The National Land Reforms Council that about 25,000 landless marchers won from the UPA government in October 2007 never met. They had walked from Gwalior to Delhi under Ekta Parishad, led by P V Rajagopal. A second march, Jan Satyagraha, ended at Agra in October 2012 with a 10-point agreement promising a national land reforms policy; the 2013 draft was never adopted.
Why land reform is a state matter
Land is a state subject under the Constitution. The Centre can advise, but each state makes and enforces its own land laws. The 2013 draft national policy itself said that, except for West Bengal, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir, states "did not implement in the true spirit" the land reform measures of the 1950s and 1960s Business Today.
Ekta Parishad means "forum of unity". P V Rajagopal founded the Gandhian network of land rights groups in 1989, and it describes itself as a movement of more than 250,000 landless poor IPS. Its method is the long walk. "Walking is a key component. Walking cannot be prevented because that is your right," Rajagopal told NPR in 2007 NPR. Land reform had been on the UPA's agenda since 2004, he told Down To Earth: "And yet there has been no action" Down To Earth.
Twelve kilometres a day on one meal
The march left Gwalior on 2 October 2007, Gandhi Jayanti. Janadesh means "people's verdict". The Morung Express, reporting from the road, described some 25,000 people from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes walking up the Grand Trunk Road, about 12 km a day on a single meal, behind one slogan: "Hal karo, bhai, hal karo, zameen ki samasya hal karo" (Solve, please do solve the land problem) Morung Express.
We found three distances in print: 340 km Morung Express, 350 km Down To Earth and 380 km Mainstream Weekly. Most outlets put the marchers at about 25,000; Al Jazeera, citing news agencies, said about 27,000 Al Jazeera.
Mainstream Weekly listed the demands as a National Land Authority, fast-track courts and a single-window system for land and livelihood disputes Mainstream Weekly. "We want the government to set up a national land commission," Rajagopal told the Morung Express at the start Morung Express.
Many of the walkers were recorded as encroachers on forest land they had farmed for years, Down To Earth found. Eight died during the march, three of them in a road accident Down To Earth. No arrests were reported on either march. A Dalit marcher from Bihar told NPR, through a translator: "We are landless. We live by the roadside" NPR.
Madhya Pradesh responded before the column crossed its border. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a state land commission and fast-track courts for land disputes, and said the state would start distributing land pattas by 1 November Morung Express.
No national authority, but a council under the Prime Minister
The marchers reached Delhi on 28 October and gathered at the Ramlila Ground. Police held them back from marching on to Parliament House Mainstream Weekly Down To Earth. Mainstream Weekly dates the government's announcement to 28 October; Al Jazeera and Down To Earth to 29 October.
Down To Earth said the deal took "heated last-minute negotiations mediated by prominent social figures" Down To Earth. Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh then announced two bodies:
A committee will be formed in a month to look into the state agrarian relations and incomplete land reforms. The committee, with a 50-50 membership of the government and social activists will submit its report to the National Land Reforms Council to be formed under the chairmanship of the prime minister.
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Rural Development Minister, to the marchers in Delhi, as reported by Al Jazeera, 30 Oct 2007
Singh was to head the committee. It would draw up a land reforms policy and suggest how to enforce land ceilings, prevent dispossession and speed up land litigation Down To Earth. Its recommendations would not bind anyone, Al Jazeera noted Al Jazeera. "Land reforms has been a neglected field but this Council will actively pursue the unfinished work on land reforms," Singh told the crowd Mainstream Weekly.
What the marchers argued
Ekta Parishad said forest laws, dams, roads and special economic zones had pushed the landless off land, while surplus and Bhoodan land never reached them. Rajagopal said nearly 30 percent of the marchers had been jailed and "dubbed Naxalites" for claiming ancestral land Morung Express. He asked how the government found land for SEZs but not for the poor, and warned that if non-violent efforts were ignored, "the militant approach will gain ground" Down To Earth. In 2012 he said the 2007 outcome had produced "nothing concrete" in five years The Goan.
