A Critical Analysis On Land Rights And Climate Resilience In India From The Lens Of Women's Access To Climate Adaptation Resources
In India, women are disproportionately affected by climate change. This is because the land which serves to them as means of livelihood and climate adaptation, they are excluded from owning it, controlling it and inheriting it due to presence of discriminatory land tenure system. Thus, undermining their climate resilience capacity and pushing them towards gender inequality.
It can be seen that; half of India’s agricultural workforce comprises of women yet they own only 12–13% of land, making them vulnerable to climate change impacts. This vulnerability restricts their access to government schemes, credits and climate adaptation technology and hampers their decision-making power in resource management. The patriarchal land ownership pattern in India intersects with the climate change vulnerability. Subsequently, creating a crisis for women to adapt to change especially for those belonging to agricultural communities.
The scale of this disparity has intensified as agriculture has become increasingly feminised. The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023–24 reveals that 76.95 per cent of rural women in India are now engaged in agriculture, marking an unprecedented level of female participation in the primary sector. Yet the Agriculture Census 2015–16 records that women operated only 13.9 per cent of agricultural landholdings, a proportion that rose by less than one percentage point over the preceding decade. [1] A 2024 comparative analysis published in the Economic and Political Weekly, drawing on the All India Debt and Investment Survey, found that the actual share of women who individually own land may be as low as 5.5 per cent, far below the 31.7 per cent suggested by the National Family Health Survey-5 which relies on self-reporting. This methodological divergence reveals that headline statistics substantially overstate the reality of women’s land ownership in India, a gap that has direct consequences for designing constitutionally adequate policy responses. [2]
The objective of the research paper is to evaluate the legal and institutional framework in India governing land rights from the perspective of climate justice and feminist jurisprudential notion. Further it will analyze the effectiveness of certain legislations dealing with land reforms in order to facilitate the land ownership rights of women. Moreover, the research paper will examine the nexus between women’s land rights and climate adaptation policy within Indian legal framework. Apart from it, the research paper will throw light on the judicial interpretation of women’s land rights while interpreting the climate policy.
The implications of this research are of profound importance as it contributes to climate justice while stating that sustainable adaptation is not possible without addressing the foundational gender inequalities which are sustaining in India. It puts forward the notion of reconceptualizing land rights as a prerequisite for climate resilience in India. Thus, recognizing women as an important element of climate action whose empowerment can be assured through legally enforceable ownership rights.
[1] Government of India, Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2023–24 (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 2024); Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, All India Report on Agriculture Census 2015–16 (2021) 7.
[2] Hema Swaminathan and others, ‘Status of Women’s Landownership in India: A Comparison of Estimates from NFHS and AIDIS’ (2024) 59(16) Economic & Political Weekly 32.