By Reem Gaafar*
At the time
of its writing, the U.S.
Constitution did not define who was eligible to vote. Each state
was given the authority to determine eligibility. In most states, access to the
ballot box was reserved for white males who owned at least 50 acres of land or
had taxable income. This is a great example of how property ownership functions as a
gateway right. In this case, those without property rights did not have
political rights.
Today, land rights remain a gateway right in much of the world.
Consider the plight of the landless poor in India. An estimated 20 million rural families—children, women, and
men—across India are landless. First and foremost, their landlessness traps them in poverty. They
lack the most important asset in a rural society – land. Without secure land
rights, they don’t have the security, opportunity or incentive to make the sort
of long-term investments in their land that can improve their harvests and
their income. What’s more, their landlessness means that they often do not
appear in any government records – making them ineligible for a wide variety government
services. In fact, often they cannot even access the government services
created specifically to help the poor.
