The Social Development of Pakistan 2004 has taken exception to the neglect of land reforms which is regarded a critical factor in removing rural poverty and ensuring social justice. The annual review prepared by the Social Policy and Development Centre, Karachi, a leading think-tank, states that asset ownership is "established as one of the principal variables impacting poverty".
The Review mentions that the World Bank on the finding of the PIHS (Pakistan Integrated Household Survey) of 1998-99 concluded that the incidence of poverty among the rural landless was 40.3 percent and for those owning land was at 28.9 percent.
Its chapter on 'Land and Rural Poverty' speaks of strong linkage and correlation between the two, and says that higher land inequality is associated with higher deprivation and poverty.
A cursory reading of the chapter, which makes a close examination of the various land reforms in Pakistan, concludes with a scathing comment that "nearly six decades down the road since independence, it appears that Diamal Doulat Ram continues to prevail over the Quaid-e-Azam."
So the question arises: Are we following the Quaid-e-Azam or Diamal Doulat Ram on an all-important issue of land reforms?
Diamal Doulat Ram (the name is richly symbolic) was a member of Sindh Hari Committee in the 1930s. In his note of dissent to any change in status quo of the feudals and tenants, he had held that land reforms would disturb the rural economy. He believed that tenants were serfs and should remain so; and that any transfer of ownership to the landless haris was morally unjust.
G.M.SYED'S DISSENT: There was another note of dissent by another member, G.M Syed, who found the report grossly inadequate because it suggested "cosmetic changes in the status quo in landowner-tenant relationship."
Speaking about the vital issue of land reform, which ensures social justice and a modicum of decent life to the tenants, the annual review of Social Development in Pakistan refers to the resolution of Muslim League meeting in Delhi in 1943.
At the meeting, the Quaid-e-Azam had stated in unambiguous terms as: "I want to warn the zamindars and capitalists that they are living in luxury, as part of a satanic system...Lust for usurping the fruit of hard earned labour of the masses has become second nature to them."
It is pertinent to add that Muslim League's agrarian committee took up the matter further and held that land reforms, a prerequisite for "equitable and prosperous land system, should be based on state regulated ownership of holdings by self-cultivating peasant farmers, coupled with enlargement of holdings, which must involve the gradual abolition of landlordism".
The committee noted that more than half of the cultivable area was owned by landlords who do not till the land, who live on rent, and that the tenants are completely dependent on the will of the landlords who give tenants "power of life and death in the village economy."
ML AGRARIAN COMMITTEE: The Muslim League agrarian committee sought 'gradual elimination' of landlordism. As a first step, it called for abolition of 'jagirs' and 'inam' lands, grant of land ownership to hereditary tenants. For the long run, it recommended specification of ceiling on land holdings.
It was in this spirit that the first five-year plan under Zahid Hussain noted the "problem of land reform as fundamental to all development, which should aim to build a rural society, largely consisting of independent and self-reliant peasant proprietors." It therefore wanted to fix a ceiling on land holding and distribution of resumed land among the cultivating tenants.
The Chapter examines the three land reforms - of 1959, 1972 and then 1977 when land ceiling was further reduced but its implementation was superseded by military take-over in 1977. Since then land distribution was outside the political agenda of any government. Lately, the proposal for corporate agriculture has further relegated its importance. To crown it all, the first public address of Zafarullah Khan Jamali as prime minister in 2003 clinched the issue. He declared that his government had decided that there would be no more land reforms so that farmers could bring maximum area under cultivation without any fear.
Giving an assessment of the various land reforms, the Chapter notes that overall, land reforms have resumed and distributed only 9 and 7 percent, respectively, of total farm area since 1959, and they have failed to meaningfully reduce the concentration of land ownership.
REFORMS INADEQUATE: Given the depth of the problem, the land reform measures have proved inadequate in changing the pattern of landholding. Even as late as 2000, 16.3 percent of the area remained in ownership holdings of over 50 acres owned by only 0.2 percent of rural households. Not only were the measures inadequately applied and/or subverted, they were also not aimed at eradicating landlessness.
GHULAM ISHAQ KHAN'S DISSENT: It also speaks of the Land Reforms Commission of 1958, which was mandated "to consider problems relating to the ownership and tenancy of agricultural land and to recommend measures to ensuring better production and social justice..." Here, too, there was a note of dissent from Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who asserted that "the control of economic opportunity, in the form of concentration of landed wealth in the hands of relatively few, to the exclusion of the great majority dependent on it for a living, in turn, divides the society into economically and socially inferior and superior strata of 'haves' and 'have-nots'...".
He was of the view that the objectives of "breaking the monopolies on land" and of making "access to opportunity through land more free" in order to ensure economic progress and social justice could be best achieved by fixing the ceiling on land holdings at a sufficiently low level and on family instead of individual basis. He also dissented from the majority view on exempting orchards from the prescribed ceilings and on transfer of land by gift to any or all of the presumptive heirs.
Pakistan People's Party, which had campaigned on a platform of egalitarianism, declared that "breaking up of the large estates, to destroy the power of the feudal landowners, is a national necessity that will have to be carried through by practical measures". However, the institution of private ownership of land and the traditional landlord-tenant paradigm remained unchallenged.
The assumption of power by the Martial Law regime in 1979 halted the land reform process. In 1980, the newly established Federal Shariat Court declared mandatory acquisition of private land by the state as being against the injunctions of Islamic religious law, and the Supreme Court confirmed the judgement in 1989. The ruling constituted a reversal of the moves, albeit small and slow, towards land equity.
FINAL VETO: Even the ambitious Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, officially adopted in 2001, confines itself to distribution of state lands, refrains from questioning the basic landlord-tenant paradigm, and aims to reduce rural poverty without affecting the privileged position of the upper income proprietor class. Rather, the introduction of a new element of corporate farming has tacitly wiped out the whole issue of size distribution of landholding.
Addressing the nation on radio and television on March 11, 2003, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali unequivocally declared: "My government has decided that there will be no more land reforms so that farmers could bring maximum area under cultivation without any fear".
It concludes by declaring that nearly six decades down the road since independence, it appears that "Diamal Doulat Ram continues to prevail over the Quaid-e-Azam".
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