The Land Reform act in India was meant to give land to the people who really had a connection with it not absentee land owners. The Zamidars were a group of aristocrats in India with large land holdings; their land was worked by many people, both sharecroppers and tenant farmers. This system was interrupted when the British colonizers came in but still held strong during colonization. The land continued to be passed down through hereditary lines during colonization. With the creation of India eah state within it was able to made their own ruling on the Zamidar and other land holding systems and the Zamidar system was legally abolished in many states. The government of a few states including Kerala and West Bengal made a land ceiling, each individual was only allowed to have so much land. The amount changed from state to state and from rural to urban settings.The land reform act was passed in 1972 and affect farmers. Farmers were not allowed to hold and cultivate more than 7 hectors. The people farming the land, teh tennent farmers and sharecroppers were allowed to buy land above this 7 hectors. Certain people were not effected by this. For example we went to a plantation in Kerala, the land had been handed down for generations and not ceased by the government. This is because plantations are vital in the economic structure of India, yet now they are being overshadowed by big corporations.
Yet all the advances made from the Land Reform act are now under threat with the Land Acquisition act. This Act was set up during the British rule. It says that the Indian government can take land from its people. If this land is going to be used to build roads than no compensation has to be given. Otherwise the state has to pay market value (not replacement value.) That means that when the state takes land from poor agricultural workers they do not have enough money to buy new land and are destined to a life of poverty where they are no longer able to feed themselves. Slums pop up near areas where the government has acquisitioned land. The people have to stand by and watch there land being used to build malls, hotels, or factories. The people are often treated badly. When we were in Agra (a state in India) we were told that there was a roadblock in effect because people had been shot. The truth was that there was a land acquisition slum on that road. The people in that slum were surrounded by police day and night who were terrorizing them. The police would set huts on fire for no reason. Many people were missing and when asked the locals said they were probably ashes now. When the people fought back they were terrorized even more, but this was covered up.
The government turns around and sells the land they acquisitioned to companies and corporations for many times the amount they pay the people for their land. Some of this acquisitioned land is made into special economic zones. These are zones for corporations to come, settle, and not pay taxes in. This was started in 1991 when the congress part got into power. It is a corporate friendly party, more so than any other. They took down all the regulations the privacy party had put up when they were in power. Including one rule where 51% of the stocks of a company working in India had to be held by local shareholders. This law made companies like Coke and IBM leave. All the law was doing was trying to make sure that local people benefited from what was going on around them instead of the domination that is occurring now.
The thing is that this land that the government is now taking was what the government had previously given to these people. The bureaucracy of the state gets in the way of real rights for the people.