990).
A part from differences in spending pat-
A
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 5
terns, w om en w ith assets such as land
have greater bargaining pow er, w hich can
lead to m ore gender-equal allocations of
benefits even from m ale incom es. In
short, w om en’s and children’s risk of
poverty w ould be reduced and their w el-fare enhanced if w om en had direct ac-
cess to land, and not just access m ediat-
ed through m ale fam ily m em bers.
Second, w om en w ithout independent
resources are highly vulnerable to pover-
ty and destitution in case of desertion,
divorce, or w idow hood. In parts of w est-
ern and northw estern India, not uncom -
m only, rural w om en even from rich par-
ental and m arital fam ilies, deprived oftheir property shares w hen w idow ed,
can be found w orking as agricultural
laborers on the farm s of their w ell-off
brothers or brothers-in-law . The fate of
deserted and divorced w om en is w orse.
Relatives, including sons and broth-
ers, often do not provide the expected
econom ic security to w om en w ho are
w idow ed or w hose m arriages break dow n.
M any of them end up living on their ow n.In fact, m ortality risks am ong w idow s
tend to be higher am ong those living as
dependents of m ale relatives com pared
w ith those w ho are heads of households,
and w ho presum ably have som e inde-
pendent m eans of subsistence (Rahm an
and M enken 1990). Indeed, for w idow s
and the elderly entitlem ent to fam ily
care can depend critically on w hether
they have property to bequeath. A s theelderly often say: “W ithout property
children don’t look after their parents
w ell”(Caldw ell et al. 1988: 191).
Land can provide w om en both direct
and indirect benefits. D irect advantages
can stem from grow ing not just crops,
but trees, a vegetable garden, or grass
for cattle. Indirect advantages arise in
various w ays: ow ned land can serve as
collateral for credit or as a m ortgageableor saleable asset during a crisis. Land
(w hether ow ned or controlled by w om -
en) also increases the probability of w om -
en finding supplem entary w age em ploy-
m ent, and serves as an im portant asset
base for rural nonfarm enterprises. For
instance, those w ith land are found to
generate m uch higher rural nonfarm
earnings from self-em ploym ent than the
totally landless (Chadha 1992). In short,
women ’s access to even a sma ll pl ot
can be a cr i t i cal element i n a di ver si - fi ed l i vel i hood system , and can si gn i f-
i cantly i mpr ove women’s and the fam-
i ly ’s welfare, even i f the plot i s not lar ge
en ough to pr ovi de ful l fami ly su bsi s-
tence. A nd independent access to land
w ill becom e increasingly im portant for
w om en as m arital and kin support erodes,
and fem ale-headed households m ultiply.
Efficiency
In addition to w elfare gains, m ore gen-
der-equal land rights could also enhance
productive efficiency. First there is an
incentive effect. A lthough it is w idely
recognized that security of tenure can be
critical for m otivating farm ers to m ake
productivity-enhancing investm ents in
their fields,the n eed for si m i lar i n cen -
ti ves wi thi n the fami ly has been lar ge- ly i gnored . Som e recent studies suggest
that incentives could be as im portant
w ithin fam ilies. In K enya, for exam ple,
F o o d a n d
A
g r i c u l t u r e
O
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6 • SEEDS
w here m en and w om en often cultivate
separate plots, the introduction of w eed-
ing technology in m aize production raised
yields on w om en’s plots by 56 percent
w here w om en controlled the output, and
only by 15 percent on their husbands’plots, w here w om en also w eeded but m en
got the proceeds (Elson 1995). W hether
sim ilar results w ill obtain in India and
other countries w ill require field testing
and analysis. But the K enya results pro-
vide an im portant pointer to the output-
enhancing potential of secure land rights
for w om en and of their control over produce.
Second, w here land access is in the
form of titles (w hich serve as collateral inm any regions), secure rights for w om en
w ould help increase output by im prov-
ing w om en’s access to credit. This can
prove especially crucial in situations
w here w om en are the principal farm ers,
as w here m ale out-m igration is high, or
w here w idow s (or w ives) are cultivating
separate plots still form ally ow ned by kin.
Third, research from som e other parts
of the w orld suggests that w om en m ightuse land m ore efficiently than m en in
certain contexts. In Burkina Faso, for
instance, due to their choice of cropping
patterns w om en achieved m uch higher
values of output per hectare on their ow n
plots than their husbands did on theirs
(U dry et al. 1995). A lthough w om en’s
yields for given crops w ere low er than
m en’s, this w as due to their lesser access
to inputs such as fertilizers w hich w ereconcentrated on the m en’s plots. The
study estim ated that outpu t cou ld be
i n creased by as mu ch as 10–20 per -
cen t i f su ch i n pu ts wer e r eall ocated
fr om pl ots con tr olled by m en to those
control led by women in the same
household . A literature review of the
effect of gender on agricultural produc-
tivity in several countries of A frica and
A sia also concludes that output could beincreased notably if w om en farm ers had
the sam e access to inputs and education
as m ale farm ers (Q uisum bing 1996).
Fourth, w om en in m any parts of
South A sia are often better inform ed
than m en about traditional seed vari-
eties and the attributes of trees and
grasses. If they had greater control over
land and farm ing, this know ledge couldbe put to better use.
Fifth, tenure security, and especially
titles can em pow er w om en to assert
them selves better w ith agencies that
provide inputs and extension services.
W hile w elfare argum ents for w om en’s
land rights have received som e policy
attention, there is yet little recognition
of the potential positive effects on effi-
ciency. In fact, som e argue that land
transfers to w om en w ill have a negative
efficiency effect, in that such transfers
w ill reduce output by reducing farm size
and increasing fragm entation. H ow ever,
there is no notew orthy evidence of an
adverse size effect on output. In fact, in
India and other parts of South A sia,sm all farm s are found to have a higher
value of output per cultivated unit than
large farm s (Banerjee 2000); and frag-
F o o d a n d
A
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 7
m entation can arise equally w ith m ale
inheritance. A lso, w here necessary,
farm ers have dealt w ith fragm entation in
various w ays: consolidation through pur-
chase and sale; land leasing arrange-
m ents to bring together cultivation unitseven w here ow nership units are scat-
tered; and joint investm ent and cultiva-
tion by sm all groups. In India, as a result
of these m easures, the num ber of frag-
m ents per farm has declined from 5.7 in
1961 to 2.7 in 1991.
It is thus im portant to contesta pr ior i
negative efficiency argum ents, such as
the fragm entation argum ent, w hich are
typically put forw ard only in relation tow om en’s claim s to inheritance, but not in
relation to m en’s claim s. E qually, the pos-
itive productivity effects of m ore gender-
equal land access, and of greater tenure
security and access to inputs for w om en
farm ers, found in som e existing studies,
need em phasis, even w hile expanding the
base of em pirical analysis. A s noted, these
positive effects could be especially im -
portant in regions of high fem ale head-edness, or w here the fem inization of agri-
culture is m oving apace as m ore m en
than w om en enter nonfarm occupations.
Equality and Empowerment
The equality argum ent is an im portant
one in and of itself, since gender equali-
ty is a m easure of a just and progressive
society. But, in addition, equality in land
rights is a critical elem ent in w om en’seconom ic em pow erm ent. The w ord
“em pow erm ent”is now w idely used in
the literature, usually w ithout being
defined. H ere em pow erm ent is defined
“as a process that enhances the ability of
disadvantaged (‘pow erless’) individuals
or groups to challenge and change (in
their favor) existing pow er relationships
that place them in subordinate econom -
ic, social and political positions”(Agarw al 1994: 39).
Endowi ng women wi th land would
empower them economi cally as well as
str en gthen thei r abi l i ty to challen ge
social an d poli t i cal gen der i n equ i t i es .
A n illustrative exam ple is w om en’s expe-
rience in the B odhgaya struggle in Bihar
(eastern India). H ere, in the late-1970s,
w om en and m en of landless householdsjointly agitated for ow nership rights in
the land they cultivated, w hich w as
under the illegal possession of a M ath (a
tem ple–m onastery com plex). D uring the
m ovem ent, w om en dem anded indepen-
dent land rights, and received them in
tw o villages, w ith m arked im plications.
In the villages w here m en alone received
titles, w om en’s insecurity grew , w ith an
increase in m en’s tendency to threatenw ives w ith eviction in situations of do-
m estic conflict: “G et out of the house, the
land is m ine now ”(M anim ala 1983: 15).
But w here w om en got titles they graphi-
cally described their feeling of being em -
pow ered: “W e had tongues but could not
speak, w e had feet but could not w alk.
N ow that w e have the land, w e have the
strength to speak and w alk”(Alaka and
Chetna 1987:26). (Also see B ox 1.)This sense of em pow erm ent accom -
panying im proved land rights also
enhances w om en’s ability to assert
them selves w ithin the hom e, in the com -
m unity, and w ith the State.
From the preceding discussion it is
clear that land r i ghts can ser ve mu lti ple
fun ctions in r ur al women’s l i ves whi ch
ar e n ot easy to r epli cate thr ough other
means . This is im portant to keep in m indsince the present thrust of m ost nation-
al and international agencies is not on
land rights but on m icro-credit program s
w hich are being prom oted as a panacea,
especially (but not only) for poor rural
w om en. A lthough credit is clearly an im -
portant need for poor w om en, m any indi-
vidualw om en not only face problem s in
retaining control over such loans, but the
privileging of this one form of supportover all other livelihood sources can
prove problem atic and diversionary. A
num ber of evaluations show that such
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8 • SEEDS
The Bodhgaya m ovem ent, initiated in 1978 in
the G aya district of Bihar, w as a struggle bylandless laborers and sharecroppers to gain
rights in land w hich they had cultivated for
decades. The land, som e 9,575 acres spread
over 138 villages, w as held by a M ath (a
m onastery-cum -tem ple com plex), m uch of it
in violation of land ceiling law s. M ath officials
exploited the peasants and also sexually
abused the w om en. The struggle em erged
under the leadership of the Chatra Yuva Sang-
harsh Vahini, a G andhian-socialist youth or-
ganization founded in 1975 by Jayaprakash
N arayan (a contem porary of M ahatm a Gan-
dhi) and com m itted to im proving the lot of
the disadvantaged. Vahini m em bership w as
restricted to those under thirty, and includ-
ed w om en in every tier of the organization.
