Land Reforms
Challenges Ahead

By Gandhi Raj Kafle

WHAT will be appropriate-ceiling on land or ceiling on property? Let us leave this to the lawmakers to decide. But, for now the land reforms issues outweighs the arguments on property ceiling. So , there are reasons to hope that the land reforms programme will be implemented once again. The present government headed by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is making sincere efforts to implement the proposed programme. It is indeed a welcome gesture that the main opposition party has put its weight behind the programme. So, politically the green signal to implement the land reform programme proposed by the present government has already been given.

But, will the government achieve its objectives? Many questions, however, are being raised. The government says that thousands of landless farmers will get land and the target to achieve higher productivity from such redistribution of land will also be materialised. Many development experts however do not concur with this view. They argue that the government as a policy maker has left no stone unturned to chalkout suitable programmes. But, the shortcoming is that the government as an implementing authority has always been flimsy. Its focus, it seems, is on the implementation side.

Can it be so easily assumed that the government is very poor at the implementation level? The development experts recall a series of past experiences. The government had made similar efforts to implement land reform programmes nearly four decades ago. It is indeed very unfortunate that the land reforms programme carried out in 1964 in the form of a campaign did not yield revolutionary results as far as equity of land distribution and productivity enhancement were concerned.

The aim of such programmes is to achieve high productivity by encouraging transfer of land from the land holders who are passive to the real products. So, the success of such government progrmmes depends on the area of land transferred. For long Nepal’s feudal land system created big farmers, who were satisfied in their rights to ownership over the land rather than truly engaging to produce more from it. On the other side there were landless people, who worked for their landlords to earn their livelihood. They were quite indifferent to productivity of land.

The goal of the land reform campaign of 1964 was to put an end to this system thereby raising productivity by slowly facilitating land transfer in favour of these real producers. But, the campaign failed to meet its target. If we compare two land sample surveys done in 1961 and 1981, we find that only 1,61,987 hectares of land is found to be possessed by farmers having less than 0.5 hectares of land in Nepal, the figure or farmers in the same category in 1961 was 1,99,532 hectares. This means improvement to empower very small farmers through redistribution of land by launching the land reform campaign in 1964 showed in the survey with transfer of 37,545 hectares of land, probably from the big farmers. This is perhaps the less impressive impact in favour of small or landless farmers, who were the target group of people in true sense in the land reforms programme of 1964.

The land reform-programmes launched in the past could not yield the expected outcome. According to the sample survey carried in 1981, seventeen years after the launching of the first ever land reform programme of the country, it was found that nearly 9 per cent of farmers holding aboe three hectares of land still control 47.3 per cent of the total cultivated land of Nepal. For many development experts, who are for revolutionary land reforms to change the structure of the Nepalese economy, the survey statistics are baffling.

If big farmers are not real producers, they can’t assure the government to raise productivity from the land, which they have been keeping with them despite land reform programmes of the government. Enhanced productivity is expected from small farmers, but the problem is that they don’t have enough land to do so. Our first land reform programme introduced in 1964 could not achieve the expected results in favour of small farmers because it allowed the people to escape the land ceiling defined in the law for many big farmers of the country.

Hence, it needs to be realised that the nation’s economic plan does not become revolutionary automatically. It is the vision, it is the people mandated leadership and last but not the least it is the competent bureaucracy to back people’s programmes that make such plans really revolutionary. In Nepal even in 1964, when the country implemented the much sought land reform programmes, the word ‘revolutionary’ had been used massively throughout the campaign. But, that campaign could not revolutionaries our farming system for raising productivity. The campaign gave the country a mixed result in favour of farmers.

Nearly four decades have passed since then. The country gained a series of development experience during this period. The political system, administrative structure, national economic perception and regional and global condition for accelerating the process of socio-economic development too have witnessed a sea change. But, what did not change satisfactory is Nepal’s agriculture sector. It apparently failed to keep the economic hopes of the Nepalese people alive. That’s why every government of the country has been concentrating its attention to initiate land reforms to bring about agriculture revolution.

