Land Grabbing Strategies in Bangladesh

Findings: Understanding Land-Grabbing Strategies

Land grabbing is a recurring feature of colonial and post-colonial Bangladesh. The imposition of private property by the British colonial administration in India in 1793 allowed Zamindars (landlords) to buy land from the state and tax tenants. In 1950, the Zamindari system was abolished after the creation of Pakistan and India in 1947.

Colonial and Post-Colonial Land Dynamics

West Pakistan had a colonial relationship with East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from 1947 to 1971. The Pakistani state acquired land from Zamindars with over 33.3 acres and designated it as Khas (public) land. Discriminatory land laws were enacted to grab land primarily owned by Hindus, who owned 80% of the country’s urban land in 1947 (Lambert, 1980).

Discriminatory Practices

Land owned by Hindus who migrated to India during the partition and did not return by 1950 was declared "abandoned property," making it eligible for public lease. Elites from West and East Pakistan seized this land, violently evicting poor tenants and minority communities. During the 1965 India-Pakistan war, laws labeled Hindu-owned land as "enemy property," enabling confiscation.

Global capitalism and discriminatory development practices in the mid-1960s further dispossessed millions in both rural and urban centers, including Dhaka (Feldman, 2016; Siddiqui et al., 2010). After Bangladesh's independence in 1971, the continuation of enemy property laws and new land laws dispossessed millions of Hindus, Muslim peasants, the middle-class, and indigenous people. Land grabbing gained momentum, continuing into modern times (Adnan, 2013, 2016; Feldman, 2016; Feldman and Geisler, 2012; Muhammad, 1992; Siddiqui et al., 2010).

Case Study: Panthapath, Dhaka (1947-2018)

From 1947 to 2018, Panthapath, Dhaka, showed similar trends of land grabbing. In 1947, the area had an agricultural economy dominated by Hindu Zamindars and elites (over 60% of the land), while the colonial state and Muslims owned the rest. Predominantly Muslim peasants utilized the land, with some families owning their plots and houses (Tong Ghor). A deep canal and water bodies (Jheels) facilitated commuting, irrigation, and fishing. Women engaged in traditional economic activities at home, and men primarily worked in farming, fishing, and pulling rickshaws. Until 1947, the poor had an independent livelihood system.

Eviction and Industrialization

Between 1947 and 1971, elites evicted approximately 300 peasant families in Panthapath to establish factories for glass, cigarettes, electronics, clothing, real estate, and other commercial spaces. From 1971 to 1990, about 400 additional peasant families and many landlords were evicted. The Panthapath street project (L.A. case no: 40/89-90 and 40B/89-90), starting in 1989, displaced around 900 peasant families (Government of Bangladesh, 1993). Nearly 6,000 peasants (approximately 1,600 families) were evicted between 1947 and 1990, opening up approximately 200 acres for land grabbing. Land grabbing became the dominant practice after 1990, with every plot of land with small structures being targeted. Since 1991, Panthapath has been a prime location for neoliberal capitalism in Dhaka.

Discriminatory Land Laws (1947-1971)

Between 1947 and 1971, several discriminatory land laws, including the East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of Property Act (XIII of 1948), the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act (1950), the Order XXIII of 1965, the East Pakistan Enemy Property Administration and Disposal Order (1966), Evacuees Acts of 1949-57, Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation Ordinance of 1964, and Continuance of Emergency Provisions Ordinance of 1969 (Barkat et al., 2008; Feldman, 2016; Muhammad, 1992; Siddiqui et al., 2010), facilitated land grabbing from Hindu Zamindars, elites, and the poor. West Pakistani capitalists influenced the Pakistani state to reduce the land ownership limit in West Pakistan from over 2,000 acres to 500 acres, promoting industrial bourgeoisie. However, in East Pakistan, the limit was increased from 33.3 acres to 125 acres to prevent the emergence of a similar class (Muhammad, 1992). This period marked the formation of a strategic alliance between the state and the market to grab land through extra-economic means, driven by the state’s own class interests.

Field data indicated that many peasant families were evicted after the 1947 partition as land ownership transferred to capitalists via the state. West Pakistani businesspersons and bureaucrats, along with East Pakistani elites, actively participated in land grabbing.

Taiyab Sarker's Account

Taiyab Sarker, a 68-year-old retired land officer, shared insights into the effects of land grabbing in Panthapath since 1947. Before the abolition of the Zamindari system in 1950, his father worked for Kalam Maulavi, a tax collector for Rajeshwar Roychowdhury, a prominent Hindu landlord with over 300 acres in Panthapath and surrounding areas. After the abolition, Rajeshwar left for India, and the Pakistani state took a portion of the land, leasing the rest publicly. According to Sarker, West Pakistani elites acquired most of this land without payment, violently evicting the poor. He also noted that some elites obtained land through connections to bureaucrats who provided false documentation (Adnan, 2013). Sarker estimated that less than 5 acres of the original 300 acres are now state-owned, with the remaining 99.98% grabbed and privately owned.

