LAND, DOWRY, LABOUR 75 of control excercised over them and the principles that guide the production organisation. Divergent views exist on policies and perspectives on each feature of the land question. Over the years it has been seen that not only policy direction but even the debates have shifted their focus from the land and labour correlation to technology, productivity and production. Simultaneously, studies since the seventies gradually drifted away from issues such as land reform (distribution, redistribution and reorganisation), to prices and to credit, to debates about the economic size of holdings and technological development. Questions of unemployment, poverty, migration, swelling of the informal sector, etc became the central issues for the rural areas thus marginalising the debate on land. Instead of a resolution of the problem of land and labour combination, a shift occurred. The debates on technology sidelined the debates on the concern for equality. They mystified the whole structure of unequal property relations which has always been the basis of the problems of poverty, unemployment and gender inequality. Women and their status suffered. The land question for them remained unresolved. Mainstream development policy began to determine debates. Critical issues thus lost focus. The fundamental issue of land was replaced by sub-issues such as equal wage for equal work, demand for wage for household work, self employment generation schemes to generate work for unemployed women; and protective legislation in the informal sector. All these became important gender issues. What was hidden behind these concerns? Was it an alternative perspective to the womens* question? Or were these new debates a coping mechanism within a rapidly changing mainstream development policy? Even after the publication of the Report of the Committee on the The Status of Women and the UN declaration of a Decade for Women in 1975, women and the land question has not been a priority either in official policy or in the various movements articulating womens rights. Yes, certain issues are mentioned in writing but their expression either in movements or in legislation continues to elude us. As a result one sees some discrepancies. For instance, while concern is expressed over the issue of land titles to single women and joint titles in the name of the couple, there is, however, an absence of a movement for land distribution. While this main issue is being taken up by the peasant's organisations a greater coordination is required between the women's movement and the peasant's movement. Similarly, a joint approach needs to be developed at the policy level. Can the issue of land be overlooked any longer in resolving the gender issue? When I started the survey in village Pashang, Midnapur, West Bengal, I had not developed any framework of methodology to deal with the question I have raised here. It was not the emphasis of the^ study. However, in the course of recording 317 case histories of