The Deuba governemnt in the recent times, however, is trying to be different. For it the whole focus is on land reforms once again. Furthermore, what the government stating today is that the land reform programme aims at increasing agricultural productivity. As was the case in the previous reform campaign in the country, the government is taking it as a revolutionary programme. Will it be successful? Will Nepal’s Agricultural sector be revolutionarised with glut of grains produced by encouraged farmers of the country? Actually, the government, it seems, is interested to redistribute land among the poor farmers obtaining it from land holders having land behind the premissible limit. But, can the government get enough land from them for this purpose? Preliminary estimates reveal that there will not be enough land for the government as far as redistribution of land is concerned from the new arrangement of land reforms in Nepal. Yet, the government should go ahead in its mission because land reforms target broader benefit for real farmers.

Confronting the 21st Century Evil

By Nishchal Nath Pandey

IT was probably the most dreadful terrorist attack that has ever taken place in human history. The horrific sequence of destruction on September, 11 as terrorists crashed planes into the twin towers of the WTC in New York and the Pentagon in Washington was a horrific and barbaric attack on civilized society. Terrorism respects no logic and remains a cheap, alternate to conventional measures of warfare. What’s worse; today’s terrorists are both unpredictable and less sensitive to diplomatic and political pressures. The sixty minutes of hell was a wake up call for all those that believe in sanctity of the belief live and let live.

The United States has been a victim of global terrorism ever since members of PELP vying for the liberation of Palestine hijacked an aircraft belonging to TWA, and also gets belonging to Swiss Air and the British Air and forced them to fly to Jordan. Interestingly the month was September of 1970. President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger convinced Britain, West Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Israel to maintain an united front and not to pursue deals with terrorists.  When the "Black September" struck in March 1973, seizing both the incoming US Ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel and departing charge’ d’ affairs George More at a reception in Khatoum, President Nixon did not make concessions to terrorists’ demands even as both men were murdered, a policy which has been one of the 3 basics of US counter terrorism policy since then. The others are to pursue international support to isolate terrorist sponsoring countries and to work with other countries to frame measures to counter terrorism. So what’s unique about US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s entreaty that the US would seek to build a coalition in response to terror attacks in Washington and New York? It is not that policymakers and strategic thinkers are learning only now that terrorism is a distinct problem and that an effective counterattack on terrorism requires coordination and law enforcement. Nor is it that the US has not faced militant threats and assaults. By 1980, almost one-thirds of all terrorist attacks were targeted mainly at US personnel and installations. Besides, the 1970 Hague Convention on Aircraft hijacking, 1971 Montreal Convention on Aircraft Sabotage and several other applicable declarations are already in place. After the 1995 Oklahoma city bombing an ‘Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996’ was passed which ‘restricts foreign assistance to governments that provide assistance to countries that are not cooperating fully with US anti-terrorist efforts.’ The plain truth is that- a horrendous savagery of the scale as this had not taken place, leaving cleavage for programme like ‘researching a missile shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles worth 60 billion dollars’ which has now been widely pointed out as "totally irrational." This perception has come up because the threat on US’s national security came from commercial aircrafts and not from missiles from across the globe exposing serious holes in the US intelligence system.

But now with tough lessons learnt, there will hopefully be a more realistic and sensible approach towards confronting ‘threats’ without cases of double standard. Cooperation is necessary but with many actors involved, the US would have to seriously mull over its approach towards groups like Palestinians and Chechens and the like which could trigger off a strategic dilemma. It was Yassir Arafat who said ‘nobody is a terrorist who stands for a just cause’ and much to the surprise of foreign policy watchers, the Russian Federal Security Service has already identified Jaamat e-Islami as the likely suspect. This group has also been tied to Chechen rebels that have been accredited of ‘waging a freedom war’.

As far as Nepal is concerned, we continue to mourn the tragedy along with fellow Americans. His Majesty the King in a message said that ‘such cowardly acts violate all international norms and human dignity. They must be condemned as crimes against humanity and the perpetrators brought to justice’. Prime Minister Deuba said that ‘this dastardly act has once again brought to the fore the need for cooperation between the government and the peoples of the world to eradicate such evil from the civilized world.’ On the level of the commonman, hundreds of Nepalese have shared the anguish by carrying flowers and signing the condolence book at the US Embassy which received special reference by Larry M. Dinger, Charge d" affairs a.i of the US Embassy while talking to journalists recently.

