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It was a small yet
significant breakthrough in the advancement of India’s New Democratic Revolution
and more so in the New Democratic women’s movement.
In September 1998 in
10 villages of the Indravelli Squad Area of Adilabad district of the North
Telengana Special Zone, title deeds in land were issued to women under the
leadership of the Grama Rajya Committees (GRCs)—the revolutionary organ of state
power in the village.
Half of all forest
land seized in the course of the revolutionary movement in these 10 villages
have been distributed to women.
In programmes
organised in the Indravelli Squad Area, and attended by the CPI (ML) [People’s
War] Indravelli Squad, local GRC leaders and hundreds of adivasi men and women;
title deeds were issued to women along with their husbands. Of the forest land
seized in the course of the revolutionary struggle in the area, half now belongs
to the adivasi women.
In semi-feudal India,
women are denied property ownership. In fact they are themselves treated as
property. This lack of rights over property is an important economic factor
underlying patriarchal oppression.
The NDR which targets
feudalism and imperialism also targets patriarchy. In order to fight male
domination the CPI (ML)[People’s War] has embarked on a policy of distributing
land on a 50:50 basis to women tillers that belong to landless and poor peasant
families.
Speaking to this
correspondent, Comrade Sudhakar, Adilabad District Secretary and now NTSZC
member, said that half the land that the people have seized in the course of
struggle may be distributed either in the form of separate and equal title deeds
for men and women or in the form of a joint title deed for the husband and the
wife.
Talking of the
response of men to this, Comrade Sudhakar said: "Well, initially when the
proposal was mooted, the men did not seem very enthusiastic. But once the Squad
Area Committee made a second visit and held a round of discussion, they changed
their view. They said: ‘Okay. Let the women also have it’."
Comrade Sudhakar
underscored the fact that this land distribution programme had taken place among
the Gonds. "But what the response will be in the plains is a question we have to
wait and see. Perhaps it would need more thoroughgoing rounds of persuasion
before the men give in. You see, feudal traditions and values are much stronger
among the peasantry in the non-Adivasi plains."
Despite the extra bit
of persuasion this would indeed require, the experiment in the Indravelli Squad
Area has proved to be a success. In Adilabad alone the revolutionary movement
has seized more than 1.5 lakh acres of land. A lot more has been occupied in the
other districts. As the programme is taken across the entire expanse of the
North Telengana and Dandkaranya Guerrilla Zones, a new sense of revolutionary
and anti-patriarchal enthusiasm is going to inspire the masses of oppressed
women. Explaining the response of women in the Indravelli Area, Com Sudhakar
said: "Oh, they were elated!"
Women’s desire to participate in the
people’s war is bound to further accelarate. A new dimension will then be opened
to the question of women’s liberation in India. Women will stand on half the
land and they will hold up half the sky.
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