A Feminist Approach of Hindu Women's Right to Agricultural Property

Abstract

This research explores the right of Hindu women to the agricultural property from a feminist perspective, with respect to the historical exclusion, legal reforms and contemporary issues. Traditionally, patriarchal Hindu society has limited women’s inheritance rights, especially over agricultural land, to ‘stridhan’ and excluded them from coparcenary property. The enactment of Hindu Succession Act, 1956 and its landmark amendment by way of Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 was to establish gender equality by granting equal coparcenary rights to daughters. However, despite these legal gains, socio-cultural norms, state-specific land laws and implementation gaps continue to impede women’s actual ownership and control of agricultural land. The paper uses a feminist legal approach and secondary data analysis to critically assess the effectiveness of legal reforms. The study concludes that despite de jure legal equality, there are still major de facto disparities and that structural reforms, awareness and policy interventions are needed.