Q. When land reform was a paradigm shift, then what type of land reforms would you recommend to make India a more equitable society?

Model Answer:

While first-generation land reforms dismantled feudal intermediaries, P.C. Joshi noted they left structural redistribution unfinished. Contemporary agrarian reform must pivot toward correcting deeply entrenched caste, gender, and institutional asymmetries.

Reimagining Land Reforms for Agrarian Equity

• Gendered Titling: Institutionalise joint and sole land titles for women, operationalising Bina Agarwal’s thesis that independent land rights reduce domestic violence and dismantle patriarchal dependency.
• Caste-Centric Redistribution: Allocate ceiling-surplus, state-owned wastelands, and village commons exclusively to landless Dalits, directly disrupting the entrenched caste-class nexus in rural agrarian structures.
• Formalisation of Tenancy: Legalise and secure agricultural tenancy agreements using frameworks like the Model Land Leasing Act, providing informal leaseholders access to institutional credit, subsidies, and crop insurance.
• Community Forest Titling: Expedite the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, vesting genuine ownership of community forest resources in Adivasi Gram Sabhas against corporate alienation.
• Equity-Centric Digital Titling: Conduct democratic ground-truthing alongside schemes like SVAMITVA to prevent digital land grabs and the erasure of unregistered customary rights by dominant lineages.
• Protection of Common Property Resources (CPRs): Legally insulate village grazing lands and commons from diversion, safeguarding the subsistence base of landless pastoralists and marginal peasants.

Second-generation land reforms must transcend mere redistribution, actively dismantling caste-patriarchy structures to democratise rural citizenship and economic dignity.