Reinforcing Exclusions: Caste, Patriarchy and Land Reforms in India

Abstract

Land reform studies have often found wanting for not paying adequate attention to the close correspondence between land relations, gender and caste; all of them reinforcing each other and State polices extending legitimacy to this complex web of relationships. These complexities betray theorisation on State intervention in property relations that consider land only as an economic asset, overlooking its sociopolitical significance. The article argues that land reforms in India have been designed to protect landed property. The article further argues that the impact on the bottom rungs could be the crucial criteria for the assessment of any land reforms programme in a third-world country. In Indian conditions, Dalits and women constitute these segments.