Land reforms aim to change laws regarding land ownership to redistribute land in a more equitable manner. Historically, land reform transferred ownership from large landowners to those working the land. Objectives of land reform include political, social and economic goals like abolishing feudalism, increasing agricultural productivity, and promoting optimum farm sizes. In Pakistan, land ownership has been concentrated among rural elites, so land reforms were introduced in 1959, 1972, and 1976 to limit individual landholdings and redistribute excess land. Land formalization is the process of codifying informal land rights and bringing land under state regulation, while land grabbing refers to large-scale acquisition of land that negatively impacts local people and lacks their consent. Land grabbing is an issue in

1. Concepts of,
By Shehzad Ali
Land Reform
Land Formalization
Land Grabbing
in Pakistan

2. What is Land Reforms?
Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land
reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally
of agricultural land. Land reform can, therefore, refer to transfer of ownership from the more powerful
to the less powerful, such as from a relatively small number of wealthy owners with extensive land
holdings to individual ownership by those who work the land.

3. Historically, land reform meant reform of the tenure system or redistribution of the land ownership
rights. In recent decades the concept has been broadened in recognition of the strategic role of land
and agriculture in development. Land reform has therefore become synonymous with agrarian
reform or a rapid improvement of the agrarian structure, which comprises the land tenure system,
the pattern of cultivation and farm organization, the scale of farm operation, the terms of tenancy,
and the institutions of rural credit, marketing, and education. It also deals with the state of
technology, or with any combination of these factors, as shown by modern reform movements,
regardless of the political or ideological orientation of the reformers.

4. Objectives of Land Reforms
Reform is usually introduced by government initiative or in response to
internal and external pressures, to resolve or prevent an economic,
social, or political crisis. Thus reform may be considered a problem-
solving mechanism. The true motives for reform, however, may well
differ from those announced by the reformer. The distinction between
the real and proclaimed objectives may be especially significant if the
proclaimed objectives have been forced upon reformers who do not
support those objectives.

5. 1. Political and social objectives
• The most common proclaimed objective of land reform is to abolish feudalism, which usually means
overthrowing the landlord class and transferring its powers to the reforming elite or its surrogates.
• Another common objective is to free the peasants from subjugation to and dependence on the
exploiters and make them active citizens by restoring what assuredly had been taken away from
them.
• A third objective is to create democracy —a stated purpose of both capitalist and, in the 20th century,
communist reformers. Most capitalist reforms are based on the premise that individual private
ownership in the form of independent family farms will promote and sustain democratic institutions.
• All land reforms emphasize the need to improve the peasants’ social conditions and status, to
alleviate poverty, and to redistribute income and wealth in their favor.

6. 2. Economic Objectives
• Economic development has become a major objective of governments and political parties in recent
decades. Efforts have been made to encourage agricultural progress by means of agrarian reform in
favor of the peasant who does not own his land or whose share of the crop is relatively small, and
who therefore has little incentive to invest capital or expend effort to improve the land and raise
productivity.
• Another mechanism has been to encourage labor-intensive cultivation, on the assumption that
traditional or feudal landowners often use their land extensively and wastefully.
• An equally important economic objective is to promote optimum-scale farming operations. Excessively
large farms (latifundia) and excessively small farms (minifundia) tend to be inefficient. Therefore,
reform aims at creating farms of optimum size given the land quality, the crop, and the level of
technology.

7. Land reforms in Pakistan
The perpetuation of the colonial legacy has
had the picture of land ownership in
Pakistan very much slant toward the landed
and political elites. As per an estimate,
nearly four percent of the affluent rural
aristocrats monopolize almost half the
cultivated land in Pakistan. Since majority of
the country’s population lives in the rural
areas, its bread and butter mostly hinges on
the farming activities. Introducing tangible
and effective land reforms has, no doubt,
been vital to a country like Pakistan where
there are sheer income inequalities, and the
gulf between the have-nots and have-lots is
ever widening.

8. Waves of land reforms
The subject of a grave controversy, any discourse on the need for land
reforms is whitewashed and is made to look sacrilegious. The land reforms
in Pakistan had a chequered history. As stated above, the British felt no
need to disturb the status quo as their imperial rule survived on the support
of feudal lords. Whatever limited and ineffective measures of reforms were
put into the motion straightway, they all dated from the years following
independence. However, no such initiative was taken on the western part
of the country till the martial law regime of Ayub khan.
The land reforms in Pakistan can be traced to three waves.

9. 1. The First Wave (1959)
Upon the installation of the martial law regime in 1958, Ayub
Khan set up a Land Reform Commission on October 31, 1958,
to suggest a thorough shake-up of the agricultural setup of the
country. The reforms known as “Ayub Land Reforms” were
carried out under the West Pakistan Land Reforms Regulation
1959. Its salient features included:
(a) None to hold more than 500 acres of irrigated land.
(b) The ownership of the un-irrigated land was fixed at 1000
acres.
(c) Jagirs to be abolished without any compensation.
(d) Additional land in the form of orchards to be owned up to
150 acres.
It also provided for the redistribution of lands amongst the
tenants, and others.