The m ovem ent lasted several years. Its
prim ary slogan w as Jo zameen ko boye jote,
voh zameen ka mali k hai (those w ho sow and
plough the land are the ow ners of the land).
W om en played a crucial role in the m ove-
m ent. In 1980, for instance, the activists
decided to seize the land and cultivate itindependently of the M ath. A bout 3,000
acres w ere captured and ploughed. D espite
police attacks, sow ing w as com pleted. A t har-
vest tim e, the attacks w ere renew ed. Since
w om en usually harvested the crops, it w as
they w ho faced the brunt. A s the repression
intensified, w om en’s involvem ent increased.
W om en also participated in the m ovem ent’s
nonviolent protests, despite threats of beat-
ings and rape by the M ath’s hired ruffians.
O ver tim e, w om en began participating in
equal num bers w ith the m en and also court-ing arrest w ith accom panying children.
In addition, w om en organized sh iv i rs
(cam ps) to discuss their concerns w ithin the
struggle. They focused on w om en’s exploita-
tion, their exclusive responsibility for house-
w ork, discrim ination against girl children,
m en’s verbal and physical violence against
them , and (m ost im portantly) w om en’s need
for independent land rights. R esolutions
w ere passed, including one against w ife-
beating and another dem anding land in
w om en’s ow n nam es.
Finally in 1981, the governm ent identified
1,000 acres of the M ath’s land for redistribu-
tion to the agitating farm ers. The Vahini
drew up a list, giving priority to landlesslaborers, the disabled, w idow s, and sm all
peasants. W om en other than w idow s did not
figure in the list, and they protested their
exclusion: “W e w ere in the forefront of the
fight, carrying our children in our w om bs
and in our arm s. W e w ent to jail and
faced the lathis [sticks]; w e also did all the
housew ork. B ut w hen the land w as distrib-
uted, w e w ere pushed back, w e didn’t even
com e to know by w hat rules the land w as dis-
tributed”(M anim ala 1983: 15).
A fter a prolonged debate on w hy w om en
should have independent land rights, in 1982
it w as decided that w om en too w ould receive
land in their ow n nam es in future distribu-
tion. In tw o villages the villagers unanim ous-
ly approved lists for giving land only to
w om en and w idow ers. But the D istrict O ffi-
cer in charge of registering the titles strong-
ly opposed this, arguing that there w as no
precedent for giving land to persons other
than heads of households, w ho w ere typical-
ly m en. The villagers, how ever, refused totake any land unless it w as given to w om en.
A lm ost three years passed before w om en
w ere finally allocated land. In tim e, all the
M ath’s illegal holdings w ere distributed and
w om en received land in various w ays: indi-
vidual titles, joint titles w ith husbands, as
w idow s, destitute and disabled persons, and
(w ithout precedent) in som e cases as
unm arried adult daughters. A lthough such
w om en w ere few since m ost girls there w ere
m arried before they w ere eighteen, the idea
that unm arried daughters w ere eligible w asan im portant step forw ard. E ach person
received about one acre.
H ow did all this com e about? Initially,
w om en encountered opposition at three lev-
els: from husbands, from the Vahini activists,
and from governm ent officials. W om en’s abil-
ity to overcom e these layers of opposition
depended on several factors: m en’s recogni-
tion over tim e that w om en’s contributions
w ere crucial to the m ovem ent’s success; the
grow ing solidarity am ong w om en and their
articulation of their gender-specific interests
as distinct from those of the m en of their
class and com m unity; the support of som e
Box 1
The Bodhgaya Movement
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 9
credit program s do not reach the poorest
households, let alone change the gender
balance in property ow nership and con-
trol. In fact a recent study for Bangla-desh (cited in IFA D 2001) identified a
lack of access to land and hom esteads as
m ajor factors in the exclusion of the
poorest from credit N G O s.
A n alternative to the existing approach
of prom oting m icro-credit for non-land-
related m icro-enterprises is to link land
and m icro-credit by providing rural w om -
en w ho depend on land-based livelihoods
w ith credit for leasing in or purchasingland in groups (as discussed later). H ere
m icro-credit w ould com plem ent rather
than substitute for efforts to enhance
w om en’s land rights. But this w ould
require a significant shift from the exist-
ing focus of m ost m icro-credit program s.
Women’s Land Accessin Practice
To w hat extent do w om en have effective
land rights in practice? Consider the
three m ajor w ays by w hich w om en can
gain land: inheritance, State transfers,
and the m arket. O f these, inheritance is
the m ost im portant, since in m ost coun-tries arable land is largely privatized. In
India, 86 percent of arable land is pri-
vately held. M oreover, efforts to pro-
m iddle-class fem ale Vahini activists w ith a
fem inist perspective; and the process of
debate in w hich w om en persuasively coun-
tered opposition.
For instance, w hen the w om en protested
against their exclusion from the Vahini’s ini-tial list of land recipients, the m en argued:
“W hat difference does it m ake in w hose nam e
the land is registered?”The w om en respond-
ed: “If it doesn’t m ake a difference, then put
it dow n in the w om an’s nam e. W hy argue
about it?”To the suggestion that w om en’s
dem and w ould w eaken class unity, the w om -
en replied: “Equality can only strengthen,
not w eaken an organization, but if it does
w eaken our unity, that w ill m ean that our real
com m itm ent is not to equality or justice but
to the transfer of pow er, both econom ic andsocial, from the hands of one set of m en to
the hands of another set of m en.”W hen the
m en asked: “H ow can you cultivate the land
on your ow n? W ho w ill plough it for you?”
they replied: “W ell, w ho w ill harvest your
crop in that case? W e are ready to cultivate
the land w ith hoes instead of ploughs, but w e
w ant it in our nam es”(M anim ala 1983).
Indeed the significance of the B odhgaya
struggle from w om en’s perspective lies not
just in its being South A sia’s first land strug-gle w here women’s land interests received
explicit attention. It also lies in the p r ocess
by w hich this w as achieved. It is notew orthy
that a largely illiterate peasant com m unity
discussed at length issues such as w om en’s
independent rights in econom ic resources,
dom estic violence, fem ale education, and
postm arital residence, and on several counts
resolved them in w om en’s favor. The debate,
although arduous, brought significant re-w ards. The question of gender equality began
to be seen by m any not as divisive but as
integral to the m ovem ent’s success. A s a
result, w om en’s participation in decision-
m aking also increased, w ife-beating and ver-
bal abuse against w om en w as deem ed sham e-
ful, and m ale villagers began to take care of
cooking and childcare in the w om en’s shiv i rs ,
w hile the w om en participated in discussions.
The B odhgaya w om en w ere also indirect-
ly helped by a grow ing w om en’s m ovem ent
and a spreading fem inist consciousness inthe country in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
w hen issues concerning w om en’s rights w ere
being raised in various forum s. In contrast,
w om en in the Tebhaga m ovem ent of the 1940s
(see Box 2) had not dem anded independent
land rights. A t that tim e, there w as an ab-
sence of cohesiveness am ong w om en on gen-
der questions; a lack of spokespersons am ong
them w ho could articulate a fem inist perspec-
tive;and the absence of a w idespread w om -
en’s m ovem ent in the country. For the Bodh-gaya w om en, the situation w as favorable on
all these counts. They w ere thus able to artic-
ulate their interests overtly. H ow ever, the
Bodhgaya experience still aw aits replication.
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m ote gender equality in inheritance are
im portant for ensuring that the land
obtained through the governm ent or the
m arket does not pass solely to m ale
heirs in the next generation.
Inheritance
It is not easy to determ ine how m any
w om en inherit land in practice, given
the noted absence of gender-disaggre-
gated land ow nership data at the all-India
level. To assess ow nership patterns, w e
therefore have to depend on sm all-scale
studies. These can nevertheless be reveal-
ing, such as a 1991 sam ple survey of rural
w idow s by M artha C hen covering seven
states (Table 1; see also C hen 2000).
Chen found that of the 470 w om en w ith
landow ning fathers, only 13 percent in-
herited any land as daughters. (Region-
ally, the figure ranged from 18 percent in
south India to 8 percent in north India.)
For all-India this m eans that 87 percent
of the surveyed w om en did not receive
their legal due as daughters.
W om en as w idow s fared som ew hatbetter. O f the 280 w idow s w hose de-
ceased husbands ow ned land, 51 per-
cent inherited som e. But this still m eans
1 0 • SEEDS
that half the w idow s w ith legal claim s did
not inherit anything. A nd of those that
did, typically their shares w ere not
recorded form ally in the village land
records. O ther studies have show n that
w here the land is so recorded, invariablythe w idow’s nam e is entered jointly w ith
adult sons, w ho effectively control the
land. The popular perception is that the
w idow ’s share is for her m aintenance and
not for her direct control or use. W idow s
w ithout sons rarely inherit. M oreover,
w idow s in India constitute only about 11
percent of rural w om en, 76 percent of
w hom are over 50 years old, m any of
them too old to effectively w ork the land.H ence inheritance as w idow s does not
com pensate w om en for their being disin-
herited as daughters.
