Introduction
Marginalization of women, seen through the case of exclusion from ownership structures, can be considered as one of the key reasons against which the suffrage movement was initially mounted, globally. However, in India and abroad, with the delinkages between citizenship rights and property holdings by the mid-twentieth century, the question of land rights and marginalization of women has changed its form, with it being predominantly associated with rurality and the agricultural and allied sectors (Chowdhary, 2017).
The issue of women’s land ownership started gaining attention primarily in the 1970s and 1980s with multiple movements, as well as scholarly engagement with the topic. Scholars like Bina Agarwal have extensively documented gender disparities in land rights, emphasizing that women’s lack of access to land ownership remains a crucial factor in their economic and social vulnerability (Agarwal, 1994). Additionally, a 1991 survey highlighted the low percentage of women inheriting land in India, with significant regional variations (Agarwal et al., 2021). A notable example is the Bodhgaya movement in Bihar, which emerged in the mid-1970s. Women and men from landless households came together to demand ownership of the plots they worked on, which were being illegally held by a local religious institution (a Math). The women argued for independent land rights, stating: “If the men who are today landless beat up their wives so badly, merely using the power derived from being men, then tomorrow will they not become relatively even more powerful?…We are part of the struggle, so we should also get land.” (Manimala, 1983, p. 8). As anticipated, when only men were granted titles, the result was an increase in domestic violence and, contrarily, when women received titles, they gained the strength to assert their legal rights (Manimala, 1983, p. 15; Alaka & Chetna, 1987, p. 26)
India’s agricultural sector is sustained by women’s labor, as they constitute 73% of the rural agricultural workforce (Agriculture Census, 2015-16) and perform nearly 70% of all agricultural activities (Oxfam International, 2022). Land ownership in India remains deeply gendered. Despite this, only 14% are operational landholders (Agriculture Census, 2015-16, p.7) and own just 11% of the total land in the country (Agarwal et al., 2021). Despite their extensive labor, they are categorized as “agricultural laborers” or “cultivators”, rather than farmers, due to the absence of legal land titles (Mohan, 2017). On average, women work 14 hours a day, both at home and in the fields, increasing up to 16 hours during the harvesting season (National Commission for Women, 2005). Their contributions extend across multiple agricultural and allied activities, including sowing, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvest processing. Despite this extensive involvement, women are not officially recognized as farmers and lack independent decision-making power in agricultural and allied activities.
Equal land rights for women is also a key target of Goal 5 on gender equality in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, today, addressing this historical marginalization of women in land ownership is not just a matter of justice, but also a necessary step toward equitable growth, enhanced agricultural productivity and sustainable development. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, if women had equal access to productive resources as men, they could increase farm yields by 20-30% (Munshi, 2017). This increase could lead to a 4% rise in total agricultural output in developing countries, potentially reducing global hunger by 12-17%, which translates to 100-150 million people (Munshi, 2017).
Moreover, research has also shown a positive correlation between food security and women’s land rights, along with their economic empowerment. Researchers have identified that there is growing evidence of a systemic bias against women and female children in accessing basic necessities such as food and healthcare. This bias varied regionally and across social classes, with it being more pronounced in the north-west compared to the south, and among landless households as opposed to those with land. Even in households above a defined poverty line, there were likely to be women and female children whose individual consumption levels would place them below the norm (Agarwal, 1988).
This disparity in access to resources is further reflected in household spending patterns, where women’s financial contributions are often directed toward essential needs, while men’s spending priorities may differ. Aggarwal (2008) found that across several states in India, significant gender differences exist in household spending patterns. Women in poor households typically contribute nearly all their earned income to meeting the family’s basic needs, while men often allocate a significant portion for items like tobacco and liquor. In contrast, women’s contributions remain substantial in all cases. In addition, research from Kerala indicates that in agricultural labor households, the nutritional status of women and children is more strongly correlated with the mother’s earnings than with the father’s (Kumar, 1978).
In this issue brief, I discuss the positive correlation between women’s proprietorship of agricultural lands and their position within the social and familial structures, with land ownership facilitating a distinct empowerment in the day-to-day affairs of the family; the legal instruments which governs the access to land rights of women in India; the constraints which inhibit land ownership of women; and conclude with gaps and recommendation in the public policies which have a bearing on the case of women ownership of lands. Throughout the paper, I focus on relevant case studies from rural India.
