Introduction

Contests over property reflect and shape relationships between people over a period of time as much as between people and resources. They also reflect competing representations of these relationships and notions of the ‘community’ in specific political–economic contexts (Li, 1996). In many instances, women occupy a disadvantaged position in terms of property rights within the traditional social structures, and in contexts of scarcity, their rights are likely to be the first to be challenged, necessitating the need to protect them. The claims for women's rights to landed property also represent struggles over institutions, status, identities, roles, rules and practices, not just between men and women, but between different groups of men as well. However, the debate is often presented in a polarised, either–or manner – as a struggle between men and women or between statutory law and custom (International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD], 2001). I have discussed the problems of presenting the issue of women's land claims and secure access as a male-versus-female struggle in Chapter 3; in this chapter I examine the second strand of this polarisation, namely the nature of the legitimisation system. Is there really a choice to be made between statutory codes and customary practices to ensure women's rights?

Internationally, land rights for women gained visibility in the women's movement with the dramatic statement at the United Nations (UN) Women's Conference in Copenhagen in 1980 that women owned only one per cent of the world's resources while constituting 50 per cent of the world's population (UN, 1980: 8). The ground for this had been prepared in 1979 by the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This included specific clauses on the equal treatment of women in agrarian reform as well as similar rights for both spouses in the ownership, management and disposition of property. With the strengthening of women's movements globally during the UN Decade for Women (1976–85), the exclusion of women from the ownership of land has been increasingly questioned, and legal reform sought to change this position.

In India, this line of argument was articulated in the policy process for the first time in the Sixth Five-Year Plan in 1980 (Government of India, 1980).