What the Centre said
The government turned down a national land authority or commission. Land was a state subject, it argued, and a national authority "would not go down well with states" Down To Earth. Government's position It offered instead a council under the Prime Minister with chief ministers as members, and a committee half made up of non-officials. Jairam Ramesh made the same constitutional point at Agra in 2012: "it is also necessary that the same pressure is put on the states and the chief ministers because land is a state subject" Governance Now.
A committee that reported and a council that "has not convened yet"
Both bodies were set up in January 2008. The Committee on State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms, chaired by the Rural Development Minister, made its recommendations public in September 2009 Governance Now.
It pressed for strict land ceilings and opposed both conversion of farmland to industry and the alienation of tribal land, according to Governance Now. It also linked the economic policy regime since the early 1990s to faster loss of land among vulnerable groups and to "extremist violence" in 220 districts. A committee of secretaries took the recommendations up over four meetings before they were to go to the council Governance Now.
The council never sat. In September 2010 a senior Rural Development Ministry official told Governance Now that it "has not convened yet" but continued to be "very much in existence" Governance Now. In January 2012, according to Ekta Parishad's European partner, Jairam Ramesh told the group he was "disappointed that the National Land Reforms Council had not yet met" and would try to get time from the Prime Minister Ekta Europe. By March 2013 Ekta Parishad said it had "failed to meet even once" Claim · Ekta Parishad Ekta Europe.
2012: "pressure from the top" and a second walk
A deal nearly came before anyone walked. Rajagopal said he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 25 September 2012 and negotiated a draft agreement with Jairam Ramesh over the next three days. Then, on 29 September, Ramesh called to say "he could not sign the document because of pressure from the top" Claim · Rajagopal The Goan. Ramesh came to Gwalior on 2 October and told the crowd, "Go home…we will find the middle path". The marchers voted to walk anyway The Goan.
Nobody agrees on how many walked. The Goan said about 50,000 started out The Goan and The National said 35,000 The National. Peaceful Societies, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro news service, said 60,000 left Gwalior but only about 20,000 remained at Agra Peaceful Societies. Down To Earth later wrote of "more than 100,000" Down To Earth.
Ten points signed at Agra
Talks resumed in Delhi on 8 and 9 October. Ramesh then went to Agra, and on Thursday 11 October 2012 he and Rajagopal signed the agreement in front of the marchers, who dispersed. Its 10 points covered a national land reform policy, homestead plots of 10 decimals (cents) for landless and shelterless families, a law to give agricultural land to the landless, fast-track land tribunals, PESA and Forest Rights Act implementation, forest-revenue boundary disputes, common property resources and a national land ownership database Governance Now.
The signed text, as Ekta Parishad's partners published it, said that "land reform is clearly a state subject" but that a national policy "could have its own importance". The ministry committed to put out a draft "in the next 4-6 months" and finalise it "soon thereafter", and set up a Task Force on Land Reforms under the Rural Development Minister Ekta Europe.
If nothing happens in six months, we will assemble here in Agra and march to Delhi.
P V Rajagopal at Agra, 11 Oct 2012, as reported by The National
Rajagopal was already looking further: "the next step is the fight for agricultural land. We want a guarantee of one hectare of farmland for every rural household" Peaceful Societies. The National reported that the deal "fell short of Ekta Parishad's demands" The National. Ekta Parishad had dropped its demand for land rights commissions in the states Peaceful Societies.
Ten cents per household: the 2013 draft
The Department of Land Resources issued the Draft National Land Reforms Policy, marked "Draft for Discussion Purposes and Comments", on 18 July 2013. On homesteads it said that "Land available with the Government may be distributed to the landless and homeless households at the rate of 10 cents per households". Where government land ran short, suitable land was to be acquired, over ten years in every state Draft National Land Reforms Policy.
By August 2013 the draft had gone to chief ministers, revenue ministers and revenue secretaries. It still needed endorsement by state revenue ministers and approval by a group of Cabinet ministers, and a National Homestead Bill was pending with the Law Ministry Ekta Europe.
Two smaller promises were kept. Ekta Parishad's one-year review said the ministry changed the Indira Awas Yojana on 4 February 2013 to fund homestead plots, and on 20 March 2013 sent advisories on land, tribunals, PESA and forest rights to 17 states. Few states responded Ekta Europe.
