Land rights

The legacy of Tajamul Haque in contributing towards land rights in India is elaborated upon. As a people’s economist and courageous bureaucrat, he devoted his life and work to land reforms in India.

Following the rapid and uneven integration with the capitalist economy, the local economies and institutional mechanisms of the indigenous communities of Arunachal Pradesh have been transformed in multiple and complex ways. With the commercialisation of agriculture and the gradual emergence of private property rights, the community-based institutions for natural resource management and conflict resolutions are undergoing a multilevel transformation. This is mediated through the interactions among community, market and state institutions. With the expansion of the non-agricultural economy, a powerful class of local elites has attempted to extract rent through a variety of means, often using their membership of local communities and access to state institutions to safeguard their interests, against the backdrop of the ethnic competition between different ethnic groups.

Secure and just land tenure, and sound management of land and natural resources are crucial to easing conflicts between farmers, the State, and extractive industries. This paper underlines that Myanmar cannot hope to achieve inclusive social and economic development without a just and comprehensive framework that protects the land rights of small farmers, ethnic minorities, and the poor. A lack of participation and transparency in land management, coupled with legal and institutional weaknesses that work in favour of big capital rather than small farmers and the rural poor, poses a major challenge to the country's social and economic reform programme.