Pakistan has had three doses of land reform, Ayub Khan’s package in 1959, Bhutto’s first in 1972 and his second in 1976. Land ceiling was reduced in that order, but implementation was in the reverse order. The process came to a standstill as a result of a Shariat court ruling.

In his first, which also turned out to be the last, “Qaum se khatab”, the first Prime Minister under the present dispensation declared emphatically that there would be no more land reform. And there the matter rests.

In a sharp contrast, India had an early and comprehensive dose of land reform. It has, in general, been seen as an effective package and a major contributory factor in India’s sustained movement on the path of democratic development. And yet the land hunger continues, suggesting the need to do more. I was in India last week to attend the fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights held in Hyderabad and had hoped to write on the subject this week. It will have to wait as I started to follow up a developing story. My entry point was Delhi which was abuzz with the news of Janadesh-2007, a long march of kissans approaching Delhi. Janadesh means “People’s Verdict”.

Numbering around 25,000, they were coming from 12 states from across India. The march started on foot, many in it barefoot, on Gandhi’s birthday a month ago and culminated in Delhi on October 29. It included adivasis, dalits, bonded farm workers and fisherfolks. A story published in the Outlook magazine brought out the reasons for this march of the hungry – for land as well as food. They are no different from the stories we hear nearer home. There were landless dalits from Tamil Nadu who had been allotted land under the 1961 Land Ceiling Act. It took them four decades of litigation to get the title. They were now protesting for possession. The chances of possession can be judged by the fact that a dalit elected panchayat head was never allowed to hold office by the de facto local ruler, a high caste landowner, his rule accepted by the collector as a social norm. There were farmers affected by the Special Economic Zones in Rajasthan and Agra. There were also those served with notices of eviction as a result of the expansion of Kanha National Park

An organiser of the march placed it in the wider context: “The public distribution system isn’t working, government schools and hospitals aren’t working and the system is corrupt and inefficient. Yet, there is so much enthusiasm for anti-poor laws, like SEZs and the Land Acquisition Act. Is development intended to help the poor? Or is it a profit-making business?” These people wanted their dignity, their bread. The demands the marchers were making provides a good list of some of our own problems. These included the setting up of a national land authority to issue a clear official statement on land utilisation, identify lands available for redistribution and regularise holdings of the poor and the marginalised. A most important demand was to establish fast-track courts to settle land disputes, past and present. They were seeking a one-window operation to ensure transparency and timeliness.

On October 28, the marchers reached Delhi after covering a distance of about 350 kms and congregated in the Ramlila Grounds. Their destination was the Parliament Street. There were mixed reports of whether or not they would be allowed. The march had been extremely disciplined and peaceful. The erosion of land rights over the years has led to considerable social unrest. Suicides by farmers have been reported from over a hundred districts. More than 170 districts in India have pockets of Naxal insurgencies. There were reports of two major Naxal attacks while I was there, one involving the family of a former chief minister.

What happened on October 29? The father of economic reform in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sent a minister to address the landless. A National Land Reforms Council has been set up, with representation from the central as well as state governments. The prime minister himself will chair it. Its task has been defined to devise a holistic approach towards land reforms and land management issues.

Specifically, the Council will come out with a National Land Reforms Policy. This political body will be assisted by an experts body, State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task in Land Reforms, headed by the Rural Development Minister. Its terms of reference include review of past land reforms, distribution of ceiling surplus land and wasteland, tenancy rights to the tiller and setting up of fast-track, time-bound courts.

The cynics say that the Congress’s own record on land reform is not very impressive. It failed to revive the land reform unit in the Rural Development Ministry. Under Sonia Gandhi’s pressure, the Tribal Land Act passed by the Parliament in last December has not been notified. Critics say that land reforms is a state subject and there is not much that the Union government can do. The allies of the Congress opposing the 123 nuclear deal with the United States support the initiative. The beneficiaries of the free-market India believe it is political angling and positioning for the elections.

There are elections to be held in Pakistan well before India. The political parties must be working these days on their manifestoes. Is the issue of land reform, of the increasing landlessness on their agenda? The little one hears relates to some peripheral agrarian reform, but nothing of substance is said on the land question. One also hears the argument that the issue is not land redistribution, but its productivity. They are advised to read some of the stuff even the World Bank has recently been producing on land reform. Do the political parties realise that poverty in Pakistan is largely rural and its major cause is asset-less-ness, which in this case is land? The path to sustainable democracy and development is not through a certain view of checks and balances and economic reform, but by satisfying the land hunger in a way that also breaks the back of feudalism. This will complete the agenda of economic reform.

Let land reform be the centre-piece of the so-called second generation reform, before we have another generation lost.