Forest or Farm? The Politics of Poverty and Land Hunger in Nepal

The political economy of poverty and land hunger in Nepal traces unequal land distribution to landlessness and migration into the Tarai.

This book is about the political economy of poverty and land hunger in Nepal. It suggests that the historically evolved unequal distribution of cultivated land across tenure classes, and in particular the existence of extremely small units of land held by a majority of the farmerscombined with declining yields and population growthhas produced a gradual process of landlessness. At the same time, the overwhelmingly rural economy, the seasonal nature of agricultural wage, employment, and low wage rates have made attractive as well as self-perpetuating the desire to become a land-holding' peasant among the rural poor.

One consequence of this situation has been the high level of migration and spontaneous land settlement in forest areas in the Nepal Tarai, where prospects for land settlement are still substantial. But recent state policies emphasize forest protection and the sealing off of this last' agricultural frontier. The landless and propertyless migrants, even after having settled for a considerable period, are hence subjected to constant official intimidation, frequently accompanied by the destruction of their homes and crops, and eviction from their settlements.

This work describes the hopes and frustrations of these people with respect to their aspirations to land, as well as examines the rationality of present land-use policies. It looks at the vested interests of many socially dominant groupsinterests which coincide with the official forest-protection measures, but which are totally contradictory to the subsistence needs of the landless.

The main argument which runs through the book is that a poor country like Nepal could increase social benefits through promoting small-holder land settlements in regions most suitable for agriculture (i.e. in many parts of the Tarai), instead of pursuing a policy of luxury for conservation which lets productive land lie idle while the hungry people of that area multiply.

Table of Contents

• Preface xi
• Abbreviations, land measurement and
• currency equivalent xv xv
• 1 Introduction 1
• Landlessness and pressures on forest areas 1
• Agrarian relations in Nepal: some conceptual issues 11
• Methodology 19
• 2 The root causes and the reproduction of landlessness in Nepal 23
• Historical legacy of socio-economic inequalities up to 1951 23
• Post-1951 political developments 34
• The State, agrarian reforms and the poor 38
• 3 The scale of illegal settlement in Nawalparasi district 48
• General background of Nawalparasi district 48
• Government resettlement programmes in Nawalparasi district 55
• Major causes of illegal settlement 66
• Magnitude of illegal settlement in Nawalparasi district 73
• 4 Groups and people involved in illegal settlement 84
• Profit-seeking settlers 84
• Peasant settlers 89
• Peasant settlers as a social group 94
• 5 Agrarian relations at the local level 107
• Relations between settler enclaves and established villages 107
• Production relations 110
• Patron-client relationship reinforced 120
• 6 Peasant settlers and the State: land and underlying relationships of conflict 124
• Survival imperatives and peasant settlers contacts with the State 124
• Official responses towards peasant settlers demand for land 130
• Popular discontent of peasant settlers 138
• Present landuse and resettlement policies 146
• 7 Implications for the future 152
• Insecurity of tenure 152
• Loss of customary occupations 158
• Lack of access to education 163
• Lack of political representation 164
• Prospects for the future 167
• 8 Conclusion 170
• Summary of major findings 170
• Vested interests in Tarai-forest areas and further likely restraints on access to land for rural poor 173
• Forest frontier relations and future implications for landlessness 180
• From unsuccessful peasants to agricultural labourers 183
• Epilogue 193
• Bibliography 197
• Index 207

Krishna B. Ghimire holds a Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He is a development sociologist with United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva and is currently directing programmes on the political economy of land reform and emerging national and regional mass tourism in developing countries.