Government Transfers
A second potential source of land for w om -
en is State transfers. These transfers can
be part of land reform program s, resettle-
m ent schem es for those displaced by largedam s and other projects, or antipoverty
program s. Irrespective of the program un-
der w hich the transfers occur, typically
A
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1 2 • SEEDS
The Tebhaga m ovem ent em erged in 1946–47
in undivided Bengal, in the footsteps of the
great Bengal fam ine of 1943. Sharecroppersin the region had no occupancy rights and
faced a constant threat of eviction. The land-
lords took half the produce w hile bearing no
part of the production costs, levied illegal
taxes, and sexually abused the w om en. The
m ovem ent, spearheaded by the B engal
Provincial K isan Sabha (BPK S), under the
leadership of the C om m unist Party of India,
dem anded a reduction of land rents and an
end to other form s of exploitation. The
w om en’s self-defense league played a critical
m obilizing role am ong w om en.
Prior to the m ovem ent, sexual exploita-
tion w as closely linked to caste and econom -
ic oppression:
Li ke the man goes of the [ shar ecrop-
per’s] tr ees, li ke the bananas of hi s
garden, li ke the gou rds of hi s thatched
r oof, lik e the eggplan t from hi s gar-
den , hi s dau ghter s and dau ghter s-
i n- law w er e the [ land lord’s] pr oper -
ty…. If the [lan dlord ] exp r esses hi s
wi sh, the daughter or the wi fe of the [ shar ecropper ] wi l l be sen t to the
[ lan dlord’s] house. (a w om an activist,
quoted in Cooper 1988: 102)
Both H indu and M uslim w om en partici-
pated in the m ovem ent in large num bers:
Women who r emai ned i n the vi l lages
du r i ng the day…[ war ned] people of
pol ice arr i vals by sou nd i n g alarms,
blowi n g con ch shells, for exampl e.
They pr ovid ed shelter and food for
activi sts. Women who frequen tly w en t to market became responsible in
some ar eas for commun i cation an d
carr yi ng messages between organ i z-
er s. In some vi ll ages there were spe-
cial [ women ’s cor ps] w hi ch guar ded
vi llages. Poor peasan t women par ti c-
ipated i n meet in gs and demonstra-
tions, joined delegations to land-
lor ds, an d occasi onal ly m ember s of
Tebhaga committees, although not
holdin g par t i cul ar posi t ions.
However, women’s mi li tancy w as r e-
member ed mostly because of thei r
acti ons to r esi st ar r ests, when they
di splayed in cr edi ble cou r age, in i t i a-
t ive and her oi sm i n r escui ng people.
(Cooper 1988: 270–271)
W om en’s w eapons of resistance w ere
household im plem ents, the com m onplace ob-
jectsof their daily existence, w ith w hich they
(often successfully) confronted the police:
As the poli ce entered the vi ll ages, bell s
an d conch shells used to be blown
and the echo could be heard fr om one
end to the other.... It w as the peasant
womenfolk w ho or gan i zed thi s n ovel
form of war ni ng. Almost i mm ediate- ly on hear i ng thi s, al l the women-
folk wou ld take hold of br oomsti cks,
lathi s and their hu ski n g pestles...
and for m a barr i cade on the vi l lage
r oad, so that th e poli ce coul d not
enter. (Chakravartty 1980: 90)
In disarm ing police parties, in resisting
arrests, and in rescuing people, w om en’s ini-
tiatives assum ed heroic proportions. O n sev-
eral occasions, attem pts by landlords to
appropriate the harvested paddy from the
peasants’fields w ith police help w ere also
thw arted by the w om en. For instance, in
K endem ari village:
... they least expected th at a m i li tan t
group of [peasan t] w omen ... wou ld
advan ce wi th daos, chopper s an d
broomsticks. Tied to their saree-
ends they carr i ed a han dfu l of du st,
mi xed wi th chi l l i powder. As they
approached the police, they threw
thi s powder i n thei r eyes and the
pol ice r an for thei r l i ves. (Chakra-vartty 1980: 94).
O ften, how ever, the confrontations w ere
violent, and m any courageous w om en w ere
injured or killed in police firings.
D uring the cam paign, several gender con-
cerns w ere voiced, such as w ife-beating. A s
one w om an graphically put it: “[W hen] the
husband and w ife together are dying in the
field, in the battle for Tebhaga; w hen the tw o
together are fighting against the enem y, how
then w as it possible for one soldier to beatthe other after returning hom e?”(cited in
Custers 1987: 177). In som e areas the cam -
Box 2
TheTebhaga Story
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 1 3
0.56 percent of India’s arable land at the
tim e of the E ighth Plan and today it com es
to less than 0.2 percent of the country’s
arable land. E ven in W est Bengal, a state
w ith the largest am ount of area declared
surplus to date, the total ceiling surplus
land cam e to only 8.7 percent of the
state’s arable land, and today virtuallynone is left for distribution.
H ence w hile it is im portant to reduce
biases in governm ent land transfers, and
thereby also to send the m essage that
w om en’s claim s deserve attention, in
term s of actual land area such transfers
can go but a sm all w ay in im proving
Indian w om en’s land status.
Through the MarketThe third source of land for w om en is
through lease or purchase. The w eight of
this option w ill depend on financial, insti-
tutional, and infrastructural support to
w om en. In itself, this is a lim ited option
since individual rural w om en seldom
have access to adequate financial re-
sources for this purpose. A lso, in term s
of purchase, rural land m arkets are often
constrained and land is not alw ays avail-able for sale. For instance, an all-India
study of land sales am ong a sam ple of
landow ning households in the early
1970s found that only 1.75 percent had
sold any land during the survey year
(Rosenzw eig and W olpin 1985). A nother
study, for U ttar Pradesh (northw est In-
dia) that exam ined land sales over a
thirty-year period from the 1950s to the
1980s, found that only 4.1 percent ofow ned agricultural land had been sold
(Shankar 1990).H ence for both sexes,
the possibilities of purchasing land are
lim ited, w ith w om en being especially
constrained. Land purchase through the
m arket thus cannot com pensate for gen-
der inequalities in inheritance or govern-
m ent transfers. There is som ew hat great-
er potential for obtaining land on lease,
since this is m ore readily available.
For both lease and purchase, how ev-
er, external support to w om en w ould im -
prove access. For instance, in parts of
South A sia, groups of landless w om en
have been using subsidized credit pro-
vided by the State, for leasing in or pur-
chasing land in groups, and cultivating it
jointly (as elaborated further below ).
Through such collective endeavor, land
through the m arket could w ell prove an
im portant supplem entary m eans forw om en to acquire land, even if not the
prim ary m eans.
paign against dom estic violence m ade a
strong im pact, but in others the culprits got
off lightly. E specially in M uslim areas w hen
m ale peasants objected to w om en attending
the peasant com m ittee m eetings, som e of
the w om en retorted: “It does not hurt yoursense of propriety w hen w e sow or harvest in
the fields along w ith you. H ow does it becom e
objectionable w hen w e w ant to attend kisan
sam iti m eetings?”(cited in Custers 1987:
172). O bjections nevertheless continued,
and the issue w as never resolved.
D espite w om en’s participation, unequal
gender relations persisted both w ithin and
outside the m ovem ent. W hatever gains
w om en m ade w ere ad hoc. Their objections
to dom estic violence led to the boycott of
som e of the m ale activists responsible, but
the issue w as not seen as integral to the larg-
er political struggle to change econom ic and
social relations that the m ovem ent w as
addressing. In particular, w om en’s rights in
land w ere not discussed. W om en also playedlittle role in decisionm aking. A nd w hile dur-
ing the m ost intense periods of the agitation
w om en em erged from their dom estic roles,
they w ere forced to return to housew ork and
largely unchanged gender relations w ithin
the fam ily w hen the struggle ended. It w as
not until several decades later, during the
Bodhgaya m ovem ent, that oppression w ithin
the fam ily and w om en’s rights in land
em erged as significant concerns w ithin a
peasant m ovem ent in South A sia.
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1 4 • SEEDS
Obstacles to Women’sLand Access
W hat obstructs w om en from gaining
greater land access? W hile the difficul-
ties that individual w om en face in get-ting land through the m arket w ere indi-
cated above, those relating to private
and governm ent land are m ore com plex.
Privatized Land:Legal, Social,and Administrative Biases
To my br other belong you r green fi elds
O father, whi le I am bani shed afar…
— (H indi folksong)
Always you sai d
Your brother an d y ou ar e the same
O Father. Bu t today you betr ay m e…
My doli leaves you r house.
—(folksong, personal com m unication
Veena D as)
Inheritance laws
In m ost of India, inheritance w as tradi-
tionally patrilineal (that is ancestral prop-
erty passed through the m ale line), w ithsom e lim ited m atrilineal pockets (w here
ancestral property passed through the
fem ale line), as in northern and central
K erala in the south and M eghalaya in the
northeast (Agarw al 1994, 1995). A m ong
the m ajority H indu com m unity, for in-
stance, the com m on pattern w as for
w om en to inherit only in the absence of
m ale heirs, typically in the absence of
four generations of m en in the m ale lineof descent. W idow s had the first claim
and daughters follow ed. W hat w om en
received, how ever, w as only a lim ited in-
terest, that is, they enjoyed the property
during their lifetim e after w hich it revert-
ed to the original source. A lso w om en’s
rights of disposal w ere restricted: they
could not m ortgage, give, or sell the land,
except in exceptional circum stances. In
m ost cases, the rights of M uslim w om enin custom ary practice w ere very sim ilar
to those of H indu w om en in their regions
of location.
D uring the tw entieth century, how ev-
er, through the concerted efforts of w om -
en’s organizations, liberal law yers, and
social reform ers, inheritance law s shift-
ed significantly tow ard gender equality.
