Five thousand Dalit women across six districts of undivided Andhra Pradesh were each given 36 guntas (0.9 acres) of land in 2000. Under Velugu — a poverty alleviation scheme now called Indira Kranthi Patham — landless women turned landowners overnight. In Somaram village, Warangal district, Uppalamma was one of the 53 beneficiaries of this scheme. Fifteen years later, she is the unchallenged head of the household. Her social standing in the village has improved and she is no longer a silent victim of domestic violence. The 50-year-old is providing for the education of her son and daughter, farming her land and making family decisions. She is an active participant in the district’s women self-help groups. Her family is eating better and earning more. All this was made possible, Uppalamma says, because she came to own land for cultivation.

In a landmark book, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994), Bina Agarwal writes, “Two decades ago: ‘Do women need independent rights in land?’ was not even admitted in public policy discourse. That women need independent rights in land — the most critical form of property in agrarian economies — means admitting new contenders for a share in a scarce and highly valuable resource which determines economic well-being and shapes power relations in the countryside; and it means extending the conflict over land that has existed largely between men, to men and women, thus bringing it into the family’s innermost courtyard.”

Arguably, the first audible murmurs of women’s land rights were articulated in 1979, when a group of women gram panchayat members in West Bengal demanded joint titles on behalf of Muslim women from their villages. Evicted by their husbands, these women needed the economic security that land provided. Several studies in the last two decades have thrown light on the links between domestic violence and property rights. Despite marginal access to economic resources, in a majority of cases, women’s ownership of land has significantly reduced the risk of violence. While nearly 98 million women in India are engaged in agricultural work, around 63 per cent don’t own the land they till. “As per law, state government assigned land should be in the name of women. And one of the surprising findings of last year’s Telangana household survey is that around 20 lakh families in the state are headed by women,” says Sunil Kumar, state director of Landesa, a land rights organisation. Yet, the letter of the law is seldom followed.

In a new study titled ‘Women’s Asset Ownership and Reduction in gender-violence’, author Govind Kelkar quantitatively and qualitatively measures the decrease in domestic violence across six villages in Telangana, Karnataka and Meghalaya and two types of societies — patriarchal and matrilineal. The study surveyed 494 people (388 women and 106 men), including 122 landowning and 134 landless Dalit women. A few months after the survey, BL ink visited Somaram village, Thorrur mandal, which was one of the sites of the research.

How does a society change when women become landowners? Are they able to exercise economic agency? Do women feel more secure when they own land? Does violence reduce within and outside their homes? These are some of the questions that lie at the heart of the discourse around women’s land rights, which are also addressed in Kelkar’s study.

Corking the bottle

Manjula is a 26-year-old mother of a teenage son and a younger daughter. She has a slight built, wears her hair in a neat plait and the pallu of her mustard yellow sari is carefully pinned. “A few years ago, you wouldn’t see women congregating like this,” she says, smiling at the landowning Dalit women gathered in the village street. Now, they hold monthly meetings at the village square and participate in research studies without any interference from men. Last August, scores of landowning and landless women participated in Kelkar’s study, sitting for focus-group discussions and answering lengthy questionnaires. “One of the biggest changes since I got my land is that I can decide my daughter’s education,” says Manjula. She is sending her son to college while her daughter will continue her studies at the local government school. The household too has seen changes. “I’m part of every decision, whether it is about groceries, crop loans or purchase of goods. We (my husband and I) negotiate now, not quarrel,” she adds.

In Somaram, where 33 per cent of the population is Dalit, domestic violence is an everyday occurrence. So is drinking. Manjula and Uppalamma recount several stories of abuse faced by their neighbours. “Every evening, the husbands get drunk. Then they kick, punch, fight, push and cuss at their wives,” says Manjula. We wonder whether they’re sharing their friends’ stories or their own.

According to Kelkar’s study, when wives tried to stop their husbands from drinking, “landowning women in patriarchal Karnataka and Telangana said they would be shouted at (79 per cent), called names (58 per cent), insulted (42 per cent) and even slapped (19 per cent).” Almost half the women in the study from the two states also said that the “household is deprived of basic needs and daily comforts like a bed and clean clothes as a result of the husband’s alcohol abuse.” But due to land and asset ownership, more than 40 per cent of landowning women in the two states reported a decrease in alcohol-fuelled violence. In the case of landless women, the abuse has only perpetuated.

Agency, not just assets

Roja and Sarita are 18. College friends and neighbours, they live in hostels away from the village and paint their nails black and red. “We don’t get bicycles or mobiles but we get to study,” they say. In Somaram, it also appears that women are marrying later. “They don’t rush us into marriage as soon as we turn 18. There’s time till we turn 20 or 21,” Sarita says. At homes of landowning women like Uppalamma or Elamma, domestic goods have become signs of prosperity and agency. Uppalamma’s house is pucca now, at least partially. A television has made its way in, so have wardrobes and a motorcycle. “Our life has improved a lot. I buy three different kinds of shampoos for my children and me,” she says with a laugh. Chik shampoo for her, Pantene for her daughter and Dove for her son.

However, for Kelkar, agency is more important than assets. She says, “The study doesn’t measure how many assets have been acquired. Rather, it measures how much control women wield over their assets.” For example, the survey asked what happens if a woman tries to exercise birth control, if she spends money on grooming, leaves the village without consultation, or gives birth to a daughter. While all landowning women in Karnataka and Telangana reported that a woman could be “pushed (27 per cent), slapped (26 per cent) or punched (19 per cent) by their husband for having given birth to one or more daughter(s),” 43 per cent reported that violence has reduced significantly since they got land rights.

Earlier, women would be forced into sexual intercourse for having used birth control. Now, more than 83 per cent of landowning women across the three states have reported a decrease in sexual violence while landless women continue to suffer. While the study doesn’t establish a “bi-directional” relationship between domestic violence and women’s ownership of land, it does show that right to land results in a reduction of verbal, physical and sexual violence.

Patriarchy, however, continues to exert a powerful influence on how society conducts itself. This is reflected in the attitude of many men who participated in the study. In Meghalaya, many men were in favour of changing the matrilineal system to a patrilineal one — “A man will be the head of the household and a woman will be the heart of the household,” says Keith Pariat, the face of the men’s rights movement in the state. In the cases of landowning Dalit women, several aspects of their lives have improved: for example, Manjula deals with banks and revenue officials, decides on which subsistence crops to grow, applies for loans and exercises birth control. Yet, her daughter will not inherit her land. “Brothers don’t want their sisters to take their share of land. The resistance coming from the younger generation is worrying,” says Kelkar.

(The study on women's asset ownership was undertaken by Landesa. Govind Kelkar is the lead researcher of the study.)

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