The policy itself went nowhere. Business Today described the 2013 draft in December 2020 as "never debated or officially adopted" Business Today. Rajagopal said the UPA "had drafted the National Land Reform policy but didn't introduce it in Parliament", and that the task force "became defunct after the new NDA government came to power" Claim · Rajagopal Down To Earth.
Modi's assurance, Jan Andolan and a walk towards Geneva
More than 8,000 people protested on Parliament Street in Delhi in February 2015. On 15 March 2016, after a two-day "Parliament of the Landless" at Jantar Mantar, Rajagopal and another activist met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Activists said Modi assured them a homestead rights bill would be brought before Parliament Claim · activists. Citing the Socio-Economic Caste Census, Rajagopal said there were "106.9 million landless families" Down To Earth.
In October 2018 more than 25,000 people set out from Gwalior again, in "Jan Andolan 2018", demanding among other things a national land reforms policy and special courts for land cases. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told them he would take their demands to the Prime Minister IANS via Gulf News. Rajagopal began Jai Jagat 2020, a planned walk from Delhi to Geneva, on 2 October 2019. It was halted on 17 March 2020 because of Covid-19 measures Global Geneva.
Still no national policy or homestead law
Land redistribution remains with the states. We found no national land reforms policy or homestead law in the reporting reviewed for this page, and no reported meeting of the National Land Reforms Council. A 2022 GoI Monitor review noted that the draft policy was never passed and the homestead bill never introduced GoI Monitor.
Rajagopal received the Niwano Peace Prize in 2023 for his non-violent work for the poorest Morung Express. In November 2025, aged 77, he spoke at a civil society meeting in Bangkok. IPS reported then that Ekta Parishad "has secured land rights for nearly half a million families" over the decades Claim · Ekta Parishad, via IPS IPS. No new national march by Ekta Parishad was reported in 2025 or 2026.
Four dates, two marches
Janadesh leaves Gwalior
About 25,000 landless people start walking to Delhi Down To Earth.
Council and committee announced
At the Ramlila Ground, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh announces the National Land Reforms Council and the agrarian relations committee Al Jazeera.
Agra agreement
Ramesh and Rajagopal sign the 10-point agreement; the march ends Governance Now.
Draft policy released
The Department of Land Resources issues the Draft National Land Reforms Policy for comment Draft policy.
Sources
- Down To Earth: Landless poor march to Delhi. Then what?, 30 Nov 2007
- NPR (via NHPR): India's landless demand compensation, 29 Oct 2007
- Al Jazeera: India sets up land reforms panels, 30 Oct 2007
- Morung Express: Many feet one step, 23 Oct 2007
- Mainstream Weekly: Editorial on Janadesh 2007, 3 Nov 2007
- Governance Now: Farmers, poverty and growth, breathtaking contradictions of UPA2, 9 Sept 2010
- Ekta Europe: January 2012, the things are moving, 19 Jan 2012
- The Goan: In search of the promised land, 13 Oct 2012
- Governance Now: Landless marchers force govt's hand, 11 Oct 2012
- The National: India land deal pledge leads to end of long march, 12 Oct 2012
- Peaceful Societies (UNC Greensboro): Peace march ends; Paliyans head home, 18 Oct 2012
- Ekta Europe: Give land, take vote, 13 Mar 2013
- Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development: Draft National Land Reforms Policy, 18 Jul 2013
- Ekta Europe: Jan Satyagraha +1, updates on the 10-point agreement, 11 Oct 2013
- Down To Earth: Government quells homestead land rights protest with yet another assurance, 16 Mar 2016
- Gulf News (IANS): Landless poor march towards Delhi from Gwalior, Oct 2018
- Global Geneva: The Gandhi legacy, the Jai Jagat march from Delhi to Geneva, 18 Mar 2020
- Business Today: The unfinished agenda of land reforms nobody talks about, 14 Dec 2020
- GoI Monitor: The promised land that never was, 3 Feb 2022
- Morung Express: 40th Niwano Peace Prize awarded to Rajagopal PV, 6 Jun 2023
- IPS: Rajagopal PV's blueprint for another world: peace, 4 Nov 2025