Sindh

Landlords ready to surrender

Landlords say they would not mind surrendering their lands if govt offers them a good deal.

Aroosa Masroor November 02, 2010

KARACHI: Many have been questioning the viability of the Redistributive Land Reforms Bill 2010, proposed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) recently, but some landlords say they would not mind surrendering their lands if the government offers them a good deal.

“If a land owner is paid compensation at the correct market rate per acre, I think most of them would willingly sell their land,” remarks National Peoples Party MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi, whose family owns some of the biggest lands in Sindh. “Agriculture is no longer an easy business to sustain anyway.”

But the MQM states that the owner would be paid compensation at the rates determined by the land reforms commission if the bill is passed into law. They are seeking to put an end to the exploitative landlord-tenant relationship, which land owners say is not as bad as the “media paints it to be.”

“It is easy to blame feudals for all the ills our society faces today, but no one really is able to explain how exactly does our existence hinder national progress,” argues Jatoi. “And if the masses really feel we treat our farmers like slaves, why don’t they point the same finger at industrialists who treat their factory-workers similarly?”

In his opinion, the submission of this bill is nothing but a political gimmick by the MQM and that agrarian reforms are needed at this point rather than land reforms – which is already illegal considering the decision of the Shariat Court in 1978 during General Zia’s dictatorship.

Hamir Soomro, a faculty member of Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture in Karachi and a landlord for his people in Shikarpur, agrees. “The elite in the urban areas are better off than most rural feudals,” he says.

What most people in the urban areas fail to understand is that time has taken care of a lot of things, he adds. Agriculture is now a very volatile business as a result of which most landowners and their children have moved to cities and taken up other jobs that pay much better. They are also able to enjoy better facilities here and are no longer willing to return to their village to take care of their lands.”

Jatoi predicts that in the next decade or so this urbanisation is expected to further rise as was witnessed during the recent floods. “In this age of globalisation, you cannot control farmers and compel them to stay in rural areas. Due to lack of basic facilities like health and education, many of the poor peasants will eventually move to cities.”

A dead issue?

For this to happen, the government and the opposition should instead take initiatives to ensure rapid industrialisation that will automatically drive the labour force out of the rural areas, say economists.

“Land reforms at this point is a dead issue,” comments senior economist Kaiser Bengali. “Pakistan has missed the bus. What we need now is corporatisation of agriculture.”

By creating a labour shortage, political power of these so-called landlords would gradually wither away as they will no longer have a captive vote-bank to count on who help them win a seat in the national and provincial assemblies, he adds.

Interestingly, however, among the 342 MNAs in the parliament presently, there are only about 60 to 70 feudals, Jatoi points out. “The country can’t possibly feel threatened from this minority. Apart from the Balochistan tribal chieftains, majority of the MNAs from Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa hail from urban areas.” “This argument should be more against the feudal mindset than the feudals themselves.”

But the MQM argues that if this was the case then one would not have been exposed to the burden of rural poverty after the floods, which particularly led to the proposal of this bill.

The bill argues that colonisation through barrages by grant of most fertile and large tracts of land to influential absentee zamindars at throwaway prices created a new class of overlords, who earned windfall profits through the hard work and labour of the haris (share-croppers).

Landless to landowners: a step forward

Realising the importance of land in a peasant’s life, senior PPP leader Taj Haider points towards his party’s initiative of land distribution among the haris to address this longstanding issue. The government began implementing the programme in September 2008, under which about 225,000 acres of land was distributed in the first phase in 17 districts of Sindh, mainly among the landless women.

“The state can’t just take away someone’s assets and distribute it among the poor if they are unwilling to do so. There are other alternatives too which the PPP is working on,” he explains. “The floods have destroyed about 22 lakh acres of cultivable land and left another 62 per cent of land waterlogged. Yet we are doing what we can to support them.”

Experts also add that in these trying economic times, the state does not have enough funds to compensate landlords if the present land reforms bill is passed and donors may have to step in to provide the required funds which the government cannot afford to do.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2010.