A lthough these efforts m et w ith stiff re-sistance from m any opinionm akers and
politicians (including India’s first Presi-
dent), the changes w ere facilitated by
the historic m om ent. It w as a tim e w hen
the idea of building a m odern forw ard-
looking nation w as becom ing part of the
popular im agination. A lso the first elect-
ed governm ent of Independent India had
a notable body of progressive profession-
als in Parliam ent, w ho supported theidea of gender-equal law s. A s a result,
m ost Indian w om en w ere able to negoti-
ate m uch greater rights in postindepen-
dence law than they had had a century
ago. For instance, the H indu Succession
A ct (HSA ) of 1956 m ade sons, daughters,
and w idow s equal claim ants in a m an’s
separate property and in his share in the
joint fam ily property. It also gave w om en
full control over w hat they inherited, touse and dispose of as they w ished. Sim i-
larly, the M uslim Personal Law Shariat
(A pplication) A ct of 1937 substantially
enhanced M uslim w om en’s property
rights com pared w ith those prevailing
under custom .
Yet, in both com m unities som e notable
inequalities rem ain. Both H indu and M us-
lim inheritance law s, for instance, treat
agricultural land differently from otherproperty. The H SA exem pted tenancy
rights in agricultural land from its pur-
view . H indu w om en’s inheritance in ten-
ancy land thus depends on state-level
tenurial law s, w hich in m ost northw est-
ern states specify an order of devolution
that strongly favors m ale agnatic heirs.
W om en com e very low in the order of
heirs, as w as the case under age-old cus-
tom s. Furtherm ore, these inequalitiescannot be challenged on constitutional
grounds because land reform law s com e
under the N inth Schedule of the C onsti-
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 1 5
tution. This constitutional provision w as
m eant to protect land reform law s from
being challenged by entrenched class inter-
ests, but in the process (albeit unw itting-
ly) it also entrenched gender inequality.
Likew ise, the Shariat A ct of 1937,applicable to M uslim s in India, excluded
all agricultural land (both tenanted and
ow ned) from its purview . Subsequently,
som e of the southern states extended
the provisions of this Act to also cover
agricultural land. In all other regions,
how ever, agricultural land, unlike other
property, continues to devolve according
to custom s, tenurial law s, or other pre-
existing law s. In m ost of northw est India,such law s and custom s give w om en’s
property rights very low priority.
A second source of inequality lies in
the differential inheritance shares for m en
and w om en. In the H SA , for instance, al-
though sons and daughters have equal
shares in a m an’s separate property,
there is also the continued recognition of
joint fam ily property in w hich sons but
not daughters have rights by birth. A gainw hile three of the southern states (Andhra
Pradesh, Tam il N adu, K arnataka) and
M aharashtra have am ended this by in-
cluding daughters as coparceners, and
K erala has abolished joint fam ily proper-
ty altogether, all the other states rem ain
highly unequal. In the case of M uslim
law , differential shares arise because
daughters are allow ed only half the share
of sons in any property.In both H indu and M uslim legal sys-
tem s the regional contrast is also strik-
ing. G ender inequality increases as w e
m ove from south India northw ard. A m ong
H indus, for instance, northw est India is
the m ost gender unequal in relation to
w om en’s claim s in both agricultural land
and joint fam ily property, w hile the
southern states provide relative legal
equality on both counts. Central Indiafalls in-betw een. The m ap of w om en’s
legal rights under M uslim law looks
rather sim ilar, w ith a distinct contrast
betw een northw est India and the rest of
the country.
The enorm ity of w om en’s disinheri-
tance (such as that noted in Chen’s sur-
vey, w ith only 13 percent of daughters
inheriting), how ever, cannot be explainedby unequal law s alone. Rather, am ong
the critical factors underlying both the
law and the gap betw een law and prac-
tice are social and adm inistrative biases.
Social bias
Consider first the gap betw een legal
rights and actual ow nership. In m ost com -
m unities that w ere traditionally patrilin-
eal there is strong m ale resistance toendow ing daughters w ith land. A part
from a reluctance to adm it m ore claim -
ants to the m ost valuable form of rural
property, resistance also stem s from so-
cial practices w hich determ ine m arriage
choices and postm arital residence. Tra-
ditionally am ong m atrilineal com m uni-
ties w here daughters had strong claim s
in land (as in K erala and M eghalaya),
postm arital residence w as in or near the
natal hom e. This kept the land under theoverall purview of the natal fam ily, as did
close-kin m arriage. In contrast, in tradi-
tionally patrilineal com m unities, post-
A
s h o k
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a l i
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1 6 • SEEDS
m arital residence w as patrilocal (the
w om an joined her husband in his natal
hom e) and often in another village. In
addition, in northern India close-kin m ar-
riage w as forbidden am ong m ost com -
m unities, and there w ere social taboosagainst parents asking m arried daugh-
ters for help during econom ic crises.
M any of these custom s continue to-
day, and obstruct w om en’s claim s espe-
cially am ong upper-caste H indus of the
northw est w ho are the strictest in for-
bidding in-village and close-kin m ar-
riages, and in socially restricting parents
from seeking help from m arried daugh-
ters. H ere endow ing a daughter w ithland is seen as bringing virtually no re-
ciprocal benefit, and any land inherited
by her is seen as lost to the fam ily.
D aughters face the greatest opposition
to their inheritance claim s am ong such
com m unities. O pposition is less in south
and northeast India w here in-village and
close-kin m arriages are allow ed, and
parents can, if they need to, seek sup-
port from m arried daughters.M any w om en also forgo their shares
in parental land in favor of brothers. In
the absence of an effective state social
security system , w om en see brothers as
an im portant source of security, espe-
cially in case of m arital breakup, even if
in practice brothers are seldom w illing
to support sisters for extended periods.
Cultural constructions of gender, such
as how a “good sister”w ould behave,and practices such as fem ale seclusion in
som e areas also discourage w om en from
asserting their rights. W here w om en do
not “voluntarily”forgo their inheritance
claim s, m ale relatives have been know n
to file court cases, forge w ills, or resort
to threats and even physical violence.
The gender gap betw een the ow ner-
ship and effective control of land is as
striking as that betw een law and prac-tice. H ere too social practices and
notions of m ale entitlem ents play an
im portant role. For instance, m arriages
in distant villages m ake direct cultiva-
tion by w om en difficult. In m any areas
this is com pounded by illiteracy, high
fertility, and social restrictions on
w om en’s m obility and public interaction.W hile the practice of veiling is geograph-
ically restricted, the i deology of fem ale
seclusion is m ore w idespread and oper-
ates in com plex w ays. E ffectively, it
restricts w om en’s contact w ith m en by
gendering form s of behavior, and gen-
dering public and private space. Indeed
in m any north Indian villages, there are
identifiable spaces w here m en congre-
gate w hich w om en are expected toavoid, such as the m arket place.
This ter r i tor i al gen der i n g of space
reduces a w om an’s m obility and partici-
pation in activities outside the hom e,
especially m arket interaction; lim its her
know ledge of the physical environm ent;
and disadvantages her in seeking infor-
m ation on new agricultural technologies
and practices, in purchasing inputs, and
in selling the product. These restrictionsare strongest in northw est India (and
especially in the plains) and virtually
absent in the south and northeast. O f
course, the cultural construction of gen-
der, w hich defines appropriate fem ale
behavior, is not confined to northw est
India; it also restricts w om en in southern
India. But the strong ideology of purdah
in the northw est circum scribes w om en
in particular w ays.This regional difference in the social
restrictions w om en face is also reflected
in w om en’s labor force participation rates,
w hich are am ong the low est in the north-
w est. A lthough this does not im ply lesser
w orkloads for w om en in aggregate term s,
it does indicate lesser w ork m obility,
low er econom ic visibility, and som etim es
lesser exposure to the range of agricul-
tural tasks.O ther difficulties facing w om en farm -
ers include their lim ited control over
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 1 7
cash and credit for purchasing inputs,
gender biases in extension services, ritu-
al taboos against w om en ploughing, and
dem ands of advance cash paym ents by
tractor or bullock ow ners for ploughing
w om en’s fields. (N o such dem and is usu-ally m ade of m ale farm ers, w ho, even if
they are sm all ow ners, are assum ed to be
creditw orthy.) Taboos against ploughing
increase w om en’s dependence on m ale
help and reduce yields if ploughing is not
done in tim e.
Administrative bias
Com m unity- and fam ily-related social
constraints are com pounded by the un-helpful approach of m any governm ent
functionaries w ho typically share the pre-
vailing social biases and often obstruct the
im plem entation of law s favoring w om en.
The bias is especially prevalent in the re-
cording of daughters’inheritance shares
by village officials. In the northw estern
state of Rajasthan, for instance, a num -
ber of village officials told the author
that although they encouraged w idow s
to claim their shares, they discouraged
daughters from doing so. Village coun-
cils also tend to favor m en on this count.
*
A t one level, all these constraints—legal, social, and adm inistrative—appear
form idable. Yet, as noted throughout,
there is a striking regional variability in
the strength of the constraints (Agarw al
1994). This provides potential entry
points for change. South India has the
few est obstacles. H ere legal rights are
relatively m ore equal, in-village and
close-kin m arriage is allow ed, there is
virtually no purdah, and fem ale laborforce participation is m edium to high.
N orthw est India is the area of m ost diffi-
culty on all these fronts. N ortheast and
central India com e in-betw een. South In-
dia could thus provide an im portant start-
ing point for furthering the goal of gen-
der equality in effective property rights.
D em onstrated achievem ents in one re-
gion could help subsequent attem pts in
other regions.
Government Transfers
W hile m ale bias w ithin fam ilies can to
som e extent be explained in term s of
conflicting interests and social attitudes
in relation to private land, w hy do gov-
ernm ents also transfer public land m ost-
ly to m en? There appear to be several
reasons for this bias.
To begin w ith, there is the com m onassum ption that m en are the prim ary
cultivators and breadw inners and w om en
are the helpers and dependents. There
is also a w idespread social perception
regarding w om en’s appropriate roles and
capabilities. H ere patrilineal biases have
influenced even m atrilineal com m unities.
