- At the outset, let us all reiterate in unison that females in India are still battling out to gain equality and parity as compared to males. This fact does not deserve to be further elaborated despite tremendous efforts were undertaken by society’s various stakeholders like the government authorities, groups, elders, experts, evolved souls, and not the least, women themselves. In every sphere of life, women encounter discrimination, bias, and the disparity is stating the obvious. To their credit, women are simply not going to be steamrolled by their male counterparts even as the despicable patriarchy and misogyny continue to dominate our day-to-day existence.
PC: Freepik
- As the fight for gender parity continues, some welcome interpretations of women’s rights keep evolving sporadically. One such welcome and winning news emerged with regards to women’s right to inheritance of property. The Supreme Court has ruled that daughters will have equal rights to their father’s property even before the enactment of the Hindu Succession Act (HAS) of 1956. For the uninitiated, the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to amend and codify the law relating to intestate or unwilled succession, among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs.
- The Act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance and succession into one Act. Going further, the Supreme Court clarified that if a property of a male Hindu dying intestate is a self-acquired property or obtained in the partition of a coparcenary or family property, the same would devolve by inheritance to daughters, and not by survivorship as was the case before 1956. To its credit, the Apex Court has been progressively interpreting the 2005 amendment to the HAS and in 2020 clarified that daughters had coparcenary rights by birth. Remember, this is a big win in a country where women face massive social and legal hurdles to inheritance.
PC: Wirestock
- Largely owing to deep patriarchal mores and rural-agrarian settings, property, which is seen as a primary source of wealth, is essentially inclined to be passed on to male heirs. This in turn deprives women of agency, financial independence, and entrepreneurship. Agreed, the recently released National Family Health Survey-5 says that 43% of women respondents reported owning house/land alone or jointly. However, doubts remain about women’s ability to actually access and control property. Mind you, a 2020 University of Manchester working paper found barely 16% of women in rural landowning households own land for that matter.
- Add to the incongruity, inheritance laws for agricultural land remain a minefield with conflicting central personal laws and state laws. No wonder, states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and even national capital Delhi have regressive inheritance provisions. Incredibly, Haryana twice tried to take away the progressive rights given to women through HAS, which in UP since 2016 married daughters are not considered primary heirs. Add to this ground-level resistance to registering land for women in several north Indian states, women’s empowerment and property rights remain an unfinished project. More needs to the accomplished to truly usher in parity. It’s a work in progress, you see.