The days ahead are obviously uncertain as we too live in the same sub continent that is to be a possible target for the global war against terrorism. No one knows the nemesis of smaller countries like ourselves as some others frantically seek to shape the coming war to suit their own interest. Will it stimulate a clash of civilizations as the Huntington hypothesis goes or actually strike a decisive start to bring down the forces of destruction is however yet to be seen. As a country adhering to the well established norms of democracy, although having difficulty reconciling individual liberty and violence, Nepal can only hope and aspire for a global collaboration against terrorism.

Trucking with Two Wheelers

By Yug Bahadur

THERE is no doubt the life of a journalist is a hectic one. It is no different for this scribe. The day starts very early, specially with constant phone calls and it ends late in the night again with phones being received or calls being made.

The scene at the actual work place is no less busy. In fact, apart from the routine of communicating on the one has to also meet a constant stream of people, including fellow editors and also others who may have work connected with the newspaper.

Yet, amidst all this chaos, one gets to relax in snatches at different times of the day and during these idle moments, one of my favourite pastimes is to gaze out of the windo and watch the life on the streets of downtown New Road. This is an interesting and time consuming job too.

One routine which I see almost everyday, is the sight of motorcycles parked near our gate, being carried away by traffic policemen in their huge yellow truck with a menacing looking crane on top of it.

What happens is, people with work at the Nepal Bank Limited, which is just next door to our office, come and park their motorcycles right in front of the gate of our Corporation. This gate is adjacent to the Bank’s gate. I have made it a point to check whether this is a forbidden zone for parking while passing by this space and I have seen a No Parking sign, though not too prominent. Usually, the routine starts with one smart motor cycle rider, who feels too lazy to park at the Parking Lot of the Bank, casually sliding his bike into what he considers the empty space conveniently situated in front of the Bank and ripe for parking. Seeing a bike being parked there, another persong follows suit and also parks next to the already aarked two wheeler. Then comes another and another and the chain continues till the place does get quite crowded and causes some traffic jam, specially for hte vehicles that want to come into our Corporation.

Then along comes a traffic policeman, who feels the place has been suitably filled and thus calls his main office and tells them to come with the menacing yellow truck. There is a carnival like scene after the arrival of the truck and the traffic police with the help of some tough looking fellow cops in dungarees, bodily lift the two wheelers and load them on to the truck. The crane in the meantime looks only like an ornamental piece.

After all the wrongly parked motorcycles are cleared up, the truck moves away, though not without some owners trying to cajole the blue uniformed men to let them go with their vehicles.

This specially happens when one or two motorcycle owners come out of the Bank even as their two wheelers are being loaded on the truck. This scene can be dismaying.

After the truck moves away, with a little less fanfare than when it had arrived, one can see frantic looking people, with a helmet in hand, enquiring to the guards at our gate, where their two wheeler has vanished. They dejectedly go away after learning the truth.

This is a sight which I see on most working days. I have even asked the guards of our office why they don’t warn the motorcycle people that the police take away vehicles which are parked there. However the guards reply that the motorcycle owners don’t listen to them.

For sometime after watching this motorcycle-traffic cop–truck drama, I wonder what sort of a problem a person who suddenly loses a convenient transport faces. Maybe some one has an emergency delivery to make. Maybe some one has brought another person’s bike. Or maybe some one is really pressed for time and money. Also it could be some person simply does not have enough cash for cab fare, leave alone the huge fine that has to be paid at the Traffic Police Office.

After sometime, getting caught up in work, one forgers the motorcycle escapades but again the same scenario is repeated the next day.

This really sets one thinking as to why, both the Traffic Police and the Bank don’t post a really prominent sign warning the motorcyclists not to park near the Gate. This daily routine of dragging several motorcycles and also their owners to the Traffic Office seems to me like giving some sort of harrassment. This cannot be for the benefit of anyone. Yes, the motorcyclists may have been wrong in parking in a prohibited area, but, if that place is really sensitive, then the traffic police have to post a personnel who constantly monitors this area. The irony is, the space is emptied only for a few minutes after the yellow truck arrives and takes away the wrongly parked two wheelers. But soon after, sometimes in minutes, one sees another line of bikes parked in the same place for the rest of the period till once more the traffic truck arrives the next time.

Being a two wheeler owner myself, I wonder if unknowingly I will repeat a similar mistake, though unknowingly, and watch helplessly as the truck with the crane whisks away my dilapitated two wheeler too !