Land has become the embodiment of almost every significant fault line in Indian society

That is the strong wording from an eminent, may be a liberal social scientist Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President of Centre for Policy Research.

Bring back private property rights:

• The three areas which are the least liberalised and the least transparent are land, liquor and learning. It is no accident that the stamp of political patronage is most widespread in these areas. The revolt against land acquisition is as much a revolt against a corrupt state as anything else.

• Land acquisition has also become a mechanism for exacerbating inequality in India in three ways. First, property rights were weakened in India to facilitate land reform. Ironically, weakened property rights, which were meant to help the poor, ended up dispossessing them even more.