WOMEN AND LAND RIGHT: THORNY PATH OF EMPOWERMENT WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON TRIBAL WOMEN

Abstract

In India and elsewhere in South Asia, arable land is to a great extent a significant sourse of livelihood and a kind of security against poverty. Independent land right gives both men and women social and economic power. But it is unfortunate that in rural India, it is men who control and mediate the land right. Despite women’s larger participation in agriculture, they are excluded from legal right. From pre-colonial to post independent era, different laws and policies have been made to emancipate women’s status, but in vain. Social customary laws time to time have influenced policy-maker to take the right steps. Still among the tribal women, the condition is terrible. So, empowerment through land right became a myth for marginalised women. This chapter looks in to the question of land right in the context of empowerment of tribal women.