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Prodded, govt mulls ordinance tweak -Basant Kumar Mohanty
-The Telegraph

Prithla (Haryana): The noise from the factories and traffic cannot drown out the slogan resonating along the Delhi-Mathura highway, demanding a right to land for all and the scrapping of the land acquisition ordinance.

"Sabki bhuk mitana hai to bhumi grahan ardhyadesh radh karo, bhumi samasya hal karo (To remove hunger, dump the ordinance and solve the problem of the landless)," goes the chant.

Some 5,000 landless people and marginal farmers from 15-odd states began a march to Delhi yesterday from Palwal in Haryana, about 60km away.

Anam Singh, a landless villager from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, had marched on this highway three times before with the same demand. Those protests had yielded promises but no tangible results.

The father of five, a day labourer, is back again, riding the hope of getting land in his lifetime.

"I was given a patta for a plot in 2002 by the district authorities in Vidisha but never got physical possession," Anam said.

The marchers have gathered under the banner of the Ekta Parishad, an NGO working for the landless, who make up 30 per cent of the population. Another 30 per cent is near-landless. Eight million rural households - four per cent of all Indian households - do not own houses.

Social activists Anna Hazare, Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy were at the launch of the march, which is expected to reach the capital on Tuesday.

The protesters will sit on a dharna at Jantar Mantar for two days demanding abolition of the land acquisition ordinance, right to homestead land, and distribution of ceiling-excess land among the landless.

Like Anam, Bhurelal Singh from Bharatpur in Chhattisgarh never got the five acres he was awarded in 1975. "Official records show the government has given land to me. But it was Bhoodan land, which the donors have reoccupied," Bhurelal said.

A survey has found that half the 47 lakh acres donated by rich landowners during Gandhian leader Vinoba Bhave's 1950s Bhoodan (land donation) movement remain undistributed among the landless poor. This is mainly because the donors' descendants have retaken possession.

Stalled reforms

The previous march by the Ekta Parishad had taken place in 2012, with the protesters setting out from Gwalior. When they reached Agra, then Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh struck a ten-point agreement with the Parishad.

Among the promises were a bill granting the right to homestead land and a land reforms policy advising states how to distribute ceiling-surplus land among the landless.

Indeed, the UPA government formulated a draft land reforms policy - but it never reached the cabinet.

All the states - on whom the policy was not binding anyway - objected on the ground that it encroached on their domain, land being a state subject. Many states also slammed a provision seeking a revision of their land ceiling for individual households so that more land could be freed up for redistribution.

The policy said all ceiling-surplus land - whether possessed by individuals, plantation farms or religious trusts - should be redistributed along with the encroached-on Bhoodan plots and common landholdings in villages. Wasteland should be reclaimed for redistribution too.

Former BJP leader K.N. Govindacharya said the states' failure to enforce their land ceiling laws had worsened the situation.

"The government must push land reforms in consultation with the states," he said.

The protesters want the Narendra Modi government to take its predecessor's stalled land reforms policy forward, Parishad president P.V. Rajagopal said.

Sources in the rural development ministry said the Modi government had not yet hinted at any plans for a land reforms policy.

Rajagopal argued that the proposed right to own homestead land of at least ten cents (4,400sqft) would not just allow a landless and homeless family to live with dignity but also provide it with social security and social insurance.

Ordinance woes

Rajagopal described the recent land acquisition ordinance as "anti-farmer". The ordinance tries to ease land acquisition for defence projects, rural housing and electrification, industrial corridors and public-private-partnership infrastructure projects by waiving the need for landowners' consent and a social impact study.

Rural development ministry sources defended the ordinance and said the government planned to introduce a bill in Parliament next week to replace it.

"Under the 2013 land acquisition law (fashioned and steered through Parliament by the UPA government), it would take almost five years to acquire a plot," a source said. "The ordinance seeks to reduce the time limit and smoothes the process."

No acquisition had happened under the 2013 law till June last year, the source said, prompting the state governments to ask the Centre to amend the law which they said was hampering industrial growth.

The Congress has said it would not support the new bill that would be introduced to replace the ordinance.

In 2006, the Parishad had organised its first protest march by the landless. The following year it held a second, after which the government set up a National Land Reforms Council to look into land issues.

The council, headed by the Prime Minister, has not met even once since its inception eight years ago.