In M eghalaya, for instance, w hen govern-
m ent officials w ere asked by the author
in 1989 w hy, even in a traditionally m a-trilineal society, they did not allot land to
w om en, they responded: “W om en can-
P
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D
i v i s i o n , U
n i t e d
N
a t i o n s , N
e w
Y o r k
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1 8 • SEEDS
not com e to our office to fill out papers.”
Yet in nearby streets there w ere num er-
ous w om en traders selling their w ares.
M ore generally, land-related policy
continues to be form ulated largely on the
assum ption of a unitary household w ith-in w hich resources transferred to m en
are seen as benefiting the w hole fam ily.
H ow ever, the substantial evidence of
unequal intrafam ily resource allocations,
noted earlier, indicates otherw ise. Inter-
estingly those w ho m ost vociferously op-
pose such resource transfers to w om en
often im plicitly recognize that fam ilies
are far from harm onious or altruistic
institutions. Rather they fear that w om -en w ill leave the fam ily if they have the
fallback option that property ow nership
w ould provide. For exam ple, during the
Constituent A ssem bly debate on the re-
form of inheritance and m arriage law s
suggested in the H indu Code B ill in 1949,
one Congress legislator from W est Bengal
argued: “[If the daughter inherits,] ulti-
m ately the fam ily w ill break up”and
queried: “Are you going to enact a codew hich w ill facilitate the breaking up of
our households?”(GO I 1949: 1011). For-
ty years later, in 1989, follow ing m y pre-
sentation on gender and land rights at a
land reform sem inar at the Indian
Planning C om m ission, the then M inister
of A griculture from northw est India ex-
claim ed: “Are you suggesting that w om en
should be given rights in land? W hat do
w om en w ant? To break up the fam ily?”Ironically, neither legislator need have
feared this if indeed households w ere
m odels of harm ony and altruism , or if its
m em bers had the sam e interests and
preferences.
A concern w ith fam ily unity also lim its
the nature of transfers to w om en in the
rare cases w hen such transfers do take
place. For instance, there is a long-
standing assum ption in public policy thatfarm s w ill be cultivated on a fam ily basis.
A s a result, the em phasis has been m ost-
ly on giving w om en joint titles w ith hus-
bands, and allotting titles to w idow s only
in the absence of adult m en in the fam ily.
In fact, it is fallacious to assum e that
im proving w om en’s econom ic situation w ill
lead to fam ily break-up. The likelihood is
that greater econom ic equality betw eenm en and w om en w ithin the Indian fam i-
ly w ill help imp rove intrahousehold
resource allocation and gender relations
and strengthen fam ily relationships. For
instance, husbands w ill be less likely to
desert or divorce w ives w ho ow n proper-
ty or have other m eans of access to
assets such as land or hom esteads.
What Should Be Done?
G iven their entrenched nature, how can
the noted obstacles to w om en’s land
rights be overcom e? To enhance gender
equality in land and livelihoods, changes
appear necessary on at least five counts:
conceptual, legal, social, institutional,
and infrastructural (see B ox 3).
Conceptual and Empirical
For a start, it appears necessary to chal-
lenge the conventional m odel of a har-
m onious m ale-headed fam ily in analysis
as w ell as policy, and to recognize the
fam ily for w hat it is: a unit of both coop-
eration and conflict, of both sharing and
selfishness, w here w om en and m en can
have different interests, preferences, and
m otivations, w here self-interest alsoenters, and w here allocations are often
unequal and affected by differential bar-
gaining pow er. Indeed, there is an
em erging consensus am ong gender-
aw are econom ists about the validity of
the bargaining approach to understand-
ing intrahousehold dynam ics. But ideo-
logically the unitary household m odel
holds strong. If w e are to think of radical
and effective interventions, it appearscritical to shift to m ore realistic assum p-
tions about intrafam ily behavior w hen
form ulating policy.
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 1 9
It is also im portant to gather system -
atic gender-disaggregated inform ation
on land ow nership and use, both for bet-
Box 3
What Needs to Be Done?
For Improving Women’s Claims
in Private Land1. G ender equality in inheritance law s
2. Legal literacy and legal support serv-
ices
3. Village-level recording of w om en’s
shares
4. Social and econom ic support for w om -
en from outside the fam ily, including
through an effective social security
system
5. C hanging social attitudes
For Improving Women’s Accessto Public Land
G ender equality in public land distribu-
tion in:
1. Land reform schem es
2. R esettlem ent schem es
3 O ther schem es, such as those initiated
under poverty-alleviation program s
For Improving Women’s Accessto Land Via the Market
1. Subsidized credit for land purchase or
lease
2. Land purchase or lease via group form a-
tion, and group cultivation of such land
For Improving the Viability of Women’s Farming Efforts
1. A gricultural extension services and
other infrastructural support for
w om en farm ers2. R esource pooling and group invest-
m ent in capital equipm ent; coopera-
tive m arketing
3. W om en’s effective presence in village
decisionm aking bodies
4. G ender sensitizing through the m edia,
educational institutions, etc., for chang-
ing social norm s and social perceptions.
ter understanding the existing situation
and for effective m onitoring. The A gri-
cultural Census of India and the N ational
Sam ple Surveys (NSS), w hich both carry
out periodic data collection on land ow n-
ership and use, collect only household-level inform ation. There is a case here
for incorporating, in the next N SS round,
a special m odule of questions for obtain-
ing gender-disaggregated intrahouse-
hold inform ation. If necessary, this could
initially be tried on a pilot basis, and sub-
sequently extended to the full survey.
N epal, as noted, has already redesigned
its census to gather such inform ation.
Researchers collecting land-related datain other projects could also be encour-
aged to collect gender-disaggregated in-
form ation on land ow nership and use.
Legal
The legal aspects should include at least
three elem ents.
Amending the inheritance laws:These
w ould include a num ber of changes, such
as bringing agricultural land on par w ithother form s of property in the law s ap-
plicable to H indus as w ell as those ap-
plicable to M uslim s; abolishing the joint
fam ily property provision in the H SA , as
done in K erala; and so on. E ven though
legal changes are not a sufficient condi-
tion for ensuring w om en’s ow nership and
control over property, legal equality pro-
vides an essential tool in the hands of
gender-progressive groups, w ho could thenw ork forde facto equality. Progressive leg-
islation also underlines the State’s com -
m itm ent to the idea of gender equality.
Legal literacy: This is essential to
m ake law s effective and needs to reach
both adults and near-adults. For the lat-
ter, legal literacy could be m ade part of
the curriculum in the senior years of
school.
Recording women’s shares: Villagew om en need support to ensure that their
land shares are correctly recorded by the
relevant village official, and need legal
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2 0 • SEEDS
advice and help if they w ish to contest
their claim s w ith either the fam ily or the
adm inistration.
In all these efforts, gender-progres-
sive groups could play a significant role.
Social
U nless and until w om en’s claim s begin to
be seen as socially legitim ate, parents
w ho have a m ale bias are likely to use
the right of m aking w ills to disinherit
daughters, even if the law s are m ade
fully gender-equal. Sim ilarly, efforts are
needed to change conservative or nega-
tive perceptions about w om en’s appro-
priate roles and abilities, and to chal-
lenge social norm s that restrict w om en’s
public m obility and interaction.
For instance, the problem posed by
w om en’s m arriage outside the natal vil-
lage arises only partly from the distances
involved and m ostly from social strictures
on w om en’s m obility, and social percep-
tions about w om en’s lesser abilities and
deservedness. M en are seldom denied
their property rights even if they m igrate
to distant parts (as m any m en, especially
younger ones, do to seek jobs in cities).
A lthough social attitudes, norm s, and
perceptions are not easy to alter, certain
types of interventions could further the
process. For instance, governm ent initia-
tives to transfer land titles and infrastruc-
turalsupport to w om en farm ers w ould
have a notable dem onstration effect. In-
terventions to strengthen extrafam ily
econom ic support for w om en, including
through a governm ent social security
schem e, w ould help reduce w om en’s de-
pendence on relatives and especially on
brothers in w hose favor w om en often
forgo their claim s. O verall, econom ic sup-
portw ould also enhance w om en’s ability
to challenge inequalities in the fam ily
and com m unity. In so far as the popular
m edia is one of the arenas w here genderroles and relations are both projected
and constructed, m edia interventions in
a gender-progressive direction w ould
also help transform social attitudes.
Institutional
Reform s in this area need to be holistic
and innovative. For instance, policym ak-
ers generally assum e that farm s w ill be
cultivated on a fam ily basis. H ence to the
extent that the governm ent is beginning
to recognize that w om en farm ers too
have legitim ate claim s in land, joint titles
(titles held jointly by husbands and
w ives) are m ostly favored. Such titles
have both positive and negative im plica-
tions. O n the positive side, clearly get-
ting som e land is better for w om en than
having none. But on the negative side,
joint titles also present w om en w ith sev-
eral potential problem s. W om en often
find it difficult to gain control over the
produce, or to bequeath the land as they
w ant, or to claim their shares in case of
m arital conflict. A s som e rural w om en
explained: “By being tied to the land w e
w ould be tied to the m an, even if he beat
us”(author’s interview s, 1989). A lso
w ith joint titles w ives cannot easily exer-
cise their priorities in land use if these
priorities happen to differ from those of
their husbands. M ost im portantly, joint
titles constrain w om en from exploring
alternative institutional arrangem ents
for cultivation and m anagem ent.
Individual titles, by contrast, give
w om en greater flexibility and control
over the land. A t the sam e tim e, individ-
ual w om en often lack funds for equip-
m ent or inputs, and w here holdings are
very sm all individual investm ent in
equipm ent can prove uneconom ical.
Individual w om en also face considerable
pressure from m ale relatives w ho w ant
to acquire or control the land.