Moktar Ali's Experience

Moktar Ali, a 70-year-old Muslim farmer, was evicted from his 15-decimal plot in the mid-1960s by a West Pakistani glass-factory owner, the sibling of a military officer, who seized the land without compensation. The land had been gifted to his grandfather by a Zamindar about 100 years prior, but they lacked legal documentation.

Shahid Miya's Testimony

Shahid Miya, a 66-year-old landlord, reported that a West Pakistani bureaucrat-turned-businessman took 0.86 acres of his family's land, violently evicting nearly 50 peasant families. His father was killed by thugs hired by the land grabber to take possession of the land.

Socialist-Communist Regime (1971-1975)

During the Liberation War of Bangladesh, the provisional government continued all land laws in force as of March 25, 1971, through the Laws of Continuance Enforcement Order, 1971. This legislation mirrored rules that had previously designated Hindu property as enemy property. The Bangladesh Parliament renamed enemy property to vested property with the Bangladesh (Vesting of Property and Assets) Order in 1972. Although the government created the Vested Property Act 2001 to return land to Hindus who lost it due to discriminatory laws, it has not been implemented.

The newly formed Bangladeshi socialist democratic state nationalized industries and business institutions left by West Pakistanis and created by East Pakistani elites. However, the state soon failed to profit from these enterprises. Many bureaucrats, military officers, businesspersons, and politicians then bought most of these factories and land at minimal cost. Muhammad (1992: 40) argues that the new bourgeoisie in independent Bangladesh emerged by "grabbing the abandoned landed wealth of Hindus and plundering state’s resources."

Shikha Talukder's Ordeal

Shikha Talukder, a 67-year-old retired Hindu elementary school teacher, recounted losing her 13 decimals of land because the land office purposefully labeled it as vested property. A month before the assassination of President Mujibur Rahman in 1975, musclemen hired by a politician-turned-real estate owner presented her with a lease contract, claiming the government had listed the land as "Vested Property." Despite her family's three-generation residency, they were threatened and evicted, leading her to live in a one-room tin-shed slum for 25 years while awaiting retirement benefits.

Famine of 1974

The famine of 1974 created opportunities for elites in Panthapath to grab land (Adnan, 2016). Interviews with Kamal Hosen, a 64-year-old famine-stricken slum dweller, and Sazzad Khan, a 73-year-old landlord, revealed that many rural people migrated to urban centers like Dhaka. Landlords in Panthapath grabbed land to build slum houses and rented them to migrants to protect the land from other grabbers. During this time, five new slums emerged on the northern side of the canal.

Political Turmoil

The nation faced a severe crisis, including economic downturn, political conflict, and underground militia activities (Muhammad, 1992: 102-105). President Mujibur Rahman created the BAKSHAL, a one-party system under a communist government, in January 1975. Members affiliated with this party grabbed vast amounts of land, including in Panthapath. Khan lost his four-decimal plot of land during this period. Muhammad (1992: 42) notes that "the famine of 1974 was the golden period of the emergence of millionaires" in Bangladesh.

Land Demand

Thousands of young adults and rural middle-class families moved to Dhaka, including Panthapath, for employment. Emerging real estate companies, owned by bureaucrats and retired military officers, began grabbing land to construct houses for the new urban middle class. Khan had three plots of land in Panthapath. A real estate company, jointly owned by a military officer and a bureaucrat, grabbed his seven-decimal plot, evicting 20 peasant families who had lived there for generations.

Military Regime (1975-1990)

Autocratic rule began with President Mostaq Ahmad after the assassination of Mujibur Rahman in 1975 and continued under two other military rulers until 1990. Between 1977 and 1985, the Ministry of Land empowered land officers to enlist Hindu lands as "vested property" (Panday, 2016), leading to widespread landlessness among Hindus and prompting mass emigration. Amendments and land reform policies marginalized Hindus.

The IMF and World Bank-sponsored Industrial Policy of 1982 inspired capitalists to grab land for factories and businesses. Muhammad (1992: 107) shows that “the country’s richest persons grabbed 3,000 acres of land in different names in Dhaka and its outskirts” during this time. Siddiqui et al. (2010: 7), in their 1985 study, showed that housing companies “illegally occupied” more than 600 acres of Khas land in Dhaka. The Asia Development Bank, in their 1992 study, found that (Table 1) seven government agencies during the military regime grabbed 1,265 acres of vacant land for official and commercial purposes, where the poor used to squat and work (Shafi, 2008: 3).

State-agencies also gave much of that grabbed land to the politicians and real estate companies, mostly owned by the retired army officers.

Table 1. The Ownership of Vacant Land by the Government Agencies

Sayma Khatun's Account

Sayma Khatun, a rice-cake vendor in her late 60s and a former worker in a cigarette factory, recounted the eviction of nearly 300 peasant and working-class families, including her own, in the first year of the military regime. The Water Development Board (WDB) seized the land. Despite protests, the authority demolished their houses, leading to the loss of belongings and homes where they had lived for generations. A top industrialist with connections to a military officer, who directed the WDB to clear the land, received ten decimals of land.

