Land and Women A Case of Uttar Pradesh Inheritance and Government Transfer The Role of culture and norms Claims by Women Efforts by Landesa

1. Women Land Rights
Issues and Initiatives in UP
5th April 2017
Shipra Deo

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Outline
• Land and Women
• A Case of Uttar Pradesh
• Inheritance and Government Transfer
• The Role of culture and norms
• Claims by Women
• Efforts by Landesa
4/5/2017

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Land and Women • A key that unlocks a world of
possibilities, gives rural families –
men and women - hope, opportunity,
and the tools to lift themselves out of
poverty and inequality.
• To fully tap the transformative power
of land rights, men and women must
hold them equally.
• Ownership of land is directly related
to women’s agency, power,
assertion, ability to negotiate, resist
violence etc.
• Better outcomes on health,
education, nutrition are associated
with women’s land ownership

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• 45 % of rural households in UP are
landless (SECC, 2011)
• Only 7% of the total operational
holdings and 6% of the land area
are operated by women in Uttar
Pradesh. (Agricultural Census,
2010-11)
• In a study of four villages in Jaunpur
and Mirzapur, 8.5 per cent to 13 per
cent women have land in their
names
• In the survey of 1575 women,
82.73% of the total women
respondents did not know about any
women in the family or village
owning any land.
Women and Land in Uttar Pradesh

5. Women land rights are determined
by a complex web of inter-relations
between the culture and norms
surrounding formal and informal institutions.
Women’s Rights – Prisoners of Patriarchy

6. • Contradictions in spirits to HSAA
• Unmarried daughter is at similar
line of heir with son. If she gets
married, her share goes back.
• Son’s daughter is above
daughter’s son.
• Daughter’s daughter nowhere
• All widows are equal to each son
• Succession to women – widow
who has remarried is excluded.
• A huge gap between ownership
and effective control
Inheritance in UP

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• She is Anju, 16, eldest of 6
sisters.
• Her father passed away two
years back.
• He had a share of 50% in the
30 bighas of family land.
• Anju or her mother could not
get any of the land.
Deprived of Her Own Rights

8. Government Land Transfers In UP
• Land Allocation through Land
Management Committee
• 33% are typically headed by
women
• 33% members of LMC are also
women
• Joint patta allocation –
provision in the revenue code
• Language of articulation is
biased
• Violation is the norm

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Negated as an individual
• She is Mansa, 30, mother
of 2
• Her husband was abusive.
She filed a divorce case
and came to her parental
home
• After her father passed
away, she stayed with her
brothers for a while but they
threw her out.
• Land Management
Committee is not ready to
allocate land to her.

10. Long-lasting codes of conduct, norms, traditions
• Customs and practices –
reinforce that women are
secondary beings
• Rigid norms of good woman
and bad woman
• Strong reluctance to endowing
daughter's with land.
• Women forego their rights in
favour of their brothers – this is
apprecaited

11. • Women …. and Land…?
• Government functionaries share the prevailing social biases
• They struggle between the policy for rights and equality (that
comes from international and national discourses and
commitments – CEDAW, SDGs, National Policy for Women)
and their own beliefs and attitudes as part of culture
• Result –
Inefficient implementation of policies that
themselves are limited
Administrative Bias

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• Socially reinforced practices can
block choices that enhance agency
and promote well being and
prevent individuals from even
conceiving of certain course of
action, as when discrimination and
inequality sometimes leads
people, understandably, to adopt
low aspirations.
• Government should act when
inadequate engagement,
situational framing, and social
practices undermine agency and
create or perpetuate poverty.
World Development Report 2015

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Claim making by Women
• Resistance by Women is as old as suppression itself
• Individual resistance
• Collective Strength creates enabling environment
• Vamashakti, Aaroh campaign, Gulabi gang
• Landesa working at multiple level
o Women are getting to know their rights
o Women’s cell in tehsil spaces
o Discussion with stakeholders – pradhans, lekhpals
o Community based model for identification of landless
o Persuing land allocation
o dictribution of pattas through distribution
o Working closely with government

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Women want land
“Now we are ‘saksham’; we
have freedom of movement,
self confidence, and
independence. We can manage
our own assets and our life.”
“Agar zameen mil jaaye to phir
keu kea age haath na phailawe
ka padi. Hum itna dum rakhit
hai didi, ki khud jot boye ka
aapan kharcha nikal saki”

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