H ow ever, i nsti tut i onal solut i ons to
these pr oblems can be foun d , provided
w om en’s land claim s are not tied to theirspouses, and i f the un i t of in vestment
and cul t ivat ion is not lim ited to the
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 2 1
household, indeed i s n ot defi n ed by the
household at all. Table 2 sum m arizes
these alternatives.
O ne alternative w ould be to help
w om en w ho ow n individual holdings
(w hether obtained through inheritance,
purchase, or from the governm ent) to
invest in capital inputs jointly w ith other
w om en, w hile m anaging production indi-
vidually. M ale farm ers have done this in
several regions,by jointly investing, say,
in a tubew ell w here they have contiguous
plots. This reduces the individual cost of
m ajor investm ents. W om en ow ners of
plots could be encouraged to do the
sam e. In fact, in Bodhgaya, a governm ent
schem e provided funds to groups of five
farm ers each to invest in pum psets. Tw o
such groups w ere constituted of w om en
farm ers alone. A lthough there are no fol-
low -up reports on how w ell this w orked,
it w as a step in the right direction.
A second type of arrangem ent could
be for w om en to purchase land jointly
w hile ow ning it individually and farm ing
it collectively. O ne of the m ost interest-
ing exam ples of this is the D eccan
D evelopm ent Society (D D S), an N G Ow orking w ith poor w om en’s collectives
in som e 75 villages in M edak district—a
drought-prone tract of A ndhra Pradesh
(AP) in southern India. D D S has helped
w om en from landless fam ilies establish
claim s on land, through purchase and
lease, using various governm ent schem es
(for a detailed discussion, see M enon
1996; Satheesh 1997; and A garw al 2001).
O ne such schem e of the Scheduled
Caste D evelopm ent Corporation in A P
provides subsidized loans to landless
scheduled caste w om en for buying agri-
cultural land. Catalyzed by D D S, w om en
form a group, apply for the loan after
identifying the land they w ant to buy,
and divide the purchased land am ong
them selves, each w om an being registered
as the ow ner of about an acre. Cultiva-
tion, how ever, is done jointly by each
group. Today 24 w om en’s groups in 14
villages are jointly cultivating 474 acres
of purchased land. In the process of
w orking together, they have learned to
survey and m easure land, hire tractors,
travel to distant tow ns to m eet govern-
m ent officials, obtain inputs, and m arket
the produce. M oreover, D D S has system -
atically prom oted organic farm ing in all
its crop cultivation schem es. W om en alsogrow a com bination of crops (rather than
a single crop), w hich reduces the risk of
Table 2 Women Managing Land Under Various Institutional Arrangements
Examples of actualForm of control Source of land Investment Cultivation Use practice
Conventional approach
I ndividual women I nher ited or purchased I ndividual I ndividual Crops Typical
Alternatives 1. I ndividual I nher ited, purchased, Joint (w ith I ndividual Crops Bodhgaya (Bihar )
w omen or government t ransfer other w omen) (government promoted)
2. I ndividual ow nership, Group purchase of Joint (w ith Joint Crops Deccan Developmentgroup management pr ivate land by women, other w omen) Society (DDS) inby w omen divided into individually Andhra Pradesh
owned plots
3. Group of Group lease of pr ivate Joint Joint Crops DDS, BRACw omen land Vegetables Kerala
4. Group of Male ow ners; cult ivat ion I ndividual I ndividual Crops DDS’s Communityw omen overseen by women’s Grain Fund Scheme
groups
5. Group of Government t ransfer Joint Joint Crops Untr ied so farw omen to w omen’s groups
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2 2 • SEEDS
total crop failure and provides a m ore
balanced diet.
Joint purchase and cultivation of land
by w om en’s groups could now be encour-
aged in other states as w ell, on the basis
of other governm ent schem es. For in-stance, a 1995–96 central governm ent
schem e in India provides loans to the
poor for land purchase as part of the In-
tegrated Rural D evelopm ent Program m e.
A third possibility lies in w om en leas-
ing land as a group and cultivating it
jointly. U nder one of DD S’s program s,
w om en in A P lease in land from private
ow ners. Initiated in 1989, the program is
now said to cover 623 acres across 52villages. U nder another of D D S’s efforts,
w om en’s groups have used loan m oney
available via the governm ent’s poverty
alleviation schem e, D W A CRA (Develop-
m ent of W om en and C hildren in R ural
A reas), for leasing in land. Com m ittees
of w om en exam ine the lease proposals,
assess land quality, keep records of each
w om an’s w ork input, and ensure equi-
table distribution of w ages and produce.W om en w ho fail to turn up for collective
labor are subject to fines (such as tw o
days’w age equivalent) decided by the
w om en in their w eekly group m eeting.
Persistent default can lead to exclusion
from the group (author’s interview s,
Septem ber 1998). Several w om en’s groups
have used the revolving fund provided
under this schem e to collectively lease
in and cultivate land. A n assessm ent in1995 show ed that each w om an partici-
pant received enough cereal and pulses
to feed the w hole fam ily for a m onth, in
addition to receiving harvest w ages.
D W A CRA loans have seldom been used
in such innovative w ays.
D D S is not the only N G O encouraging
land leasing by w om en’s groups. In K er-
ala, som e w om en’s groups are leasing
land during the off-season for vegetablecultivation. In B angladesh, w om en’s
groups belonging to the B angladesh Ru-
ral A dvancem ent Com m ittee (BR A C)
grow crops on leased-in land.
A fourth type of institutional arrange-
m ent is of w om en’s groups m anaging and
overseeing cultivation on land ow ned by
m en. A gain D D S provides an illustrativeexam ple. H ere w om en are jointly over-
seeing the cultivation of privately ow ned
land that had been lying m ostly fallow .
M ost of this w as ceiling surplus land of
poor quality distributed by the govern-
m ent to landless m en. The land rem ained
largely uncultivated, w hile the fam ilies
depended heavily on the public distribu-
tion system (PD S), w hich w as w oefully in-
adequate for providing food security. Sup-ported by the M inistry of Rural D evelop-
m ent, D D S initiated this program to bring
fallow land under the plough, by extend-
ing subsidized loans to the ow ners. U n-
der the schem e, each participating farm -
er can enter tw o acres, and get loans in
installm ents over three years. In return,
over five years, the farm er gives a speci-
fied percentage of the grain he harvests
to a Com m unity Grain Fund (CG F). Com -m ittees of w om en m ake sure that the
farm ers use the loans for cultivation and
collect the harvest share for the C G F.
This grain is sold at a low price to the
poorest households in each village. The
CG F thus serves as a form of alternative
PD S. This project is now w orking in 43
villages, covering 3,263 acres and 2,247
m arginaland sm all farm ers, and is esti-
m ated to have produced enough extragrain to provide 3 m illion total extra
m eals or 1,000 extra m eals per fam ily.
A fifth type of arrangem ent, untried
to date, is one w here poor rural w om en
could hold gr oup r i ghts over land dis-
tributed by the governm ent, or otherw ise
acquired by w om en (A garw al 1994). E f-
fectively, the w om en w ould be stakehold-
ers in a kind of land trust. E ach w om an
in the group w ould have use rights butnot the right to alienate the land. The
daughters-in-law and daughters of such
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 2 3
households w ho are resident in the vil-
lage w ould share these use rights. D augh-
ters leaving the village on m arriage w ould
lose such rights but could re-establish
them by rejoining the production efforts,
should they return, say on divorce or
w idow hood. In other w ords, land accessw ould be linked form ally w ith residence
and w orking on the land, as w as the case
under som e traditional system s w hen
land w as held collectively by a clan.
In these various institutional alterna-
tives, w om en are not just adjunct w ork-
ers on fam ily farm s; they have direct
control over production and distribu-
tion. Cooper ati on i s between w omen
w i th common i n ter ests, and n ot be-
tween households . The arrangem ents en-
able w om en to gain access to land
through the m arket or through the com -
m unity—access that w om en rarely have
as individuals. W here linked w ith land
pooling, joint investm ent, and collective
m anagem ent, these arrangem ents can
also help overcom e any problem s of
sm all size and fragm entation.
M oreover, a collective approach toland m anagem ent helps w om en m obilize
funds for capital investm ent on the farm ,
take advantage of econom ies of scale,
and cooperate in labor sharing and pro-
duct m arketing. In addition, if the land is
held under a system of group rights (as
in the fifth alternative) it w ould strength-
en w om en’s ability to w ithstand pressure
from relatives and retain control over theland; and it w ould circum vent the prob-
lem of inheritance, since the w om en w ould
not have rights of alienation (see Box 4).
It w ould also circum vent the issue of
outside-village m arriages, since w om en’s
rights w ould be based on residence. In
1995, w hen the author asked a num ber
of w om en elected to village panchayats
in M adhya Pradesh w hich arrangem ent
they felt m ight be of m ost advantage tow om en—individual titles, joint titles
w ith husbands, or group rights w ith
other w om en—m ost strongly supported
the idea of group rights (M adhya
Pradesh Chief M inister’s consultation
m eeting in 1995 on the state’s proposed
Policy for W om en).
Som e policym akers and scholars ar-
gue against cooperative farm ing by point-
ing to India’s failed efforts of the 1950sand early 1960s. H ow ever, the focus then
w as on households, and on m ale heads as
V i k s a t , G
u j a r a t
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2 4 • SEEDS
efforts from disparate village households
to disadvantaged individuals w ith com -
m on interests. Focusing on the effects on
poor w om en could open an im portant w in-
dow of opportunity to revive land reform ,
com m unity cooperation, and joint farm -ing in a radically new form .