Shahidul Bari's Story

Shahidul Bari, a 67-year-old TV mechanic, worked at the Nikkon TV factory owned by Alauddin Shams ( a West Pakistani Bihari ). The factory, located on 0.83 acres of land and employed nearly 300 workers. Shams left for West Pakistan, and his wife--Aleya Khanam--took over the business. Khanam lost half of her land in the mid-1980s when a real estate company, owned by a military officer, grabbed the land from the southern side of the TV factory, displacing nearly 30 peasant families. Despite protests, Khanam was forced to sell the factory in 1988 to another real estate company owned by a lawmaker.

Democratic Regime (1991-Present)

Neoliberal capitalism accelerated with the restoration of democracy in 1991. Rural and urban economies underwent significant restructuring, including rapid urbanization and industrialization. From 1990 to 2010, government agencies, lawmakers, politicians, and business elites grabbed 1.3 million hectares of public and private land, with over 6,000 acres of land grabbing in Dhaka (Muhammad, 1992; Shafi, 2008; Siddiqui et al., 2010). State developmental projects and urban elites evicted more than 200 slums and nearly 317,665 people in Dhaka between 1989 and 2017 (Ahmed, 2012; Islam, 2006; Nawaz, 2004; Shafi, 2008; The Dhaka Tribune, 2016, 2018).

Bashundhara Group's Land Grabbing

A top business conglomerate, Bashundhara Group, recently grabbed approximately 100 acres of public land in Badda, Dhaka, and "sold out every single plot without caring for approval from the city development authority" (Chowdhury, 2007). Siddiqui et al. (2010: 192) characterized this trend of land accumulation as an "outright plunder and loot of state and abandoned property." The President of Bangladesh commented that the country’s politics has “gone in the pockets of businessmen” (Liton, 2015).

Rashed Khan's Testimony

Rashed Khan, a 73-year-old landlord and political leader, reported losing over 80 decimals of land between 1990 and 1995 to a lawmaker, a politician, and a real estate company from the ruling party. He mentioned that land grabbing and re-grabbing were common from 1991 to 1999 in Panthapath. Powerful land grabbers often used political connections, illegal forces, land officials, bureaucrats, law enforcement, and influenced courts.

Land Grabbing and Gender

Another strategy for grabbing land is the use of patriarchal views. Different elite groups used to compete with one another to grab women’s land. Humayra Akter, 47, a nurse, reported that “women landlords are more susceptible to lose their property than men due to their least political and social supports…men find a woman landlord as an easy target.”

Land Use Survey (2017-2018)

The land use survey finds 20 neighborhoods in the study area, where 1,007 plots (163 acres) of land exist. Of them, 1,003 plots have commercial and residential structures and four plots have an open space. Of them, 989 are privately owned plots, and 18 are government-owned plots. Out of all, 129 plots of land, or 4.22 acres, are reported as illegally grabbed and currently disputed, where 33 plots are Khas land, 36 plots are Vested Property (VP), and 60 plots are privately-owned land. In the study area, most slums of 147 are located in grabbed or disputed land—one of the crucial strategies of controlling grabbed land.

Table 2. The Recent Trends of Land Grabbing in Panthapath, Dhaka

(Please note: Due to the limitations of the text format, I cannot perfectly recreate the table as it appears in the original document. However, I can present the data in a structured manner.)

This table shows the number of grabbed and disputed plots of land, the types of grabbed land, and the land ownership (private vs. public) in Panthapath, Dhaka.

Discussions and Conclusions

This chapter argues that existing theories of land dispossession are inadequate for understanding land grabbing in urban Bangladesh. It offers an analytical framework for examining the strategic relationship between the state and market in organizing land grabbing, the use of extra-economic means, and the spatiotemporal dimension that regularizes land grabbing. Class, power, and spatiotemporal dimensions explain how land grabbing practices have transformed the agricultural sector into a center of neoliberal capitalism in Bangladesh.

The urban land grabbing between 1947-1971 was organized by the West Pakistani government and elites, who used legal and coercive methods to seize land from East Pakistanis, primarily Hindus. The state also pursued its own interests by using grabbed land for commercial purposes and selling it to capitalists. From 1971-1975, the state and business elites grabbed land and businesses after the liberation war, with the state later nationalizing industries built by capitalists, only for them to regain control through privatization. Between 1975-1990, land grabbers had direct connections with the military, with state agencies seizing land for commercial purposes and selling portions to private companies. A vibrant neoliberal capitalist order emerged after 1991, with business elites gaining power and engaging in land re-grabbing, often targeting women landlords who lacked political connections. While Bangladeshi Hindus lost 2.6 million acres of land since 1947 (Barkat et al., 2008; Panday, 2016), they have lost almost all land in Panthapath.

Land grabbing in Panthapath between 1947 and 1991 evicted nearly 6,000 independent peasants. It also created a tremendous level of spatial segregation. Though more than 95 percent of Bangladeshi women are landless, more than 99 percent of women are landless in Panthapath.