Why Land Reforms Remain Important

COMMUNICATION

At a time when the government is increa-singly marginalising the most important develop-ment issue of land reforms, people’s movements and all pro-poor forces and scholars should come together to reassert the continuing importance of land reforms. At one time the importance of land reforms and in particular the importance of providing at least some land for cultivation to the landless rural poor was widely recognised even at the government level. This need has not changed, this importance has not changed; it is only the priorities of the government that have changed as the government has increasingly moved away from the concerns of the poor. It is now for people’s movements and independent scholars to keep alive the issue of land reforms.

It should be emphasised with renewed vigour that land reforms most obviously are of crucial importance from the point of view of equality, justice and dignity but in addition also from the point of view of broadbased development of the productive potential of agriculture, land reforms can make an important contribution.

Given this many-sided importance and potential of land reforms it is a great responsibility of people’s movements and independent scholars to keep alive the issue of land reforms in India and to revive and strengthen it as much as possible.

Bharat Dogra
C-27, Raksha Kunj, Paschim Vihar, New Delhi-110063 Ph.: 25255303