COMMENTS (8)

Taha Kehar | 14 years ago | Reply Taxes on agriculture seems to be a more viable solution. One can't expect sweeping changes to elicit positive results unless state mechanisms are effectively utilized.

Wasio Ali Khan Abbasi | 14 years ago | Reply This is very true. Pakistan should have pursued a policy of promoting agricultural business instead of mindless industrialization. Through that Pakistan would have used its biggest strength in best way available. If Swiss chocolate is famous and flowers and dairy products from Holland are sought after throughout the world, there is a big reason behind it. These countries didn't go for mindless industrialization to make what we didn't had but instead used there existing resources to strengthen their economy and boost it further. Holland actually earned $4 Billion by exporting flowers alone if I recall correctly. We have some of the best varieties of wheat, rice, mangoes and cotton, all highly sought after in the world. If the cards were played right and corporatization of these and many other agricultural outputs was done, we would have had stronger economy, lesser poverty, smarter industrialization, lesser urban pollution and less rural-to-urban migration.

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Muhammad Saleem Usmani | 14 years ago | Reply I don't want to get an argument. The land ceiling was set at 130 acres in time of Bhutto and it never worked. It will never work, unless all the uncultivated lands are taken out of the hold of land lords. I agree that taxes should not be based on sectors and instead be based on income. What the government does and does not do is another thing and should be discussed appropriately. Similarly if the land is just to be taken away then by the same token, what about the industries that are closed. Shouldn't that be taken away as well? Question here, is how to enforce that land reform and not indulge in petty politics that we all do. The only place where land ceilings have been enforced and worked is India, where the income is taxed regardless of the type of source in question.

nina | 14 years ago | Reply So if nobody's going to work in the agricultural fields, then where do urban Pakistanis expect to get food from, MacDonalds? Just think of the long term consequences, the govt should introduce measures that will make the peasants stay and work on the land and still be well paid for their work. Big corporations will make it worst, as their only aim is to maximize their profit.

Afzal Ali | 14 years ago | Reply Funny,very funny. How about Industrialist or businessmen telling government; give us a good deal we will pay taxes. Listen, the government taxes business @ 30% of the Income and more...... It gives nothing back in return...not even security I say put land ceilings; other counties have done it......it brought about economic equality

Muhammad Saleem Usmani | 14 years ago | Reply I think that it is overdue by some decades. The land must be taken off the hands of a few and those who have it even after the reforms of 1970s should be paid via a commission. Peasants should be given land on the promise of cultivation and commercialization of that land should be prohibited. The grain products related industries should be moved to rural areas and should be de-regularized since it makes no sense for the government to dictate as to who should put in an industry and where to put it. Its a commercial risk that the industrialist needs to bear. A uniform tax system should be imposed on the income rather than the source of it. There is no logical explanation as to why a person with billions of rupees in income should pay less than a clerk. Corporatisation of agriculture has not paid any dividends anywhere in the world. In US, where this is prevalent, it is for the advantage of larger corporations and is heavily subsidized. So it makes no sense to replace one entity with another. The only solution is that the farmers produce crops on lands which is profitable and the agri related industry is situated close by to take advantage of the produce and create alternate options for jobs.

Zain | 14 years ago | Reply We need to corporatise farm land. If private owners were to build factories or manufacturing facilities here, we would move awat from an agriculture reliant economy. But I think people are arguing for the removal of a feudal system because they don't pay taxes. There are no labour rights here except for a few factories, and yes farmers are abused in the rural areas. If fuedals are being targeted then the Jamati's should also be targeted.

Asmat Jamal | 14 years ago | Reply .MQM's pursuit for more land after effectively taking hold of the Urban land of Karachi is well understood. “The elite in the urban areas are better off than most rural feudal,” as said by Mr Hamir Soomro, a faculty member of Indus Valley School of Arts. It now time that labor should be given share in industries and trading/businesses. We have seen land reforms taking place three times however industrial and business reforms have yet to be initiated In our life time we have never seen such a tolerant government and such a judiciary which spares no time and effort to mortify the government. After the restoration of Judiciary, it was considered opinion of public at large that the commoners will get timely justice but soon their wishful got dissipated in thin air.

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