Who talks of land reforms these days? Not even the Communists who were once associated with this piece of legal fiction! Yes, land reforms have become a piece of legal fiction only. The reality is otherwise!

Today, the trend is land-grabbing! Today, you can grab as much private and public land as you can, as your money power or muscle power enables you!

That is the sad reality!
In most states, there are no land reforms related courts functioning. The land owners, the poor and unfortunate land owners who inherited their landed properties from their ancestors had seen their lands grabbed by tenants and in reality by unscrupulous elements in society.

Who doesn’t know that in Kerala in 1959,when the late EMS Namboodiripad was the Chief Minister he promulgated an ordinance that one fine morning rendered so many land owners paupers in a minute! In Palghat district, we know for sure that many decent families became paupers and also we know that many of the most unscrupulous elements who were cultivating the lands as tenants and who didn’t pay for ages suddenly found themselves with unexpected property owners!

So, that is one reason when Nandigram erupted on the national scene and when the public consciousness was awakened by the ruthlessness of the CPI(M) cadres in West Bengal no one came to the rescue of the Buddadeb government. Only if you make a trip through the Bengal countryside, you will realise what the comrades had done in the name of Karl Marx and Lenin, not to speak of in the name of Stalin!

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Claims Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh saved farmers!
Parliament adjourned for a day over farmers’ suicides!

Yes, there is a farce going on in New Delhi on the eve of the submission of the budget! The two Houses of Parliament, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been adjourned over the continuing farmers’s suicides. One national newspaper prominently displayed the exact count of the tragedy, on the very day in front pages! May be that national tragedy must have caught the attention of both the ruling combine as well as the Opposition parties.

Anyway, the fact remains the Opposition parties belonging to the two ideological groupings, BJP-led parties as well as the Samajwadi-Telugu Desam parties showed a rare unity of purpose when they raised the farmers issue. The same type of unity was seen in the Rajya Sabha as well.

The presiding officers of the two Houses were helpless though quoted rules to warn and issue so many threats to suspend or take action against the members who walked into the well of the house. But the whole country knows how helpless they are, how the Parliament is now functioning, there is frustration and helplessness and anger and what not when we witness the government is not able to rise up to the challenges of the day.

Now, farmers’ issues are very critical and the epidemic of farmers’ suicides seem to have no solution whatever from this government.
The irony is that when it comes to point scoring the ruling combine has the audacity of a ruler. Mr.Priyaranjan Dasmunisi, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister has the cheek to say that the government has a bag of tricks in its budget and taking scent of the bag’s content the Opposition wants to take credit for the new concessions announced by the government!

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