Srinagar: The Center notified the Third Order of the Reorganization (Adaptation of the Central Laws) of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, allowing for a number of further changes to the previous status.
Under the new arrangements, a certificate of residence or permanent resident is not required to purchase non-agricultural land in the UT. The Union Ministry of the Interior has also notified the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016, paving the way for the acquisition of land in J&K by all Indian citizens. Previously, Article 35-A of the J&K Constitution, relaxed on August 5, 2019, prohibited the sale of land to non-state subjects.
The latest order also empowers the government to declare any area in J&K as ‘strategic’ and intended for the direct operational and training requirements of the military at the behest of an army officer of the rank of corps commander or higher.
If all of this is part of the BJP’s long-standing agenda of ending J & K’s ‘special status’, there is another change that many in the rest of India may not realize is important: the government order has also Historic Big Land Estate abolished. Abolition Act of 1950, under whose aegis the old state witnessed the radical redistribution of land that opened the way to rural prosperity and ended the landlord in J&K.
The new laws have provoked ire in the Union Territory, where suspicions abound that the Center is gradually disempowering the local population and consolidating control through unfettered executive power. For more than two years, J&K has been without an elected government. All the changes that are being introduced in the UT have been crushed by the Center instead of being legislated by elected representatives of the people.
The sale and ownership of land has been a contentious political issue in the previous state. The new notifications also allow spouses of people who become domiciles to be considered domiciles, further liberalizing the criteria for acquiring residence permits in the UT.
The MHA has repealed 12 state laws altogether, while another 26 have been adapted with changes or substitutions. Laws repealed as a whole include the Jammu and Kashmir Land Alienation Act, the Jammu and Kashmir Large Lands Abolition Act, the Jammu and Kashmir Common Lands (Regulation) Act 1956, the Jammu and Kashmir Holdings Consolidation Act 1962, the Jammu and Kashmir Prior Purchase Act and the Jammu and Kashmir Land Use Act.
“The changes represent the operational aspect of the large measure taken in August last year,” said Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a Kashmiri political analyst. “They have brought the repeal of articles 370 and 35-A to its logical conclusion. It had to happen. The order is very long. Even experts will take time to analyze it before they finally come to think about the type of alteration that has occurred. But prima facie, the changes stated in the order seem to correspond to the broader objectives that are drawn with respect to the demographics of J&K. “
Political parties across the spectrum have strongly denounced the new changes. “The new land laws are unacceptable to us,” said Omar Abdullah. India today. “The basic protections that are available to similar states like Himachal Pradesh have not been granted to us. No one can buy land there and in many other similar states. J&K has been put up for sale. They want to alter the character of this place. In a federal structure, they can’t override the J&K people. This is not a dictatorship. They have also betrayed the people of Ladakh. Look how these laws have brought about shortly after the end of the LADH elections. If they had done it before, they would never have won there. “
While there were already fears that land acquisition would be opened up to outsiders, what has taken Kashmiris by surprise is the abolition of the historic law of land to farm. “The repeal of the Law for the Abolition of the Great Stations, the first agrarian reform in the subcontinent, is an insult to the sacrifices of thousands of freedom fighters and farmers who fought against an autocratic and oppressive government and a crude attempt to rewrite the story, ”Sajad said. Lone, spokesperson for the Declaration of the Popular Alliance for Gupkar, a conglomerate of dominant political parties committed to reversing the collapse of Article 370. “The order issued in exercise of powers under the Reorganization Law of 2019, it is said, is another blatant violation of the principle of constitutional property of fundamental importance for a constitutional democracy ”.
An engineer walks on an iron structure at the construction site of a railway bridge in Kouri in Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir, March 4, 2015. Photo: Reuters / Mukesh Gupta
The land redistribution programs implemented in the 1950s at J&K were touted as most radical in any non-communist state.
The reforms marked the fulfillment of the key objectives enshrined in Sheikh Abdullah’s Naya Kashmir program. The Big Land Estates Abolition Act set a maximum limit of 22.75 acres on land holdings. However, the owners could retain orchards and fuel and forage reserves. Land that exceeded this limit was automatically transferred to the cultivator, who was not supposed to pay any compensation to the original owner. As a result, more than 9,000 homeowners were dispossessed of their excess land in J&K.
