Land is power—and India’s women are still denied it
- tnwforum
- 1 day ago
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Published on:
16 Jan 2026, 4:47 pm
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Chopdiyal, Uttarakhand. At first glance, this small hill village nestled in the Himalayas in Chamba tehsil of Tehri district reveals itself to be a settlement of hardworking farmers. Almost every house, perched along the slope below the road, is surrounded by small patches of farmland. Tree branches along the fields are stacked with fodder collected from nearby forests and left to dry, enough to sustain livestock through the winter. Apple, walnut and apricot trees, now stripped of their leaves, absorb the December cold, essential for better fruiting in the next season. In some fields, kiwi vines sway overhead, adopted as a progressive method to protect crops from wild animals. Wild boar and monkey troops that damage potatoes and peas tend to stay away, as kiwi is not to their liking.
About 40 families live in Churedhar Tohk of Chopdiyal village. Most men have migrated out of the village for work, while women shoulder the responsibility of running households, tending fields and orchards, and managing life in the village and nearby forests. There is also one household where a woman lives alone.
Shakuntla Devi leads the way around the fields and orchards adjoining her home. She owns about 15 nali of farmland. At the back of her house, slightly uphill, stretches a small kiwi orchard, while in the lower area in front, nearly a dozen apple trees stand bare for the winter. Plum, apricot, and walnut trees are also scattered across her land. After harvesting seasonal vegetables such as radish, cabbage, and leafy greens, she is now preparing to sow peas for the next cycle.
In Uttarakhand, a traditional land unit, called a nali, is roughly the size of a badminton court, and about 50 nalies make up one hectare.
Making most of the small, day-to-day farming decisions herself, Shakuntla Devi adds, “I decide what to grow, take care of the fields, and prepare manure. My husband helps with ploughing. I have 15 cattle, and collecting fodder for them from the forest is also my responsibility. We use the dung from the cattle to make manure and apply it to the fields. This keeps the soil healthy and the hills green.”
Wielding her sickle, hoe, and spade with skill, progressive farmer Shakuntla Devi is no
where to be found on the official papers of her fields. The land and house are registered in her husband, Satyaprasad Dabral’s name, and legally, he alone is recognized as the farmer. As a result, the popular government scheme PM-KISAN, which provides direct income support to farmers across the country, is credited only to his account.
Women of the Ujala Self-Help Group in Chopdiyal village discussing agricultural produce.Photo: Varsha Singh
Women who work the land, but don’t own it
One side of the veranda is bathed in sharp winter sunlight, while the other remains cold in the shade. The village women gather in the sunlit section. To give their agricultural produce a commercial identity, they formed the Ujala Self-Help Group. The group’s meetings usually revolve around soil, crops, and prices, but today the discussion is about something else altogether: rights over the land they cultivate.
“I don’t have to hold out my hand to anyone for money. I’ve been farming for the past 40 years. Since joining the group, I keep the income from farming with me. My husband has a job, but the farmland is in his name. I know that real power lies with the person whose name is on the land papers. Women spend their entire lives living under pressure. They belong neither fully to their parental home nor to their marital home. Rights over land would make us stronger in both.”
Savitri Devi, who has married off three daughters and a son, remarks, “Change will be possible only when everyone accepts that women have rights over land.” The other women present nod in agreement.
“Land rights and gender inequality are deeply and decisively interconnected.” Bina Agarwal, Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester (UK), has carried out extensive and influential research on women’s land rights across India and South Asia. In one of her reports, she writes, “Gender inequality in the ownership and control of property creates the single decisive factor in women’s economic and social status, and in their empowerment.”
The process of legal reform to grant women equal inheritance rights in India began after Independence. In 1956, the Hindu Succession Act legally recognised Hindu women’s property rights for the first time. The most significant and decisive change came in 2005 with an amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, which made daughters equal coparceners by birth in ancestral property, including agricultural land, and granted them the same rights as sons, regardless of whether they were married or unmarried.
Economist Bina Agarwal notes in her research that legal reforms have strengthened women as daughters, increasing their share in ancestral property. Yet in practice, most women acquire land only as widows, not as daughters. “For women’s empowerment, it matters at what stage of life and in what form they receive land. Rights as a daughter increase her decision-making power within the family. Land in the name of married women protects them from domestic violence,” she writes.
The only woman in Chopdiyal village with land in her name is Laxmi Devi. Her name was registered on paper nine years ago, after the death of her husband, alongside her two sons. Both sons now live in different cities with their families for work, and she remains on her own in her village home. “I keep my fields lush and productive myself. I even do the ploughing. When there is no rain, the soil becomes very hard, and it takes a lot of effort,” she admits with quiet determination.
Laxmi Devi regrets that when the land was registered in her and her sons’ names, her daughter received nothing. “When we marry off our daughters, we give gifts willingly, but we do not give them their rightful share,” she laments.
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