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.

• Where can land be found to be given away to the landless?

According to records, 73.36 lakh acres were declared ‘surplus’ in the country till March 2004, out of which states have redistributed 54.03 lakh hectares. The rest is under dispute. The Ekta Prishad that organised this march argues that since land redistribution halted midway in the 1970s, there is land available to be given away in the form of huge tracts of fake transfers or benami land. Charitable trusts own a large amount of land in the country. Government and certain parts of it like the railways have land far in excess of what they need.

• What is the status of land redistribution in the country?

According to the 2000-2001 annual report of the Ministry of Rural Development, only 1.3 per cent of India’s cultivable land has been distributed to 4.3 per cent of rural households. West Bengal accounts for one fifth of the total land distributed. It redistributed 8 per cent of its arable land. Even in tenancy reform, it was way ahead — while in India, 8 per cent rural households benefited by tenancy reforms, in West Bengal, this figure was 50 per cent.

This fares badly when compared to other countries. In Japan, 60 per cent of rural households have benefited from land reform and in Egypt, 10 per cent.

• Why did people with pattas also participate in the march?

This rally had countless examples of those who possessed a patta but it was not worth the paper it was written on. Either the plot given to them was not demarcated, or the allotted plot belonged to somebody else who did not move out.

• Why are land records in a shambles?

Land records are maintained by the revenue department which lost interest in revenue from land as the manufacturing sector grew. Cash-starved departments have been unable to update them. Fresh assessment of revenue demand from a piece of land has not been done since British rule. According to a government report, in Andhra Pradesh, it was done in 1911 and in Maharashtra, in 1920.