om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

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Women’s Alienation
would get investments worth nearly
Rs. 3500 crore in the next few years.
Around 4,500 acres of land is being
developed at Pantnagar, Haridwar
and Dehradun.
Women in Uttarakhand are
suffering in two ways in the wake of
ongoing aggressive growth model.
First, they don’t have property in
their name i.e. they don’t have
land rights. Secondly they have to
do all the work related with home
and hearth, besides working in
the fields and grazing the animals.
Though their responsibilities have
increased, they still have no rights
to the land they work in. They
rarely hold land titles. They toil in
the fields all year long, but once
the crop is harvested, it is the men
who take it to the market. As an
increasing amount of common
and forest land being acquired
by the government in the name
of development, has made their
life more miserable. The control
of women over natural resources
has also decreased considerably,
thus making them vulnerable to
economic crises. Women being the
keystones of the sustainable natural
resource management systems in
the Himalayas, they are therefore
the first and most vulnerable victims
of processes that tend to destabilise
the natural resource base.
India seems to be the only country in
the developing world which is going
overboard in serving the interests
of the corporate world at the altar
of the interests of the farmers
by creating hundreds of SEZs.
Rajasthan is one of those states that
have taken early lead in acquiring
farmlands for SEZs by invoking SEZ
Act, 2005. According to the Ministry
of Commerce, Govt. of India, three
SEZs – two near Jaipur and one in
Jodhpur – have become operational
in Rajasthan. In addition, five others
have received ‘formal approval’ and
10 more await formal approval,
having already acquired “in principle
approval”. The existing constitutional
provisions to safeguard the land of
marginal farmers, scheduled castes
and scheduled tribes are also being
negated by the state by passing
new ordinances, orders and policies.
It is clear that the government has
dumped its role of a welfare state
and is increasingly catering to the
interests of the corporate and land
mafiosi. The constitutionally declared
principles of socialism, democracy
and equality have been given a go