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PANGS OF LAND HUNGER IN ANDHRA PRADESH
By M H AHSAN
In the early 1990s, at the height of the Naxalite movement in Andhra Pradesh, Maoists planted red flags on the vast holdings of rich landlords across the State and distributed them among the landless. This was cause enough for state forces to crack down on the Naxalites. The occupied land was returned to the landlords and the landless returned to the dispossessed state in which they had languished before. Interestingly, the rise of the Naxalite movement in the late 1960s, with equitable distribution of land as its main focus, coincided with the land reform measures announced with much fanfare by the government.
The Maoist movement has since grown impressively, despite thousands being killed in “encounters” with the police. The sobering fact is that four decades later, the state has not gotten beyond mere talk of ways to implement land reforms.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the “Bhu Poratam” launched by the two parliamentary Communist parties - CPI and CPM - has evoked wide and spontaneous public support. Clearly, the pangs of land hunger are as sharp as ever. There is, of course, a significant difference between the struggle by the Maoists, on the one hand, and the CPM and CPI on the other - the former staked the people’s claim to the huge tracts of landlords while the latter preferred to plant their flags on Government lands. After all, big farmers are good friends of the CPI and CPM, just as they are pally with the Congress or Telugu Desam! To be fair to the CPI and CPM, they are also not opposing alienation of huge chunks of land by the YS Rajasekhara Reddy government for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a process that is under way in West Bengal.
For the record, the current agitation by the Communists has a twin agenda: one or two acres of land to the landless in villages and a house-site for the urban homeless poor. The emphasis has been more on urban housesites than farm land to the landless. This bring us to the question: why should a land-related struggle with rural or urban focus attract such support decades after a series of laws were brought into force with the goal of ensuring a farm holding to every family dependent on agriculture?
Because there are close to 20 lakh landless families in rural Andhra Pradesh. Because, even today, the rich ryots who constitute a mere 0.54 per cent of the farming community continue to enjoy 7.5 per cent of the total holding while 4.34 per cent of the middle- level farmers have control over 19.83 per cent of the land. The small farmers who form the sizeable chunk of more than 60 per cent enjoy only 21.5 per cent of the land.
According to the Government’s own admission, of the 20 lakh acres to be taken over under the Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973, only about five lakh acres have been actually acquired and distributed. Then, there are lands assigned to the poor but actually not in their control. Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy has himself admitted this fact and promised to resume the lands and restore them to the original beneficiary. But nothing much has happened in this regard either.
In the wake of the failed talks with the Maoists two years ago, the State Government constituted a committee headed by Minister Koneru Ranga Rao to study the land issue. There is nothing radical in the 104 recommendations made by the panel. In essence, it has called for genuine implementation of the existing land-related legislations, the ceiling Act in particular. Yet, the government has expressed reservations about 30 of them and constituted another Group of Ministers to examine them again! As for other proposals, it has offered to set up a special Land Commission headed by an official to implement them. The CPI and CPM wants the commission to be independent of the government machinery. The matter rests there.
If this is the scenario as far as rural agricultural lands are concerned, the problem is equally serious in urban areas which has seen phenomenal growth over the past decade, thanks to the never-ending migration. As many as 50 new municipal towns have been created in recent years and the last 50 years, particularly the ’90s and the current decade, have seen an increase of 11 per cent in the urban population.
Understandably, housing for the poor has become a major issue. No doubt, the Rajasekhara Reddy government has launched an ambitious Rs 5,000 crore programme for construction of houses for both the rural and urban poor - small independent units in rural areas and apartments in towns and cities. But, like most government schemes, there have been too many irregularities - Congressmen and corrupt officials cornering the houses through the benami route and those already owning a house being given yet another, to name a few. Of the 17 lakh programmed houses, only 12 lakhs have been grounded and of these six lakh supposedly completed. But the urban component in them is too meagre to alleviate the problem.
The failings on the part of the government notwithstanding, what is baffling observers of the current movement by the CPI and CPM is what exactly they are up to: is it a genuine stir aimed at securing land and homes for the landless and the poor or is it a political game being played with the 2009 elections in mind amidst signs that the Communists are keen to dump the Congress, ally in 2004 polls, and cosy up to their former partner, the Telugu Desam?
The Mudigonda firing which claimed seven lives has not only caused embarrassment to the government but also opened up chinks between the CPM and the CPI with the latter questioning the CPM’s demand for resignation of Rajasekhara Reddy. Further, it has opposed CPM’s move to join hands with the TDP on the land issue. The CPI-ML (New Democracy), the other partner in the Bhu Poratam, has since distanced itself from the agitation and promised to go it alone, accusing the CPI and CPM of having a political agenda rather than the real interests of the urban or rural poor at heart.
The issues at stake are bound to haunt whichever party is in or comes to power as the crisis is only going to deepen. What the Communists need to do is to begin the exercise of analysing the district-wise data of the homeless poor in urban areas, compare them with the list drawn up by the government for its housing programme and ensure that genuine people benefit from it. For its part, the government can constitute all-party committees at the field level, publish the list of beneficiaries, invite objections and thereby ensure a transparent process in allotment of houses. A similar process can be followed in respect of agricultural lands by involving the gram sabhas.
This is important considering that the profile of land is rapidly changing, with SEZs and corporate sector presence in the rural sector already under way and in all probability unstoppable. Thousands of crores are being spent on creating irrigation facilities. Therefore, unless there is equitable distribution of land, there is a huge risk of the already existing gap between the rich and poor widening further, leading to increased social tensions. The same holds good for the urban poor who are compelled to live in slums even as high-rise buildings proliferate in cities and towns.
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