This is a two-part series, highlighting the burgeoning debate of land access and traces the discrepancies in the process of securing land access for women. It further examines the congruence that exists between the access to land for women and their identity. Part 1 underlines how the influence of international and national level frameworks is limited in character and has not been able to make any significant contribution towards the entitlement of land access to women. Part conceptualizes that women’s access to land should be studied with respect to the women’s class, in this case, her caste.
Debates around land stand at the cornerstone of deliberations around poverty, employment, food security as well as preservation of rights for the indigenous and marginalized populations across the globe. Despite the wide-ranged porosity of the land debate across diverse development debates, the attention given to the subject of gender justice is not adequate.
The lack of attention needs to be scrutinized since women comprise just over 40% of the agricultural labor force in the developing world. The highest contributors are Asian women, with South Asian women comprising 35% of the agricultural labor. Despite the notable contribution of women, their access to land rights in Asia is precarious. Merely 10.9% of women have agricultural holdings against 89% men with agricultural holdings in Asia. The relative deprivation of women vis-à-vis men calls for attention to the gendered constructions, which impinge on women’s access to land.
According to a 2013 report by the IDFC Rural Development Network, agriculture is central to the Indian economy and about 69% of the total population is rural. 70% of this rural population, or nearly half of all Indians, still depend on land and land-based activities for their livelihoods. Land ownership in India is also linked to the identity, status and position of the individual with respect to her/his socio-economic milieu. Land in India is also often an indicator of security and political power in a village setting.
The idea of women securing land access and rights is a recent phenomenon in India. In the past, it was not considered as important, given the fact that gender-based discussions were not credited to play any crucial role in the development dynamics of India. This led to the widening of the gap between gender and the questions of land rights, so much so that gender was not considered to play any role in regard to the discussions of land rights.
However, once the decade 1975-85 was declared as the decade for women, there occurred a huge surge in gender-related information, from policy to implementation, even gender-based documentation was being produced extensively. International frameworks acted as catalysts for change in the national policy-making processes in order to establish gender-specific information and help lessen the gender-gap.
Gender-based specifications directed India to also produce information that would show the position of women from diverse sectors, such as the 1979 National Committee to review and analyze participation of women in agriculture and Rural Development, set up by the Ministry of Agriculture in India.
One such other recent instance is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) embracing gender dynamics; Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls: (5.a) undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources in accordance with national laws- national laws (UNDP, 2016).
The achievement of this SDG becomes daunting in the Indian context, given that the agricultural sector employs around 80% of all economically active women in the country. 48% of India’s self-employed farmers are women. There are 75 million women engaged in dairying as against 15 million men and 20 million in animal husbandry as compared to 1.5 million men. While women are central to agricultural activities and show more involvement, what is baffling is that merely 11.7% of Indian women are agricultural holders in comparison to 88.3% of male population, according to the data from FAO gender and Land Rights Database.
This disparity of 76.5% highlights the precarious position of women in achieving access to land and signals at gender-based deprivation and poverty. Despite international efforts and the formulation of the Sixth- and Seventh-Year Financial Plans in India that dedicated a chapter on women and development, nothing substantive has changed with regard to the control of land for women.
Pallavi Karnatak
March 20, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/part-1-the-landless-women-of-india/
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