10. 2. The Second Wave (1972)
The Land Reforms 1972, also called “Bhutto Land Reforms, 1972”
constitute the second wave that followed the establishment of Z.A.
Bhutto’s democratic government.
Its salient features were:
(a) According to paragraph 8(1), none to be in excess of 150 acres
of irrigated land, or 300 of un-irrigated land, or an area equivalent
to 15000 PIU (Produce Index Units).
(b) Upon owning a tractor, or having installed a tube-well of at least
10 HP, additional land of 3000 PIU to be possessed.
(c) Land in excess of these limits to be taken without any
compensation. The same will be distributed among the tenants.
(d) Land allocated to the tenants not to exceed the subsistence
holding.
(e) Landlords to shoulder the expenses of: land revenue, water
charges, seed, cesses, etc.

11. The Sardari system untouched by the previous Ayub regime was wrapped up by Bhutto on April 8,
1976, through the System of Sardari (Abolition) Ordinance. It made illegal for Sardars to receive
“Nazranas,” exercise judicial powers, maintain private jails, employ free labor and incarcerate
anyone. This was a major move as even Ayub Khan had avoided inviting the wrath of the Baloch
Sardars by interfering with the institution of Sardari system.

12. What is land formalization?
“Formalization” can be defined as the replacement of
informal ownership, access, and economic activity
through the “recognition and inscription by the State
of rights and conditions of access” and within specific
boundaries or, alternatively, as “processes of
identifying interests, adjudicating them and
registering them” or codification of any informal or
customary rule or practice.
Formalization is the codification of rights to own,
access, or trade land and resources in a written legal
or regulatory canon that is accepted by the State.

13. The term “informal sector” appeared in the 1970s to
characterize unregistered labor and was popularized
by the International Labor Organization to refer to
small-scale low-technology, low-productivity, and
low-income activities important to local livelihoods.
In the context of land tenure, natural resource
management, and sustainable development, the
informal sector has often been perceived as a
challenge to those who believe the state is the agent
that will accomplish sustainable development
through policymaking and regulation. To states, the
informal sector is a hindrance because it is
“unknown,” “illegible,” “invisible,” and “not regulated”,
at least to agencies and actors with the intention to
tax and regulate it.

14. Formalization of ownership, access, and trade in land and natural
resources is a key function of the state, which exists in large part to
manage public goods and adjudicate among competing interests.
Ecologically sustainable management of lands, waters, and the natural
resources therein requires systems that govern the nature and geographic
extent of permitted activities, and some degree of equity among users
requires social mechanisms that mediate ownership and sharing.
This land policy option is widely promoted by
international bodies, often presented as an obvious,
almost inevitable step, and sometimes as a panacea
that will increase investment, encourage economic
development, improve poor people’s security and
social integration, prevent conflicts and ensure social
harmony.
Benefits of Land Formalization

15. What is land grabbing?
Since there is no complete definition of land
grabbing that includes all necessary parts we
need to develop and accept one that can be
used for any geographical area. Several
indicators need to be taken in consideration:
size, people, control, legality and usage. There
are two important ideas to remember when
defining, reading or using this definition. Firstly,
that this framework can be used in any country
or area to define land grabbing. Secondly,
none of the five factors can be used
individually to define land grabbing: a land
grab is not based only on size or usage, it is a
combination of several these points.

16. What impacts does land grabbing have?
Many proponents of large-scale land acquisitions
insist that they can benefit local people, mainly
through employment in the new economic
arrangements and through new social and economic
infrastructure. However, it is important to point out
that so far there is precious little concrete evidence
to back up such claims of benefits, and instead
history is littered with bad examples. So the burden
of proof still lies heavily on those who claim much
good can come from land grabbing.

17. Land grabbing in Pakistan
In Pakistan, the term refers to something more prosaic but equally pernicious, namely
the theft of private and public land by criminal gangs. Not a day goes by without a
newspaper reporting cases of alleged land grabbing or violent crimes connected with
property disputes and the theft of land. In Pakistan, the term land grabbing is invariably
connected with the activities of what is variously referred to as the land mafia, land
grabbers and Qabza groups. The latter word is from the Urdu language meaning
“occupying” albeit with the connotation of an occupation by force or deceit.

18. Pakistan’s legal system seems incapable of offering any meaningful relief to the victims of land
grabbing, be it private citizens or indeed the state. Estimates suggest that land disputes make up
between 50% to 75% of cases brought before civil courts with up to 1 million cases pending and
awaiting final adjudication. USAID Country Profile “Pakistan – Property Rights & Resource
Governance” identifies as major causes of land disputes “inaccurate or fraudulent land records,
erroneous boundary descriptions that create overlapping claims, and multiple registrations to the
same land by different parties” and states that “Credible evidence of land rights is often nearly
impossible to obtain.”