The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Call to revive land reforms

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Saturday, Sep 23, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Call to revive land reforms

Special Correspondent

West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi emphasises on demographic integrity Gopalkrishna Gandhi emphasises on demographic integrity

SHARING NOTES: Governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi (left) in conversation with M. Narasimham, Chairman, Court of Governors of Administrative Staff College of India, at a lecture organised in Hyderabad on Friday. — PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi has said that the implementation of land reforms in the country, distorted as it has been by "vested interests", needs to be revived nationally.

Delivering the fourth Ambedkar Memorial lecture organised by the Administrative Staff College of India, titled `Rage and calm' here on Friday, he said that India meant not just its territory but also its people. "Our demographic integrity must be no less sovereign than the cartographic one. It must be protected by the State and respected by all citizens. India being predominantly agricultural, this demographic integrity has, primarily, to do with land-related rights," he said.

`Reforms sabotaged'

Mr. Gandhi said: "Let us face the fact that the pre-independence promise of comprehensive land reforms in the whole of India has been sabotaged by class and caste interests. And let us face this fact also: the despondency and rage of our landless and rural unemployed has, as a direct consequence of that sabotaging, become available to naxalism."

"So is it too late now," he asked and said: "Let me say again that we would be undeserving of Ambedkar's legacy if we thought so." He stressed the need to revive land reform implementation. Even in States where land reforms had been implemented well as in West Bengal or Kerala, there was such a thing as a "next stage" so that reforms of the '70s and '80s could benefit more numbers of the more deserving.

Stating that it was fashionable for us to look at China for the "miracles" of its land and economic reforms, he said "Let us not forget that if China offers a model for investment and enterprise today, it is based on the solid ground of its achievements on land, its tackling of the hungers and rages of pre-1950 China."

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