Within days of the Janadesh yatra reaching the Indian capital, the government has acknowledged the power of India's landless foot-soldiers, setting up a body headed by the prime minister to examine the pressing issue of pro-poor land reform

The Indian government has announced the formation of a National Land Reforms Council that will formulate a National Land Reforms Policy, in response to the demands of the Janadesh yatra 2007, a national march of 28,000 landless people for pro-poor land reforms that reached the Indian capital New Delhi on October 28. However, since land is a state subject it is unclear how the central government will enforce any land redistribution policy that the council may recommend.

The council, likely to be a political-level body with representation from the states as well as the Centre and headed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, will take a 'holistic approach' to land reforms and related land management issues. It will update and computerise all land records in the next five years, said Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, on October 29.

The council will be assisted by an Expert Committee on State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms, to be chaired by the rural development minister. The committee has a mandate to study all issues relating to land, including crucial state-agrarian relations.

Comprising experts from related specialisations and fields, the committee will examine the demands of the ongoing land rights agitation, carry out necessary field surveys and studies, and collate data on land issues.

The broad terms of reference of the committee will, among others, include detailed consideration of and recommendations on issues related to ceiling on landholdings, distribution of land to eligible persons, including the landless and homestead landless, and ensuring their possession, speedy disposal of land-related court cases and necessary mechanisms for the same, including the setting up of fast-track courts at various levels.

It will then make specific recommendations to the Land Reforms Council on policies related to land, which will be considered by the Indian government for appropriate action and suitable recommendation and advice to various state governments. The committee?s recommendations will be advisory in nature and will also take into account coordination and monitoring of the status in the field.

The setting up of the committee and finalisation of committee recommendations will be within a clear timeframe. Singh has promised that the committee will be in place within a month and will submit its recommendations within three months.

The formal announcement about the two bodies was made on October 29 after the rural development minister met the prime minister to work out the finer details. Prasad made the initial announcement a day earlier when he addressed the Janadesh marchers who were camped at the capital?s Ramlila grounds after being denied permission to hold a sit-in outside Parliament.

Earlier, addressing the marchers, P V Rajgopal, president of Ekta Parishad, the civil society organisation that organised the march, warned that if the government did not talk to the landless people it should begin ?making arrangements for picking up the bodies of those who had participated in the march?.

Rajgopal pointed out that all landless people wanted were dignity and bread. ?These people are tired and are suffering from malnutrition. If the government delays listening to our demands, I fear the number of martyrs will go up,? he said, adding that there was little point returning if they had to go back to the same old system. ?These villagers are not ready to go back empty-handed. This is an initiative to bring land reforms centrestage in rural development policies.?

The Ekta Parishad president said dispossession of land and displacement were not phenomena restricted to tribals and dalits. ?Today, village land in thousands of acres is being acquired in the name of Special Economic Zones (SEZs); small shopkeepers are being forced to close their businesses as corporate giants are entering the retail business. The government does not want the people to become self-reliant and is doing everything to ensure that we become dependent on ?outsiders? for everything.?

Since early October, in one of the largest mass mobilisations of people in India, hundreds of thousands of people who have been deprived of land rights -- agricultural labourers (tillers), tribals and dalits -- from 18 Indian states walked 340 km in 24 days to demand their right to land and livelihoods.

Their key demands include the setting up of a National Land Authority to provide a clear statement on land utilisation in the country, identify lands available for redistribution, and regularise holdings of the poor and marginal peasantry, fast-track courts to settle pending disputes and conflicts related to land, and a single-window system at the district level for land and livelihood disputes.

They were joined by more than 250 civil society activists from 30 foreign nations in an unprecedented show of solidarity. Noted Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande, social activist Swami Agnivesh, environmentalist Sunder Lal Bahuguna, Magsaysay award-winner Rajendra Singh, and farmer leader from Madhya Pradesh Sunilam also lent their support to the cause.

Source: The Hindu, October 30, 2007
              The Indian Express, October 30, 2007
              www.ndtv.com, October 29, 2007
              PTI, October 29, 2007