The Unreported News from India

There is still such an incredible institution called United Nations. Its processes are frustrating, not only because 200 countries need to reach a consensus in order to do something but mostly because if a very few oppose the actions of others the "it" is blamed for disfunction. Never the governments that make the decisions that lead to dysfunction...The idealistic United Nations system also continues to have its specialized agencies such as the one with the ambitious yet underminded mandate to fight hunger and promote rural development... It is called FAO and it continues to attempt to sometimes try to fulfill its mandate...against all of the gossip that you have no right to decide what to grow or what to eat...

Last week FAO had two Committees...one on the commodities (probably not a blog word..) and another on agriculture... Do you remember the mandate?

So here is the NEWS from India...The one of greatest importance to me. This one makes me want to work to help people understand that these non immediate processes in our immediate media culture can make a difference.

Hardworking women hungry for change

As Sharad Pawar, India’s minister for agriculture, sits down in Rome this week, ActionAid hopes that women like Kamala and Rambati will be at the forefront of their minds. Kamala and Rambati are making determined steps towards ending hunger by ensuring women in their villages have land titles and a say in decisions which affect their lives. But they need support from Mr Pawar and his counterparts if this is to translate into widespread and enduring change.

As the main food producers, women’s access to land and natural resources is a key factor in eradicating hunger and rural poverty, but progress on this front remains erratic and inadequate. Decades of discrimination have also placed women firmly amongst the poorest of the poor. By adopting recommendations from numerous international forums since the 1996 World Food Summit, the 20th session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Committee on Agriculture in Rome this week could be a crucial step towards concerted governmental action on the issue.

In India the need for action is clear. Some 70% of the female workforce is engaged in agriculture yet only 10% of women farmers own land. At the same time one in four Indians go to bed hungry.
India’s Land Reform Act passed in 1954 shortly after independence, addresses land rights for dalits and other marginalised groups. But it makes scant mention of women and anyway has not been implemented. Since the mid-70s, calls for women’s land rights gained strength with social movements such as Bodhgaya in Bihar at the forefront. In 1977, mass mobilization and judicial intervention led to a landmark ruling paving the way for joint pattas (land titles) in the name of both men and women. Currently India has a patchwork of Acts guiding women’s property and land rights in line with different religious and customary practices. Laws vary from state to state and between caste, religion and ethnic group. Yet none of them succeed in meeting women’s constitutional right to equal and non-discriminatory access to these means.As a result, women and children are being left destitute or at best in highly unequal bargaining positions within the family and wider community.

The situation is compounded by neo-liberal growth model which has widened the gap between haves and have-nots and put women and men in the firing line. Nandigram where at least 14 people lost their lives threw a stark spotlight on community struggles to protect land from being grabbed for Special Economic Zones. Women in Jagatsingpur district of Orissa are still guarding barricades to prevent government officials from taking over their villages for South Korean steel giant POSCO.

Meanwhile in the village of Nuaput, in Koraput district of Orissa, Adivasi women are taking their own small steps towards land ownership. Supported by ActionAid through local organisation SPREAD, villagers have applied for joint pattas so that both husband and wife have a legal claim on the land they use. Kamala Matan explains the significance: “This patta gives us strength. We don’t fear the men now – they can’t threaten us with throwing us out (of the home) now,” she says.
“Other people can learn from us… When we get the patta we can claim land and after us, our children will inherit.”

In the Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, 35-year-old Rambati an emerging leader in the poverty-stricken Sahariya community (a primitive tribal group in which men typically marry twice) shares her concerns: “If the government doesn’t give ownership of land to women, what will happen to the first wife? How will she manage her and her children’s lives? In 1995 the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh announced pattas for tribals and landless labourers in the state. Since then, partly due to persistent demands from local women, joint land titles are slowly increasing. Despite this favourable legislation, many Sahariyas are still struggling for their land entitlements. Nandigram where at least 14 people lost their lives highlighted women’s part in ongoing community struggles to protect land from being grabbed for Special Economic Zones. Women in Jagatsingpur district of Orissa are still guarding barricades to prevent government officials from taking over their villages for South Korean steel giant POSCO. While local women’s groups are having some success in securing land titles and national level dialogue between concerned citizens is underway – including an innovative initiative Consult for Women and Land Rights which encourages women to mobilize around land issues – this needs to be matched by further action at regional and international levels.

ActionAid has written to G77 agriculture ministers - the largest group of developing countries in the United Nations – urging them to use their voice in Rome and beyond to support specific measures including convening intergovernmental regional roundtables on women’s rights to land and natural resources and establishing an database system on land tenure and agrarian reforms to capture the global picture and monitor progress. In India activists are also calling for a review of laws related to women’s land and property rights and collective land ownership, accompanied by affirmative action to implement policies and practices that will help women tackle hunger and poverty.

Notes to editor
1. The Government of India has acknowledged that improved access to land and natural resources, especially by women, is a key factor in eradicating hunger and rural poverty in the framework of international commitments at World Food Summit 1996 and its Plan of Action; in the Voluntary Guidelines on the Implementation of the Right to Food unanimously adopted by FAO Council; and most recently at the FAOs International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) that was hosted by Brazil in March 2006.



2. The 20th session of the FAO Committee on Agriculture meets in Rome 25-28 April 2007.