• With the economy growing at more than 8 per cent, does land matter?

Unfortunately, even now in India, landlessness minus skills translates into poverty. According to a World Bank Study, 68 per cent of landless labourers fall below the poverty line, compared to 51 per cent of SCs and STs. Access to land thus determines a basic standard of living. It determines power relations in a village. Control over land is central to control over benefits like electricity and irrigation.

• What does land reform mean?

Started in the 1970s, it meant three things. Loopholes were found to circumvent each one of these. One, it meant abolition of zamindari, which has been achieved to a large extent. Two, regulation of tenancy which never took off. In those states where the rights were given, tenants were evicted or landlords found a way out — they rotated tenants around multiple plots so that records do not show a continuity in their tenancy over one piece of land. The third was land ceiling. Landowners learnt the art of benami transfers, registering land in the name of fictitious people.

• What does a patta mean?

Patta is a record of their rights over a piece of land. Those who do not have pattas are either encroaching on public or forest land and are usually migrating seasonally. Even if they are cultivating land as encroachers, the absence of a patta means that they cannot access bank loans, apply for Indira Awas Yojana, get crop insurance and avail of relief during droughts and floods. It also means that when an industry comes on the land that they occupied, they get no compensation.

... contd.