How the government buried the idea of a land reforms policy

Why read this story?

Editor's note: In the heady years after India’s independence, when the Constitution promised equality to all, the union and states began enacting laws and policies to build the nation and undo centuries of inequality. Among these were laws and rules to end inequality in the ownership of the most important resource of all—land. Few farmers owned land in India. Most were under the grip of feudal zamindars, or landlords, and had no title to the land. So, states enacted laws that abolished zamindari (a system harking back to colonial times where landlords owned vast tracts of land), set limits to ownership of land and allowed for distribution of land to tillers and workers. The laws came to be known as land reforms. In the last seven decades, these land reforms have turned out to be a failure. Across the country, between a third and half of Indians are still landless. In 2007, 25,000 protesters walked from Gwalior to New Delhi, demanding that the union government step in and make a policy to nudge states to revive land reforms. A year later, the …