In many of the underdeveloped countries, there is a tendency to introduce land reforms whereby land over and above a certain limit is confiscated by the state with the view to redistribute among the poor. I would like to request Huzoor to explain the Islamic point of view in this connection. Well, Islam does give a measure of power to states to manipulate the wealth in a manner as some people are not totally deprived of the collective benefits of the state.
So it cannot be ruled out. But it is not based on the communistic philosophy of dialectic materialism. Other principles govern this. But now what is happening in these states to whom which you are referring is not this. It is not the welfare of the poor which is motivating this. It is to gain cheap popularity by certain political parties that they vie with each other to play havoc with the concept of personal private property and the right of holding private property. So they are not honest about it because they, such movements are generally supported by the bourgeois, industrialists and the great tradesmen.
So instead of hitting at the industry and trade, they go only to hit the farmer who is defenseless as compared to them. And they go on reducing the number of acreage holding per person, per capita. And this should, this is generally not done with any wisdom because the ulterior motive is that of gaining cheap political power, cheap political popularity. The result is that such political parties do not pay attention to what would result from this. Would the economy gain or suffer? Are the conditions ripe for such a measure or not? That is the one main problem which is left out of their consideration.
The result is that sometimes such measures result in smaller and comparatively less production than previously. And sometimes it so happens that economically a country is not on a stage where further division of land would be advisable. For instance, when the state is not capable of running, maintaining and improving large scale farming, collective farming, with the collective machinery, and when, as an alternative, in the private sector the farmers have a sizable acreage of land which can be developed in the modern terms, they are capable of owning their own tractors and farm machinery and imply the most modern terms, most modern inventions in this regard, the production per acre in that case would be much higher than the production of an ordinary farmer who has a smaller holding, who is incapable, economically incapable, of owning a tractor or owning farm machinery or implying such other inventions of the modern times as are conducive to larger production.
Now this is exactly as the state as prevailing in Pakistan and some other backward countries. If the government, if a political party, for the sake of cheap popularity, further divides the land holding and just arbitrarily takes the chunks of land from some larger holders and distributes it to the ordinary farmers as their own, number one, the problem would be created of this improved style of farming. Those landowners who were capable of running farms on modern scientific basis would be destroyed and these small holders will be totally incapable of running the farms on modern basis.
Overall production of the country would fall to a great measure and in ultimate terms the poor of the country would be left poorer off because without production you can’t improve your state of, your way of life. You know, it’s impossible that the overall production is decreasing in the country and the lot of a common man is improving. This is not possible. So it would be a big loss to the nation as such. Such measures have been proved to be futile and extremely dangerous and even fatal when carried out in the modern times by some more powerful states than Pakistan and India, for instance.
In China, the so-called Green Revolution almost destroyed the entire achievements of the revolution of Mao Zedong. That Green Revolution has become a horror word in China because some drastic measures were adopted by the government to improve the farming on the basis of dialectic materialism and they failed because the economic situation was not right. So low that those in power will also take sides with their relatives and friends while distribution of benefits are concerned and those who go into collective farming would try their best to cheat the other partners.
So when the moral standard and education standard is so low, how can you go for the collective farming which is the only answer left? If you reduce the number of holdings, then the only answer to improve the farming situation would be to go for collective farming so that collectively a larger number of farmers participate in a big farm, though their own personal holding would remain to be the small holding, but the farm collectively would become big so they will be capable of employing the modern techniques. You know that is the idea.
But there are other hindrances in the way of putting this idea into practice in these countries. So it is against wisdom, not only religion. What religion says is that do what is good, I mean the governments are required to do what is good for the people. If a measure which is carried out in the name of the people is not good for the people, then to that extent it would be irreligious. But in principle it cannot be said that the government is not permitted to interfere in the land holdings for any reason.
In fact, if somebody holds large tracts of land which he cannot put to proper use, which he cannot control, with the result that that large holding is causing collective loss of the people in terms of production, according to the Islamic principles the government not only can interfere in this matter, but it is the duty of the government to interfere and take away that much land which he cannot control. And this I am speaking on the authority of the Prophet ﷺ himself. He said you are permitted only to hold that much land which you can properly control.
And you will not be permitted to hold large land holdings wastefully just because you want to satisfy your avarice. So there are clear-cut principles and general principles which would provide us guidelines in this regard. But the present measures which you are referring to are not healthy measures in my opinion.
