Critique of Frontline article Index of Equity on Land Distribution in West Bengal - Blog article open for comments
May 9, 2007
By Aditi Sarkar, Sanhati
Aparajita Bakshi (2007) in her recent article Index of Equity constructs, in her own words, “a simple index of access to agricultural land” to claim the “socially broad based land reform” achievements by the government of West Bengal. This article professes the great strides that the government of West Bengal has made in achieving equality by enacting its policies of distributing land among the Dalits and the Adivasis.
Equity was measured simplistically as some combination of the fraction of land owned by certain under-privileged groups compared to the size of these groups to the total population. Even if this measure was called land-distribution equity, instead of equity index, it is ill-conceived. It does not, for example, factor in fundamental qualities of the land like soil type, its arability and its proximity to irrigation facilities.
The main point of this critique, however, is to show how the “simple” construction of an index of land distribution has been conflated with the much more complex and larger idea of equity. This is important, since Ms. Bakshi does not name her article Agricultural Land Access Index as would seem natural and true to her work, however ill-conceived. It is rather named Index of Equity, a term that has connotations of some grand index of justice to humanity.
Ms Bakshi implies two definitions of equity in her article, neither of which is true. First, she implies that equity means equal access. Second, she implies that equity is achieved by equal distribution of a commodity. Equity is unfortunately a complex concept that cannot be defined so simply.
Equity is related to equality; but one needs to understand the difference between the two.
Equality is “an ideal, a moral imperative and a sociological datum, a legal principle and a social norm” (Boorstim, 1953). Whatever equality is, it is well accepted as something that can not and should not be practiced in most spheres of public policy. An example should clarify why equality is off the
political agenda for several years now. Suppose a rural bank in India offers equal opportunity loans to men and women to start small businesses based on their earnings. In a society where historically women either have had no salaries or are paid less then men for the same work and have no properties in their names, this egalitarian rule would make it impossible for a woman to obtain a loan. Public policy thus needs to be equitable and not equal.
In Inequality Reexamined Amartya Sen (1992) confronts the “heterogeneity of human beings” and “the multiplicity of variables in terms of which equality can be judged” to clarify the complexity of the matter. At a minimum, equality can be judged to have seven dimensions (Boles, 1986). A necessary condition for an index to appropriately measure equity would be to take into account all the dimensions of equality.
One of the fundamental dimensions of equality is the “distribution of prestige and social status within the larger society” –something that can not be ignored when talking about the Dalits and the Adivasis.
The six other dimensions mentioned here are also vitally important and none can be ignored. “Freedom of speech, association and petition, equal access to public office, and fair and free elections,” considered “political equality” is the second dimension of equality.
“Equality of income, job security and personal autonomy” is the third dimension of equality. Equality of access that implies “differential physical, political, juridical and economic barriers to approaching, entering, obtaining and making use of the full range of goods and services to the society” is the fourth dimension of equality.
It is worthwhile to note at this point that in Ms. Bakshi’s index of access to agricultural land none of the aspects of equality of access, mentioned above, is considered.
Equality of influence, power and control that refers to “the pattern of agenda building, office holding, and decision making in society” that is denied to the lower castes in India is considered the fifth dimension of equality. Juridical equality, where “individuals must receive equal treatment from government through a system of [local] and [national] courts dedicated to impartial adjudication and enforcement of legal equality” is the sixth dimension of equality. Last but not the least, distributive equality, requiring “apportionment of goods and services,” is touched upon very lightly by Ms. Bakshi, is the seventh dimension of equality. It is only when all of these dimensions are taken into account, together with the innate heterogeneity of human beings, that one may form an index of equity. Until then let us not conflate simple one-dimensional measures of land distribution to the complex multi-dimensional ideals of equity.
The nature of justice, and hence equity, has been debated since the time of Socrates. Rawls (1971), one of the foremost scholars of more recent times, defined it as “the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.” It maybe time for Ms. Bakshi to bring some thought to her system of constructing indices. I leave it upon her to decide to whom and by how much she would like to be true.
Bibliography
Bakshi, A. (2007). Index of equity. Frontline, 24(7).
Boles, J. K. (Ed.). (1986). The Egalitarian City: Issues of Rights, Distribution, Access and Power. New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney: Praeger
Boorstim, D. J. (1953). The Genius of American Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Rawls, J. (1971). The Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sen, A. (1992). Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
References on Land Distribution in West Bengal:
1. Dipankar Basu, EPW: April 21, 2001
Author’s conclusion :
Though it cannot be denied that the land reforms had some beneficial impact on the peasantry in West Bengal (if compared to say Bihar or Orissa or MP), it was rather limited. Most importantly, the lion’s share of the benefit was cornered by the middle peasants; the agricultural labourers did not gain much. It was this emerging middle peasants that formed the bulwark of CPI(M) rule in rural West Bengal; they hegemonised the rural proletariat and small/marginal farmers through the party apparatus. Another interesting fact which is not known widely is that most of the land redistribution took place BEFORE the LF government came to power in 1977, i.e., most of the benefits came because of the radical movement of the agricultural workers and
small peasants led by the Naxalites and not because of the LF government. If anything, the LF government put brakes on the movement and thereby consciously limited the possible scope of land reforms.
2. Paper by Anirban Dasgupta ( Click to download )
Author’s conclusion:
“…the land redistribution undertaken by the LFG has been very limited in scope. Although it involves a sizable portion of the population dependent on
agriculture, the amount of land redistributed has been meager. As a result, the agrarian structure in rural WB has not witnessed any significant change compared to the pre-reform period. Our analysis of ownership distribution of landholdings provides evidence that the level of concentration of land ownership has remained almost unchanged in the one and a half decades since the resumption of land distribution in 1977. The actual deterioration in the distribution of operational holdings (if the NSS estimates are accepted) since the LFG policies imply that the presence of tenancy has only managed to exacerbate the inequality in the access to land.”
May 10th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Many years ago, I awakened to awareness when I realised that rather than elucidate a thesis to refute someone perceived as an oppressor - one should instead kick him in the groin. I remembered that while reading this critique. Ms Bakshi is not, contrary to apppearances, engaged in a reasoned discourse. She is unabashedly ingratiating herself with the CPI(M) and / or displaying her partisan loyalty. So it is an utter waste of time to bother with whatever she may have written!
May 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Rama, I had the same reaction at first, but then realized that unless even banalities are refuted, they get away with it. This scurrilous article of Frontline is being circulated widely by CPM sympathizers.