For trying out som e of these institu-
tional arrangem ents the southern states
representatives of households. N ot only
did gender receive no m ention, but inad-
equate attention w as paid also to socio-
econom ic inequalities betw een house-
holds, w ith the result that cooperatives
w ere often large-farm er dom inated. Acrucial difference in the approaches out-
lined here is that the institutional form s
discussed shift the focus of cooperative
The follow ing quotes capture the changesw om en have experienced:
Our hu sband s used to dri n k and beat
us. Now the buffal oes ar e ou r s, the
land i s our s and they ar e worki ng
too. Nobody i s taki n g advan tage of us
women. (Ratnam m a, A lgole village, cited
in H all 1999)
Now [ wi th land ] we have the cour age
and confi dence to come ou t an d deal
with people and property by our-
selves. (Chilkam m a, K rishnapur village,cited in H all 1999)
Now w e are self-su ffi cien t. [We ar e]
able to get food an d clothi n g…. Pr e-
vi ously we had nothi ng and had to
say yes to everythi ng; now we have sta-
tus because we have the lan d. (Pasta-
pur w om en’s group, cited in H all 1999)
Ini t ial l y the men sai d: If women go to
meeti n gs, what shoul d w e men do—
wash th e di shes? We sai d, men an d
women should w ork equall y… Ar e
we the only persons bor n to work?
Earli er we ate half a r oti , now w e eat
one. (Sharifabi to author 1998)
[Wi th group cul t ivat ion] women can
shar e the pr ofi t and the responsibi li -
ty. In i ndi vidu al cult i vat ion, di f fer-
ent women have different levels of
agr icu l tura l knowledge and re-
sour ces for i npu ts. In collecti ve cu lti -
vation they can make un equal con-
tr i buti ons. Those wi th l ess can com-
pensate the others by taking a re- duced share of the harvest, or by
r epayi ng them i n i n stallments. Di ffer -
en t levels of con tr i buti on ar e fi n e, be- cause the women al l kn ow what each
other’s resour ces are. (Chinanarsam m a,
Pastapur village, cited in H all 1999)
They [ the hi gh-caste peopl e] u sed to
call u s wi th the caste name wh i ch
was very derogatory. They would
also cal l u s i n the si ngul ar for m.
Now they pu t the mother ly [ r espect-
ful ] su ffix and gi ve us equal seats….
It i s onl y because we hav e an orga-
ni zat ion that they [ the land lords] won’t touch us—that th ey ar e scar ed
to cr oss u s. (Ratnam m a, A lgole village,
cited in H all 1999)
[We] foun d that du r i n g the cou r se of
meeti n g, we became a ki n d of mu tu -
al su pport group. If any w oman fel l
i ll or had a pr oblem, the other s woul d
tr y an d help. So it became a habi t to
meet, and w e were not afrai d of fam-
i ly di sapproval . Gradu al ly the fami -
ly r eali zed the importan ce of our
meeti n gs to us and fell si len t. (Singlew om en’s group to author, 1998)
The fir st sense of empowermen t came
to women and men i n the comm un i -
ty when the women star ted leasi ng in
lan d. Men , and especial ly power ful
men i n the vil lages, had the per cep-
ti on that women wer e useless, that as
agr i cultur al labour er s they coul d only
work u nder super vi si on. Thi s per -
cepti on was sli ghtly i ntern ali zed by
the women . The land leases compl ete- ly debun ked this view. (P.V. Satheesh,
D irector of D D S, cited in H all 1999)
Box 4
The Deccan Development Society:Impact ofWomen Acquiring Land and Farming Collectively
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 2 5
could be starting points, since here both
law s and the social context (as noted)
are relatively less gender-biased than in
the northern states.
Infrastructural
The success of w om en’s farm ing efforts,
w hether as individuals or groups, can
depend crucially on their access to infra-
structure. A s noted earlier, there are sig-
nificant gender (in addition to class) in-
equalities in access to credit, labor, other
production inputs (including hired equip-
m ent), and inform ation on new agri-
cultural technologies. Poor w om en culti-vating very sm all plots have the m ost dif-
ficult tim e in this regard.
Prevailing gender biases in the delivery
of governm ent infrastructure thus need
to be rem oved. To som e degree, this could
be done by em ploying m ore w om en in
agricultural input and inform ation del-
ivery system s (w om en extension agents
are often recom m ended for this purpose),
but such system s also need a reorien-tation of m ale functionaries so that they
too contact and assist w om en farm ers.
A lso, dependence on the State alone
m ay not be enough, or have the sam e
potential for success in reaching w om en
as nongovernm ental initiatives. For in-
stance, in credit delivery to poor w om en,
N G O s such as the G ram een B ank in B an-
gladesh and the Self E m ployed W om en’s
A ssociation (SE W A ) in India have beenm ore successful than governm ent agen-
cies. The role of N G O s could sim ilarly be
im portant in providing technical infor-
m ation, production inputs, and m arket-
ing facilities to groups of w om en farm ers.
BRA C in Bangladesh is a case in point:
although it does not focus only on w om -
en, it provides a range of relevant infor-
m ational, technical, and m arket support
services to its m em bers. A system aticprom otion of w om en’s cooperatives for
production inputs and m arketing could
also be considered.
Collective Action
I f today… [ they] who fou ght for the In-
dependence of Ind i a ar e to be den i ed
thei r ju st r i ghts, then ou r har d-ear n ed
freedom i s n o more than a han dful of dust.
—Padm aja N aidu, Congress Legislator
(Parliam entary debates over the H indu
Code B ill, 1951)
For init iating and sustaining the
complexity of changes required to
strengthen women’s land claims in
Indi a, the commi tted i nvolvement of a
r ange of actor s, and especial ly of a wi de
spectrum of women, w i ll be necessar y .
It w ill require various form s of collective
action by w om en, both in relation to
State policy and its im plem entation, and
in relation to land access via the m arket,
the com m unity, and the fam ily. Such col-
lective action should also seek to bring
into its fold gender-progressive elem ents
(m en and w om en) w ithin the State,
political parties, and civil society groups.
A fter over tw o decades of the w om -
en’s m ovem ent in India, m any now rec-ognize the im portance of collective action.
But m uch of the effort to enhance w om -
en’s econom ic em pow erm ent has been
concentrated on issues other than land
(or property), such as better w ages,
group credit schem es, m icro-enterprise
developm ent, and so on. G roup action is
now needed for w om en to gain access to
land, in recognition of its central im por-
tance in m ost rural w om en’s livelihoods,w hether as the prim ary or a supplem en-
tary incom e source.
The local bureaucracy w ould be m ore
likely to register individual w om en’s
claim s in fam ily land if there w ere collec-
tive pressure from gender-progressive
groups. Such organizations could also
provide w om en w ith vital inform ation
about the law s and legal support, if nec-
essary. In fact, a w om an’s group in theSantal Parganas is providing both legal
support and financial help to w om en w ho
w ish to contest their claim s (personal
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2 6 • SEEDS
com m unication from social activist N itya
Rao, Bom bay, 1997). Sim ilarly, SE W A in
G ujarat gives w om en loans to help them
register their nam es as joint ow ners in
their husbands’land (personal com m u-
nication, Renana Jhabvala, 1997).G ender-progressive organizations could
also strengthen w om en’s bargaining
position through econom ic and social
support structures that reduce w om en’s
dependence on m ale relatives, especial-
ly their brothers in w hose favor w om en
often forfeit their claim s As a w om an
m em ber of B R A C tellingly asserted:
“W ell the organization is [now ] m y ‘broth-
er’”(H unt 1983: 38). Such organizationscould also help w om en dem and that the
governm ent put in place a w ell-struc-
tured social security system .
Equally, a collective challenge by w om -
en can facilitate som e change in restric-
tive social norm s. E ven fem ale seclusion
practices can be subject to change
through group challenge. In fact w om en’s
attem pts to collectively challenge purdah
go back a long w ay. In India in the 1920sand 1930s, for instance, m any individuals
and organizations, both H indu and M us-
lim , highlighted the burden and con-
straints im posed on w om en by purdah;
and resolutions against the practice w ere
also passed by a num ber of groups. In the
city of Calcutta, an anti-purdah day be-
cam e an annual event in the 1930s, orga-
nized by the H indu M arw ari business
com m unity (w hich prescribed strictpurdah). In 1940, som e 5,000 w om en
attended an anti-purdah conference.
The w om an president of the conference
arrived in a car driven through the city
by a M arw ari w om an, follow ed by a pro-
cession of M arw ari w om en on foot led by
girls riding on horseback (Forbes 1981)!
Today the challenge to purdah con-
tinues both in India and in other parts of
South A sia. In Bangladesh, for instance,w hile econom ic exigency has created the
need to challenge purdah, group solidar-
ity has strengthened w om en’s ability to
sustain the challenge. As a w om en’s group
organized by B RA C noted in the 1980s:
They said. . . [we] are ruining the
pr esti ge of the vi l lage an d breaki n g
pu r dah .... Now nobody talks il l of u s.
They say: “They have formed a gr oup and now they earn money, i t is
good.” (cited in Chen 1983: 177, 165)
In fact, the experiences of the
G ram een Bank, BRA C, SE W A , and m any
other N G O s w orking w ith poor w om en,
using a group approach, suggest that
som e restrictive social norm s could be
challenged successfully as a by-product
of form ing groups for the m ore effective
delivery of econom ic program s.G roup support for village w om en can
be provided both by separately constitut-
ed groups w hich give w om en specialized
help, and by organizations com prised of
village w om en them selves. The presence
of m ore w om en in the village panchay-
ats, as a result of the one-third reserva-
tion for w om en provided by the 73rd
Constitutional A m endm ent in India in
1992, can also strengthen rural w om en’shands. A lthough sim ply having m ore
w om en in such bodies cannot guarantee
gender-progressive program s, the record
of elected all-w om en village panchayats
preceding the A m endm ent, as in M aha-
rashtra and M adhya Pradesh, leaves
room for optim ism : w om en in these bod-
ies w ere found to be m ore sensitive to
w om en’s concerns and to give priority to
their needs in w ays that m ale panchayatm em bers typically did not (Gandhi and
Shah 1991). W om en’s presence in posi-
tions of authority also has a favorable
dem onstration effect and can change
social attitudes and perceptions about
w om en’s roles. M oreover, village w om en
are m ore likely to take their grievances
to w om en representatives than to all-
m ale bodies.
