Land Reforms to Land Titling: Emerging Paradigms of Land Governance in India

In India, land policies have been undergoing a paradigm shift since the economic reforms of the early 1990s. Conclusive land titling or guaranteed title to land has emerged as an alternative policy option to the redistributive land reform agenda before economic liberalization, and marks a historic reorientation of land policy. Land Reforms to Land Titling: Emerging Paradigms of Land Governance in India studies this reorientation.  Would the neoliberal policy of secure individual property rights in land address diverse land-related questions in India? Whose interests will a conclusive titling policy serve, given unequal land holdings? How are capitalist or market imperatives of efficiency and growth bypassing social concerns? This book addresses these and other important questions through an in-depth study of not only India’s land governance history but also the experiences of other developing countries. The book also talks about policy implications and will be an invaluable read for academics and policymakers alike.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Nirmal Sengupta Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Contemporary Discourse on Secure Property Rights in Land Land Titling Experience in Developing Countries Property Rights in Land in India: Continuities and Changes Land Titling and the Emerging Political Economy of Land in India Legal and Institutional Mechanisms for Land Titling Land Market, Conclusive Title and Revisiting Land Reforms Conclusion: Beyond Techno-Managerialism and Commodification of Land Glossary Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Pradeep Nayak is a civil servant and has been in the Odisha Administrative Service since 1996. He is currently Joint Commissioner and Faculty Member at the Administrative Training Institute of the Government of Odisha at Bhubaneswar. At the beginning of his career, he served as the Land Acquisition Officer and Revenue Officer in Keonjhar district and worked in various departments such as the Bhubaneswar Development Authority, the Land Cell of the General Administration Department, the Administrative Reforms Cell, the Board of Revenue, the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority, etc. He has around 25 years of experience in research on public policy and governance and in general administration. He completed his masters and MPhil in political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and did his PhD at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU. He is a former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He has published many research papers and book chapters and two books The Politics of the Ayodhya Dispute (1992) and The State and Land Records Modernisation (2015).

Review :
This book undertakes a critical analysis of the transformation of presumptive nature of land records and ownership to a conclusive land title regime while focusing on its legal and institutional context along with its relevance to Indian realities. The book examines the impact of the concerted policy push under the National Land Records Modernization Programme on diverse land tenure system of the country by deploying a variety of primary sources to correlate it with the changing requirements of economic policy. Deploying a historically informed and politico-economy located frame, the book fills a vital gap on this subject matter and is a significant contribution in the field. In this bold new book, a civil servant with years of experience in land governance painstakingly traces a land regime in transition. He goes past the headlines to place the shift from land reform to land titling within India’s changing politics and political economy. Concern for social justice and the poor is writ large in this impassioned account as Dr Nayak interrogates who wins and who is set to lose as India liberalizes and modernizes its land regime. When much of our land economy is being regulated and irregulated in a far from transparent manner, this book is an essential reading for scholars, policymakers and the alert public to understand the inner workings of India via a vital resource. Treading a delicate path of expositing the political economy of India’s turn away from redistributive land reforms to achieving techno-managerial efficiency through land titling, Dr Nayak, like no one else thus far, has laid bare the trappings of neoliberal designs that undermine the pre-existing nature–society relationship of an intrinsically pluralistic people. Rich in insights, historicity and ability to decipher the fine print of the legalities in land titling, this masterly study would not only enrich our knowledge on the complex subject of land rights but would also set us thinking if the policy aims for social justice and has not fallen hostage to capital or hegemony.