Reality far from the legal provisions

Expressbuzz.com, 28th March, 2009

BHUBANESWAR: Gender equity can only come through right to ‘power’ and ‘property’, but sadly, the Indian Parliament is yet to pass a legislation allowing 33 per cent reservation for women. Even history tells how the Congress party agreed to accord rights to women voters after so much persuasion by its women members starting since 1930s! But still today the right to land for women is not practised except states like Manipur. And to discuss on the issue a two-day State-level consultation was organised by Jana Kalyan Sanstha (JKS), Bhawanipatna here.
‘‘Even now over 70 per cent of women live by working on land. Their status in most cases is worse than that of daily wage labourers, who at least get daily payment. Women working on their family land are neither entitled to ownership of land nor the income accruing from it’’, said JKS chief Bharat Bhusan Thakur.
‘‘In a tribal belt where the below poverty line (BPL) population is between 70 and 80 per cent, the land owned by the government is more than 75 to 80 percent which shows the right to land for the poor is yet to be achieved despite promulgation of Forest Rights Act’’, he added.
Bhoodan activist Gouranga Mohapatra suggested equal distribution of land as the only means to solve poverty and violence like Naxalism.
‘‘If the transparency and honesty are not practiced properly, the voters’ council as proposed by Vinoba Bhave may be inducted by the public units to call back the peoples’ representatives, who are not fulfilling the indicators of accountability and dedication’’, he said, adding women rights over land are also introduced by Bhoodan as families headed by women were given priority.
Orissa High Court advocate CR Nanda said Hindu Succession Act (1956) and its amended version applies only to Hindu women and leaves Muslim and tribal women outside its ambit. Even the Muslim Personal (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 guarantees that daughters and widows cannot be excluded by any other heir and are protected by the overall testamentary restrictions.
‘‘The most critical challenge, however, will be to ensure that this legislation is applied in practice,’’ he said.
Land ceiling laws systematically exclude women from inheriting land because our government laws recognise only the share of sons as worthy of computation when a family is dividing landed property, he added.