Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra (Thangaraj 1995). Of the more recent programs, Maharashtra has made less progress than Uttar Pradesh, perhaps because in Maharashtra soils tend to be more heterogeneous and because the extent of fragmentation was lower to begin with, thereby reducing effective demand for consolidation from farmers. Some work towards administrative land consolidation has been carried out in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kamataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa (Mearns and Sinha 1998) and Rajasthan, and almost none in West Bengal and Assam, in spite of the fact that supporting legislation has already been enacted. In South India, it is suggested that there may be less to gain from administrative land consolidation because the extent of fragmentation is lower, voluntary consolidation has more easily been achieved, or because there are sound ecological reasons for its persistence (cf. Farmer 1960). Notably, Tamil Nadu and Kerala made no legislative provision for land consolidation programs, but in both states spontaneous consolidation has been possible through the land market (Thangaraj 1995). Everywhere, however, the high transaction costs of land transfers (discussed below in relation to records of rights in land) are significant constraints on voluntary consolidation of ownership holdings. Overall, it appears that measures to deregulate land markets may indirectly result in more land consolidation than would further administrative efforts to implement land consolidation programs directly.

# GENDER **AND LAND RIGHTS**

No discussion of constraints on access to land for socially excluded groups in India can be complete without considering the lack of effective, independent land rights exercised by women. A focus on rural poverty reduction alone will fail to uncover the full extent of the social exclusion of women in gaining access to land, whether through inheritance, through state land redistribution, or through the market. Female workforce participation rates, rather than property rights, are widely used as the main indicator of women's economic status in India (Agarwal 1995). But while better employment opportunities may complement land-based opportunities, they cannot substitute for land. Efforts to diversify livelihoods of asset-poor rural households through small-scale livestock production and sericulture, for example, generally require some land base, however small.

In India, separate personal laws apply to different religious groups. In most cases, women enjoy rather far-reaching legal rights to inherit and own land. This is especially true for Hindu women following the introduction of the gender-progressive Hindu Succession Act 1956, which provides for the daughters, widow and mother of a Hindu man dying intestate to inherit property _25_ equally with his sons in his separate property . In practice, however, significant and persistent gaps persist between women's legal rights and their actual ownership of land, and between the limited ownership rights women do enjoy and their effective control over land. Women's legal rights in land conflict with deep-seated social norms and customs, and are rarely recognized socially to be legitimate. There are strong pressures on women to forfeit their legal rights in favor

> 25 Significant gender biases persist both in land reform legislation and in personal laws, however. Agricultural land subject to tenancy is exempt from the Hindu Succession Act, and is governed by state-level acts. In states such as Uttar Pradesh where tenancy is officially banned, this precludes most arable land. In the case of land ceilings acts, additional land may be kept in the case of adult sons but not adult daughters. Also, in assessing 'family' holdings, holdings of both spouses are considered, but women's holdings are often arbitrarily declared as surplus land while men's holdings remain untouched (Agarwal 1995).

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