In 1952, 790,000 landless peasants, mostly Muslim, received land titles, including 250,000 lower caste Hindus in the Jammu region. Sheikh Abdullah enacted the Land Reform Law in 1976 to further rationalize land ownership in J&K. The success of the reforms is evidenced by the fact that of the 9.5 lakh acres of land distributed throughout India up to 1970, 4.5 lakh acres, almost half, were distributed in J&K alone.
Wolf Ladjensky, an agrarian expert has observed that, “while practically all agrarian reforms in India emphasize the elimination of the zamindari system with compensation, or reduction of rent and security of tenure (for farmers), the reforms of Kashmir require land distribution without compensation for former owners … (and) while the implementation of land reforms in most of India is not as effective, in Kashmir the implementation is unequivocally rigorous. “
It was the land policies of the former Dogra state that sparked an entire movement for land redistribution and other civil rights waged by Muslim agitators in the 1930s. The Dogra had made religious affiliation a basis for access. to state resources in Kashmir, placing Hindus in a privileged position.
In 1862, Ranbir Singh introduced the system of zer-i-niaz-chaks (grants under easy-to-assess conditions) in an effort to extend cultivation on fallow land. In 1866, another type of chak granted on even more favorable terms was introduced in Valley. Known as chak hanudis, were granted on the condition that the beneficiaries do not hire cultivators of Khalisa or state lands and that ‘they would remain Hindu and would not accept service anywhere else’. In the 1880s, a new category of chaks called mukarraris they were awarded on even more generous terms. They were also intended as subsidies to the Hindus, since one of the conditions imposed was that the “possessor (remain) loyal to the state and faithful to his caste.”
Starting in 1877, Ranbir Singh created service grants for the Dogra Mian Rajputs with the aim of encouraging them to settle in Kashmir so that the Maharaja would have ‘a certain body of his own people ready on hand in case of unrest in the valley’. As settlement commissioners Arthur Wingate, Walter Lawrence, and JL Kaye would later observe in their respective reports, the terms on which these grants were awarded were violated with impunity by Dogra state tax officials, the majority of whom were non-Muslims (Kashmiri Pandits and Dogras) who accumulated large tracts of land through bribery and other illegitimate means.
A man cycles past an apple orchard in Sopore, northern Kashmir, on September 13, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Francis Mascarenhas
In 1948, Sheikh Abdullah abolished 369 jagirs which involves an annual assessment of land income of Rs 566,313. In October 1948, his government amended the State Leasing Law through which 6,250 acres of Khalisa or state-owned land was distributed free to landless workers.
The transformative potential of the reforms of the 1950s unfolded years after their enactment. The fact that J&K does exceptionally well on most development indices is proof of the success of these reforms.
“The key aspect of the Land Abolition Law was the limit it imposed on land holdings, which now disappeared after its revocation,” said Altaf Hussain Para, a historian from Kashmir. “The nullification practically clears the covers for the resurgence of a neo-jagirdari system at J&K but somehow different. The land reforms had nullified the feudal nature of Kashmir and reoriented the old state in accordance with the socialist vision of Sheikh Abdullah. Now J&K is ready for capitalist exploitation. Large companies can accumulate as much land as possible. Although the full contours of the latest changes are yet to emerge, I think the limit to the properties of the land should have been maintained. “
The new changes are significant given the feverish state of the Kashmir Valley on the move. The J&K administration has rejected any form of protest, zealously monitored online spaces for dissent, undermined press freedom, continued to detain people who have participated in demonstrations, and threatened government employees with the dismissal if they express “anti-national” opinions. Recently, the J&K management announced that it may retire employees who have turned 48, sparking speculation that employees who disagree with the state’s political vision could be declared “dead and fired” without going to court. or courts.
“Basically, the central government is tearing down all the symbols on which the identity of Kashmiris has historically been based,” says Kashmir political scientist Noor Ahmed Baba. “It is a complete ruin of seven decades of politics and reform. This is bigger than what happened on August 5 of last year. Before, people were ambivalent about things. Now everything is clear. The steps pose a serious challenge both to the ethnocultural makeup of J&K and to the political aspirations of those living in Kashmir. But before hitting Kashmir, it threatens to overwhelm Jammu. “
Given the volatile security situation in the Valley, most observers believe Jammu is likely to see an increased scramble for land by companies and investors from other parts of India besides Kashmir.
Shakir Mir is a journalist from Srinagar.
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