Page 112 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

The Indian Legal System 87

due to the fact that a national legal system was established and certain
uniformity was sought. However, some jurisdictions were left to the
states. This means that some of them have been more progressive in
terms of women’s rights. For example, Maharashtra has more equal
succession rights for widows. Indeed, like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra has given Hindu widows the right to inherit both acquired
and ancestral property, while in the rest of India only property acquired
during the lifetime of the husband is included under the Hindu Suc-
cession Act of 1956 (Agarwal 1994). Therefore, women’s access to
property differs throughout India.

Women’s Property Rights and Land Reforms

In spite of the importance of property, property rights are still a ne-
glected aspect of Indian legislation, as was the case under the British.
When subject to law, it is in terms of succession rights. Land issues are
the most important ones concerning property rights of women, espe-
cially widows. On an individual level, widows owning land and living
with their sons are more respected within their community compared
to the ones who do not possess land (ibid.; Drèze 1990). However,
legislators faced difficulties integrating the ideal of the equality of the
sexes in land reforms.
Diverse forms of irrigation, adapted to various types of soil, charac-
terize contemporary India. In addition, there is also a variety of local
land systems and therefore land reforms after independence varied
between states. There were a series of Land Reform Acts, but because
there was a presumption that the male head of household was the
titleholder, such reforms seldom took gender issues into consideration.
Consequently, access to property for women varies from one state to
another.
Two decades ago the issue of independent property rights for women
was not admissible in public political discourses in South Asia (Agarwal
1994: 2). Despite a long evolution of land reforms, a lot remains to be
done in order to enforce the rights of women. One explanation is the
differences between central government policies and their enforcement
by state governments (ibid.: 9). There are no data on the proportion of
land possessed by women in India. However, ethnographic research