H ow ever,su pport for women’s lan d claims on a lar ge scale, and beyond
locali zed exp er i men ts, wi ll n eed mu ch
more br oad-based collecti ve acti on by
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 2 7
women . For building such cooperation,
econom ic and social differences betw een
w om en m ight prove to be obstacles on
certain counts. But there are still signif-
icant areas of m utual benefit that cut
across class/caste lines, around w hichsuccessful cooperation w ould be possi-
ble, and w hich could serve as starting
points. O ne is legal reform . W om en of
both rich and poor peasant households
w ith a stake in fam ily land stand to gain
from gender-equal inheritance law s.
M any people m istakenly assum e that the
percentage of such w om en is sm all. In
fact it is substantial: despite the highly
skew ed distribution of land, som e 89percent of rural Indian households ow n
som e land, even if m ost ow n only sm all
plots. E qually, challenging restrictive so-
cial norm s w ill bring benefits for w om en
of both w ell-off and poor households.
The experience of the w om en’s m ove-
m ent in India also indicates that w om en
of different socioeconom ic backgrounds
can cooperate strategically for legal re-
form , as they did in cam paigns to am enddow ry and rape law s, despite differences
in ideologies, agendas, and social com -
position. M oreover, m any urban m iddle-
class w om en activists have played and
continue to play im portant roles in pro-
m oting poor rural w om en’s econom ic and
social concerns, such as supporting their
cam paigns for higher w ages, and their
program s for w asteland m anagem ent,
credit, and sm all-enterprise developm ent.In m ore recent years, there have been
also som e significant cases of m iddle-
class activists prom oting poor w om en’s
land claim s, as in the B odhgaya m ove-
m ent in Bihar, the Shetkari Sanghatana
in M aharashtra, and the D D S in A ndhra
Pradesh. These experiences again indi-
cate that cooperation betw een w om en,
w hich cuts across econom ic and social
heterogeneity, is possible on a num ber ofissues and in varied contexts.
A ll said, there now appears to be a
favorable clim ate for raising the question
of w om en’s independent claim s to land
and livelihood, and it is im perative to do
so, given the noted im portance of land in
w om en’s lives. Som e N G O s w hich earlier
concentrated on other issues are now
beginning to focus on w om en’s propertyissues, including agricultural land and
hom estead plots in rural areas, and
dw elling houses in urban areas. Cases in
point are SE W A in G ujarat, A ction India
in D elhi, and the A ssociation for Land
Reform and D evelopm ent in B angladesh.
Several grassroots groups and develop-
m ent organizations in South A sia have
held w orkshops on the question of w om -
en and land in recent years. In N epal am ovem ent has been ongoing for several
years spearheaded by fem inist law yers
for reform ing gender-unequal inheri-
tance law s. A num ber of South A sian
w om en’s groups also have been arguing
for gender equality in inheritance law s
by em phasizing that their constitutions
prom ise equal treatm ent of w om en and
m en. M oreover, w om en’s groups that
have not raised the issue of w om en’sland and property claim s directly have
still, over the years, spread an aw are-
ness of gender concerns. This has creat-
ed an environm ent w ithin w hich w om -
en’s claim s to land can be placed m ore
centrally in the arena of public con-
cerns—som ething that w as not easy to
do tw enty years ago.
A w indow of opportunity is also pro-
vided by the grow ing attention beinggiven to w atershed developm ent and
localized irrigation schem es by a num ber
of N G O s and som e governm ent agen-
cies, in several parts of South A sia. But
once land becom es m ore valuable w ith
the availability of irrigation, w om en’s
land claim s are unlikely to be recog-
nized. The opportune tim e to establish
w om en’s claim s is during the process of
developing the w atershed or irrigationfacility, not afterw ard.
M oreover, as noted, there needs to be
a shift aw ay from the overw helm ing pre-
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2 8 • SEEDS
occupation of m ost rural N G O s, donor
agencies, and governm ents w ith m icro-
credit delivery tow ard the creation of
productive assets, especially landed as-
sets, in w om en’s ow n hands, and tow ard
enhancing w om en’s capacities as farm -ers. In this context, w om en’s rights in
arable land and hom esteads need to
becom e a central part of the developm ent
discourse. H ere developm ent agencies
that fund research or grassroots action
could also play a significant positive role.
In seeking change, the aforem entioned
regional variations in w om en’s social po-
sition and hence in the extent of opposi-
tion to w om en’s land claim s could be putto useful effect, for instance by initially
building a m om entum for change in re-
gions of less opposition (such as in the
southern states of India), and then w ork-
ing for change in the m ore resistant
regions.
Finally, given that this issue is signifi-
cant and relevant for w om en in m any
countries, there is scope here for sharing
experiences and strategies for change;for building horizontal linkages betw een
groups w ith sim ilar goals; and for inter-
national coalitions both betw een South
A sian countries and betw een South A sia
and other parts of the globe. This w ould
be facilitated by em erging international
support for w om en’s claim s in property.
The Convention on the E lim ination of A ll
Form s of D iscrim ination A gainst W om en
(CE D AW ) has focused on equality in
property as one of its im portant direc-tives. The U nited N ations Conference on
H um an Settlem ents at its Istanbul m eet-
ing in 1996 also focused centrally on
w om en and land. Since then the H uairou
C om m ission in conjunction w ith the
U N D P, H abitat, W E D O , and the W om en’s
Caucus of the U N Com m ission on Sus-
tainable D evelopm ent has held several
discussions w ith w om en’s groups w orld-
w ide, to exam ine regional progress in en-hancing w om en’s access to land and prop-
erty.The H uairou Com m ission is also re-
questing support for a global cam paign to
prom ote w om en’s claim s in land and prop-
erty, and in housing rights for the urban
poor under the auspices of the U nited
N ations Center for H um an Settlem ents.
A ll these national, regional, and inter-
national efforts that are beginning to
em erge suggest that today the clim ate iscertainly m ore favorable than it w as tw o
decades ago, for responding positively to
the concerns raised by poor w om en in
W est Bengal: “W hy don’t w e get a title?
A re w e not peasants?”
I n d i a n
A
g r i c u l t u r a l R
e s e a r c h I
n s t i t u t e , D
e l h i
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N u m b e r 21, 2 00 2 • 2 9
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Editor:Sandy SchilenEditorial and Production Coordinator: M onica Rocha
Designer: M ike Vosika
Cover Photo:Preeti Schaden
SEEDS Advisory Committee
J udith Bruce(Population Council)
Marty Chen (H arvard U niversity)
Monique Cohen (U SA ID )
Caren Grown (International Center for Research on W om en)
Ann Leonard (Consultant) J oyce Malombe (New H am pshire College)
Katharine McKee (U SA ID )
Aruna Rao (Consultant)
Mildred Warner (Cornell U niversity)Corinne Whitaker (International W om en’s H ealth Coalition)
N o. 11 Port Sudan Sm all Scale E nterprise
Program —Sudan (English)
N o. 12 The M uek-Lek W om en’s D airy Proj-
ect in Thailand (English)
N o. 13 Child Care: M eeting the N eeds of
W orking M others and T heir C hildren
(English, Spanish)
N o. 14 Breaking N ew G round: Reaching O ut
to W om en Farm ers in W estern Zam -
bia (E nglish, Spanish, French)
N o. 15 Self-E m ploym ent as a M eans to
W om en’s Econom ic Self-Sufficiency:
W om en Venture’s Business D evelop-
m ent Program (English)
N o. 16 W asteland D evelopm ent and the E m -
pow erm ent of W om en: The SA RT H I
E xperience (French, H indi)
N o. 17 Supporting W om en F arm ers in the
G reen Zones of M ozam bique (English)N o. 18 O ut of the Shadow s: H om ebased
W orkers O rganize for International
Recognition (E nglish)
N o. 19 E m pow ering the N ext G eneration:
G irls of the M aqattam G arbage Set-
tlem ent (E nglish, A rabic)
N o. 20 W om en Street Vendors: The Road to
Recognition (E nglish)
N o. 2 H anover Street: A n E xperim ent to
Train W om en in W elding and Car-
pentry—Jam aica (E nglish, Spanish)
N o. 3 M arket W om en’s Cooperatives: G iv-
ing W om en C redit—N icaragua (Span-
ish,French)
N o. 4 W om en and H andicrafts: M yth and
Reality—International (E nglish, Span-
ish,French)
N o. 5 The M arkala Cooperative: A N ew A p-
proach to Traditional E conom ic
Roles—M ali (French)
N o. 6 The W orking W om en’s Forum : O rgan-
izing for Credit and C hange—India
(French)
N o. 7 D eveloping N on-C raft E m ploym ent
for W om en in B angladesh (E nglish,
French, Spanish)
N o. 8 Com m unity M anagem ent of W aste Re-cycling: The SIRD O—M exico (E ng-
lish, Spanish)
N o. 9 The W om en’s Construction Collective:
B uilding for the F uture—Jam aica
(English, Spanish)
N o. 10 Forest Conservation in N epal: E n-
couraging W om en’s P articipation
(English, Spanish, French, N epali)
Other Editions of SEEDS Currently Available
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e-m ail to: seeds@ popcouncil.org. Copies of selected SE E D S issues in local languages have been pub-lished by organizations in the follow ing countries: E gypt, India, Indonesia, K enya, N epal, Pakistan,
Thailand, and Vietnam . Please w rite to us for m ore inform ation if you are interested in these m ateri-
als. M ost past editions of SE E D S are also available online at: w w w.popcouncil.org/publications.
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