You are presumably aware that even those who own no land also have rights in land and it is on these rights that their livelihood depends. If the judicial system of the country is groaning under the volume of litigation which it is unable to cope with, the reasons are not far to seek. The entire structure of land administration in India and with it the relations based on property could have been transformed by this one single measure, if only your government had evinced some interest. That, alas, was not to be. This is a shining example of what politicians say when they are out of power and what they do when they are in power. Meanwhile, the land mafia continued to flourish. For them power flows from the gun or the gunny bags, and no one dares clip their wings. Certainly not a government which merely swears by the aam admi. Globalisation, of which you were and continue to be the principal architect, has made land a coveted commodity as never before. No matter where, land prices have skyrocketed. The tattered record-of-rights was not designed to contain these volcanic forces. Nor were the officials entrusted with the task of maintaining it equipped to face this formidable challenge. This betrayal of the people of India is now being quietly buried beneath the litany of “achievements”. As islands of affluence continue to grow, so does the continent of darkness engulfed in deprivation. The state guaranteeing land titles goes beyond rights to prime properties, it also embraces entitlements based on the community’s rights to resources. It could well have been the aam admi’s Magna Carta.

... contd.