Abstract
Property—who should own and who control land—has been a central and contentious issue throughout Indian history. The long-standing tensions within Indian society were further sharpened during the time of British colonization, and then from the time of Indian independence in 1947 to the present took on strong symbolic, political, and practical content. Some of this is because of the traditional population distribution within India, with large numbers of people who continue to engage in agriculture and thus depend directly on land for sustenance. But much of it is also cultural, as it is in so many other parts of the world, where the ownership and control of land is linked to conceptions of independence of the individual and family.
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Notes
- 1.
The East India Company gained revenue collection rights (Diwani) from Mughal emperors (in 1765) though their primary interest was in trading. Eventually, they realized revenue from huge agrarian tracts was more profitable than income from trade. Subsequently, systems of property rights were created to suit this revenue collection system. Different systems were developed in different parts of the subcontinent (Zamindari—permanent settlement through intermediary for 100 years; Ryotwari—direct revenue collection from cultivators which necessitated identification of property and its registration). The question of property rights in independent India became entangled with these path dependent legacies. This issue of how modern India’s property regimes has path dependency with colonial times is examined in Pellissery and Sattwick (2012).
- 2.
While some scholars (e.g. Trautman 2012) argue that ancient India had a system of land ownership and property sale as early as the 3rd century as documented in Arthshastra, public policy debates on progressive taxation on property as a tool for brining about equitable ownership of land have not taken place. Where the debates got closest was in the rights of tiller to own land in the context of land reforms (Appu 1996).
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Pellissery, S., Jacobs, H.M. (2017). Property in India: Global Perspectives, National Issues. In: Pellissery, S., Davy, B., Jacobs, H. (eds) Land Policies in India. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4208-9_11
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