A threat to food security?

India is an agricultural country and it continues to be a mainstay of Indian economy. There have been many land reform legislations in India-- measures designed to effect a more equitable distribution of agricultural land, especially by governmental action. In India, land reform legislations consist of four main categories:

Abolition of intermediaries who were rent collector under pre-independence land revenue system

Tenancy regulation that attempts to improve the contractual terms faced by tenants

A ceiling on land holdings with a view to redistributing surplus land to the landless

Attempts to consolidate disparate landholdings. Abolition of intermediaries is generally agreed to be one component of land reforms that has been relatively successful. But then, the record in terms of other components is mixed and it varies from state to state over time

An ordinance was passed by Governor of Karnataka on July 13 this year amending the Karnataka Land Reform Act, 1961. Under Article 213 of Constitution of India, the Governor may pass an ordinance when 1) state Legislature Assembly is not in session or if it has two houses and one of the houses is not in session 2) the Governor is satisfied that circumstances exist which renders it necessary for him to take immediate action.

This ordinance omits section 79A (acquisitions of land by certain person’s prohibited), section 79B (prohibiting of holding agricultural land by certain persons), Section 79C (the penalty for failure to furnish declaration), completely. This complete omission of section 79A, 79B, 79C has created fear in the mind of farmers. By omitting these sections, the ordinance has made way for industrialists to buy agricultural lands. Earlier, according to Karnataka’s land reforms act, transfers to non-agriculturalists was completely barred.

There is no doubt that India has a mixed economy-- along with the public sector, the private sector also has a role to play. And restrictions imposed on the acquisition of agricultural land, in certain instances, have come in the way of achieving development, particularly in the agro-industrial sector where the state holds considerable potential for advancement.

Why then is there a problem in giving these rights to non-agriculturalists?

Firstly, the fact remains that, India is ‘socialist’ state. The distribution of material resources of the community to subserve the common good is the aim. Will the state able to guarantee that this pursuance of ‘common good’ when non-agriculturalist will be allowed to take over the agricultural land? Will there be proper distribution of land amongst farmers?

Our Constitution also speaks about distributive justice. A law should be used as an instrument of distributive justice to achieve a fair division of wealth amongst the members of our society, based upon the principle; from each according to his capacity; to each according to his needs. Article 40, 39(b), 39(c) of our Constitution supports this principle. Can this be preserved? We need to remember what Dandekar and Rath said, “The problem of poverty cannot be solved by redistribution of land to everyone who needs it.” One of the reasons behind Karnataka land reforms act was to minimise the disparity between large and small-holdings and also distribute surplus lands to the poor landless agriculturalists.

Bringing such an ordinance into force would affect other laws like the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 and Food Security Act, 2013. If agricultural lands are not immune from acquisitions, it would impact livelihoods. Close to 70% of India’s population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. They may receive compensation at once, but what about their future generations? They would lose their livelihood forever.

Section 10 of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 makes a special provision to safeguard food security. Under this section, no irrigated multi-cropped land shall be acquired under the act except under some conditions. Section 31 of the National Food Security Act, says that central government and state government would take steps to further advance food and matrimonial security. How can the state government take steps to advance food security by allowing non-agriculturalist to acquire the agricultural lands? If farming lands are replaced with industrial activities, our source of food will be at risk. Farmers constitute the backbone of our country, but they are also vulnerable. Should we build the economy at the cost of people’s livelihood? Our priorities must be clear.

(The writer is a BA, LLB (Hons) student at Karnataka State Law University’)