Abstract
Land Policies in India is a theoretically and empirically rich book which students, researchers and policymakers were long looking for. Two important issues are raised; first, the book attempts to bring human rights to land which goes beyond the Indian case, and second, it assures the readers on problems faced by Indian land policy that they can be remedied with a thorough scientific study, democratic deliberations and planning. Even though in the end, the book suffers from Indian exceptionalism syndrome, it paved the way for more democratic deliberation with shared local and global understanding.
Land Policies in India is a timely book on burning land issues in India. There have been several attempts in the past to understand what is really happening to the land question in India. In the present context, the land question can be simplified with three basic questions. Who owns the land? How it is managed? How it can be a tool to achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030? This book does not intend to answer the third question, but the first two questions were answered with much care and scientific rigour. The most important contribution is perhaps Davy’s attempt to link human dignity (the first chapter), human rights and property in land—the analysis goes beyond the Indian case that this book meticulously looks at. Nevertheless, the book has many hidden pearls, very rich in theories and empirical case studies, which make this book a must for graduates, research scholars and policymakers.
The second chapter, ‘Evolution of Property Rights in India’ by Madhumita Mitra attempts to summarise the evolution of property rights through the legal lens in independent India. The third and fourth chapters, ‘Postcolonial Evolution of Water Rights in India and the United States’ and ‘Conflicting Interests and Intelligible Utilisation of Common Property Resources: A Study of a Tropical Wetland in South India’ deal with the question of the commons. Jesse Richardson analyses the case of water rights in India and USA to empirically argue how path dependency of policies is often based on postcolonial structures. Christa Bell uses a case of a lake located in southern India to point out how the tragedy of commons is a natural outcome when formal–informal arrangements among the stakeholders fail. The chapter, ‘Land Transfer Tax Policy Regime and Its Influence on Property Markets: Analysing the Land Transfer Tax Policy of Kerala in the Last Decade’, by Nirmal Roy describes how the land market behaves in response to tax (on land transactions) by taking the state of Kerala as a case.
The sixth and seventh chapters give attention to land acquisition scenario in India. The chapter, ‘Development or Disaster? Land Acquisition and Dispossession in the Mining Belts and Coastal Zones of Rural Odisha, India’ indicates how the mineral-rich areas are prone to displacement. The chapter, ‘“Public Purpose” that Is Not Inclusive’, questions the very narrative of the Indian states when they claim the land is acquired for public purpose. The eighth chapter, ‘The Cyclical Interaction of Institutional Constraints to Formal Affordable Housing Market in Raipur, India’, deals with the issue of affordable housing in the urban areas of India. Since more people will live in urban areas of India than rural areas, the price of the market supplied housing (a) is growing faster than income and (b) does not necessarily represent the affordable segment; thus, the urban housing will be a much bigger issue within a decade (Tiwari & Rao, 2016). The chapter discusses a classic example where the failure of the market only mitigated with a state intervention to produce a desirable supply of affordable housing in a few years of time. The ninth chapter, ‘City in Crossfire: The Environment Versus Development Debate in Navi Mumbai’ deals with classic environment versus development debate in the age of Anthropocene and concluded that we need to deal with this debate not only scientifically, ideologically but also legally. The chapter, ‘Property Regimes in India: A Study of Political Determinants of Structural Factors’ by Deepa Kailasam Iyer attempts to understand land regime based on Bromley’s conception of the land regime (Bromley, 1989). The author concluded that the social groups and occupational categories of the states often shape the land policies.
The final chapter by two of the editors, Sony Pellissery and Harvey M. Jacobs, attempts to connect the global experience on land policies with India’s own practices and challenges. The challenges India face and transformation that India is going through is exceptional. Urbanisation is a global trend, therefore, we can learn a lot from how other countries are managing their urban property issues, laws and planning. The book claims that India’s inequality is an ‘exceptionalism’ and the answers should come from India only. Even though I agree that the solution should be Indian and produced from Indian sociopolitical deliberation, we will miss a great opportunity if we overlook experience of other societies and how they are dealing with their historical inequalities. One might disagree with the interest of establishing the structural similarities between the race, caste and gender (Beteille, 1990), the divisive functions of these are perhaps difficult to ignore. Therefore, on the issues of inequality, the Indian case is also a product of historical social structures and in this context, how other societies have dealt with their historical structure can be a lesson to be learned. In the end, the editors concluded that the answers for the Indian problems should come from within the country—via a thorough democratic deliberation—via about which I cannot agree more.