Living on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia - EURAC

addressed by the government. The representatives of the peasants’ peak organization could sit
with the government representatives periodically to discuss issues that affect the peasants.
Rich peasants would in all likelihood dominate these organizations, as demonstrated in the
composition of the peasant sister organizations of various political parties. To circumvent
this, the peasant organization should be elected by the poor farmers. Land holding size could
be made a criterion for eligibility to vote and stand for elections in the peasant organizations.
To ensure representation of different interests within smaller farmers, sub associations of
different farming groups could be formed, such as rice growers, wheat farmers, sugar cane
farmers, etc. Alternately, sub-association could be formed based on the basis of geographic
divisions, like the mountain, hill and Tarai.
Land Reforms
Land reform could be a policy tool that could make available resources to the vast numbers of
landless or smallholder farmers for bettering their lives. Land reforms could also contribute
to addressing food security and the economic development of the country. Small holder
farmers have been found to be more productive than large farmers in developing countries
(Binswanger and Elgin 1998). Small landholders have an interest in raising productivity
because they directly benefit from it whereas a farm laborer working on a large farm does not
as s/he will not benefit from the increased output. Land reforms could also yield other indirect
benefits. It could breakdown the extensive control of the landless and smallholder peasants
by landlords (patron-client) through tenancy, credit etc and liberate the poor and oppressed
peasants and transform them into fuller citizens who can practice their democratic rights with
lesser constraints.
Earlier, several land related policies have been implemented in Nepal. The abolition of
jamindari in the fifties was a positive aspect as it ended very large land holdings. However, it
also enabled some with jagir land given temporarily as compensation for services to the state
but still owned by the state, to claim it as personal property. The land reform during the three
decade Panchayat period had mixed consequences. It distributed some land to the landless
but took away communal land from the indigenous peoples and gave land to the hill people in
the Tarai. Writing about the ethnic Limbu and the elimination of their communal land
ownership system called Kipat, Caplan (2001) pointed out that it not only contributed to the
Limbu’s economic marginalization but contributed to their loss of culture and identity as
Limbu identity and lifestyle were closely related to their ancestral communal landholdings.
Likewise, Guneratne (2000) has argued that the land colonization policy in the Tarai benefited
the hill migrants but had severe consequences for indigenous Tharu and other Madhesi. The
Tharu’s loss of control over their traditional land turned many into bonded laborers.
The nationalization of forests in the late fifties, a form of redistribution of land, had disastrous
consequences. By nationalizing private and communally held forests, the government
claimed to transfer the forests to all citizens but by making the forests open access resources
from restricted resources, the nationalization contributed to massive deforestation. The large
scale deforestation forced the government to transfer the resources to forest user communities
from the seventies onward. Community forestry has been widely cited as successful in regreening
the hills (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001). But it did not result in the restitution of the
traditional communal lands to the indigenous people. The community forests are often
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