As the Committee formed by Constituent Assembly with representation of political parties to sort out contentious issues succeeded to resolve few issues, we people became happy seeing light in the tunnel in respect of bridging differences between parties, which eventually would bear new constitution. But on the issue of property, parties are standing on two banks of a river with their stances pouring cold water on us. As per the report, United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), hereinafter UCPN has a stance, which is different from other parties. As noted from the media reports, UCPN intends to impose limitation on any kind of property and seize land property from its owner without paying any compensation whereas other parties are in strong disagreement. Some other parties have agreed to set maximum limit just on land property, not on other property. As this issue is serious with far-reaching consequences, it needs to have public discussion at different forums.
Human rights perspective
The issue of property rights does not fall fully under the disposition of political parties. This invokes human rights principles and standards, which cannot be the subject of compromise and negotiation between political parties. Property right is human right.
Read the provisions of property right in Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) under Article 17:
i. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others;
ii. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
The spirit of above provisions does not let the State to set a limit for owning property and further, a laxity to rob it. To rob means to take someone’s property forcefully even though the State takes someone’s land property without paying reasonable compensation making the law. Law of land cannot be framed that goes against universally accepted human rights standards.
One of the principles of human rights is that they are inherent (from the time of birth) and inalienable (cannot be taken off). It means that in case of property, the State does not hold any authority to limit a ceiling for property because a person is born with right to own property that means nobody even the State can restrict him owning property by legal means. So, to set a limit on property is ridiculous.
Land is one kind of property. If someone has right to earn money, then he can spend money in different ways to acquire different kinds of properties including land or spend for consumption. How much money a person earns depends on his/her capability, dedication and labour, in one word potentiality. That depends totally on a person, not on the State. So, the State should just create an environment in which its people can prosper by utilizing their potentials, and it should refrain from restricting them, however the ways to earn property should be clearly defined by law and an effective regulatory mechanism should be operational to keep people complying with lawful means in earning activities.
Human rights thinkers argue that people create a State to be able to enjoy human rights. This means each person is born with human rights and the State as his/her creation has obligations to make him/her able to enjoy rights. It is not that the State creates human rights. If you cannot create, you also cannot take back or destroy – it is the moral principle; in case of human rights it is global norm. The State’s obligations regarding human rights are: to respect, to protect and to fulfill. Respect means not to interfere anyway in the use of rights, protect means to secure a person from others in being able to enjoy human rights, and fulfill means to take measures which creates an environment for progressive realization of human rights. To carry out these obligations in the case of property, the State should not interfere in a person’s earning activity (respect), should provide security in earning and protecting property (protect) and should create a condition that makes a person to develop his/her potential to earn (fulfill). In this backdrop, we can say that the State does not have authority to impose limit on property to acquire by legal means, let alone robbing.
The main philosophy of human rights and development is to create an environment in such a manner that a person can rise up to the level of his/her potentiality takes. It is regarded that only the sky is the limit, which means virtually there should be no limit on a person unless s/he goes beyond legal provisions. So, there should be no limit to acquire property as much as you can within legal boundary.
Egalitarian perspective
While I am arguing in favour of human rights principles and standards, Maoist leaders and some others may disagree with me and say – what am I talking about property rights of rich people while 25 percent people are reeled in absolute poverty? Among Asian countries, the highest inequality is in Nepal (see Key Indicators 2007, Asian Development Bank). In such a case, establishing an egalitarian society should be the priority of the State, thus there should be the restriction in property over certain limit, so the available resources should be distributed to the people. Seems true apparently, but not true if understood properly how the economics of wealth creation works.
Economic science explains that there are four factors of production – land, labour, capital and organization or entrepreneurship. The last factor mobilizes other resources and makes them productive. Without it, other factors remain idle. This factor works to gain profit. If we see the list of rich people of the world and Nepal, we see most of them were entrepreneurs or organizers. So, if you impose limit on property, they will lose motivation to earn more, which will eventually lead to remain other factors of production inactive.
As Maoist and others who believe that a person becomes rich at other’s cost. If it is so, it is unjustified. Take a case of singer Anju Pant. As she told to media, she normally earns Rs 30 thousand per day singing songs, which is a big money in Nepali context. (See http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=24935) People buy her cassettes and CD albums, download ring tones of her songs, watch movies with her songs. People like her voice and her way of singing. People want to spend money on her songs, then how someone can say she is earning quite a big amount of money at other’s cost. She is earning by creating her market by her capacity, not at other’s cost. So, assuming that someone’s gain is other’s cost is not true always. If unwarranted means become used, police and laws should be called upon.
There is a myth that Nepal has high rate of poverty because a large number of people do not have land. This myth is debunked by two evidences. First, the high incidence of absolute poverty is in hill and mountain regions. It is also true that in those areas landless people are very few. They are poor because their land-holding is small, they cannot sale their agricultural products due to lack of market, and they are deprived of basic public services. So, distributing small parcel of land only does not promise to reduce poverty. Second, the Asian Development Report in its report Key Indicators 2007 have described that the reason of the widest inequality in Nepal is high difference of economic growth in urban and rural areas based on researches. The Reports says:
In Nepal very unequal growth across urban and rural areas has been an important factor underlying the substantial increases in inequality. While real per capita expenditures increased by 42% in urban areas between 1995 and 2003, rural areas saw only 27% growth (World Bank/ DFID/ADB 2006). Given that rural areas started out with lower expenditures/incomes, the lower growth rates only served to widen dramatically the gaps between rural and urban areas. Similarly, while real average per capita expenditures rose by about 30% in Kathmandu and the rural Western Hills and Eastern Terai regions, they increased only by about 5% in the rural Eastern Hills region.
From this finding, we can draw conclusion that urban population is in better off condition than rural one. Urban population normally has off-farm employment and they live in rented houses. So, various kinds of inequalities including economic one can be reduced by increasing employment opportunities, not by distributing small parcel of land.
Land productivity perspective
As land is precious as well as limited resource, it should be utilized optimally. So, the land should have entitlement with the person, who can make it productive at the highest level. In some cases big farmers and on other cases small farmers may be more productive. So it is case specific issue. To turn land more productive, there should be land utilization plan in place and a landowner who cannot utilize the land, especially the farmland as per the plan, should transfer his landownership to other but only when there is guarantee of reasonable compensation. If compensation cannot be paid at the time of property transfer, the landowner should receive principle and interest within few years and the State should guarantee it. Such a provision will not violate human rights and will increase productivity of land to make people richer day by day.