Ebook: A Land of One’s Own : Women and Land Rights in Literature and Society

This book presents an informative examination of how the issue of women’s land rights has been dealt with both in Indian literature, particularly Indian English fiction, and in Indian society. The human rights of women are a revolutionary notion that has opened the way for the definition, analysis, and articulation of women’s experiences of widespread violence, degradation, discrimination, and marginality. Globally, women’s land rights are becoming an area of increasing urgency and concern as discrimination against women over land, property and inheritance rights continues to keep them in a subordinate position even today. Land empowers, and equality in land rights is an indicator of women’s economic empowerment and at the same time helps in poverty reduction. Many Indian writers, especially Indian English women novelists, have dealt with issues of land, dispossession, hunger and poverty in rural India in particular, but none have explicitly referred to women’s land rights. For men, land is an essential element of their identity as ‘provider’, but for women it is a demand for recognition as a human being. However, women in India are rarely landowners, and in most Indian families women do not own any property in their own names. They are usually refused a share in the paternal property, although, according to the Indian Succession Act, 1925, everyone is entitled to equal inheritance. Unfortunately in India, law and society conspire to deny women their right to land ownership, although there have been several legal amendments to redress this gender inequality. This book deals with the gap that lies between women’s land rights in India and the actual ownership of land.