When Akeela Naz entered the struggle of the Anjuman Mazarcen Punjab (AMP) back in 2001 as a 22-year-old woman, little did she know that the movement of landless peasants will consume her life in the years to come. In a struggle that started about 15 years ago, she has grown from a confident, young woman into a seasoned leader of women peasants.

The AMP had many men who`d go on and stake claim to leadership, but when it came to women, there were only a handful willing to do the hard yards. Naz`s efforts helped shape landless women peasants into a visible force that could stand up to the might of the State and rebuff their efforts to evict landless peasants from military farms in Punjab.

`I call myself a companion of landless farming women, says Naz, explaining that she avoids the use of the phrase `political activist` to define or introduce herself. Naz is the recipient of the `Meeto Memorial Award` instituted by Delhi based feminist leader Kamla Bhasin. The award was offered to a new generation of social activists from South Asia and Naz received award in 2010, in Bangladesh. She served as finance secretary of the AMP from 2008 to 2011, and is now an executive member of`the AMP.

Naz`s inspiration to work with landless farmers is her father, Samual Rahmat. Her ancestors tilled land f`or centuries but were not declared owners of land allocated to them in village 87/10-R by the British in 1880. Her great grandfather, Rahmat, settled in Ariya Nager presently located in seven villages of`district Khanewal. That was the time when the British were developing the canal system and brought settlers from Eastern Punjab for cultivation. She was later inspired by AMP co-founder Dr Christopher John`s commit-ment when he formed `Jag Jawan` and `Jag Kisan` movement in District Khenwal.

Among the AMP higher leadership, a protocol was developed by landless farmers: the chairman will be a man and the president a woman. Women had a 44pc share in the provincial higher set up. This was to encourage more women to step forward, but ultimately, it was their men colleagues who disappointed.

`I still remember after our Khanewal Long March in 2010, when the Punjab government negotiated with AMP, many of our senior colleagues showed resistance in negotiating under women`s leadership. This tendency dominated in the next few years, eventually leading to all of AMP`s provincial level women bodies becoming dysfunctional,` she explains.

`Presently, we have an organisational set up for women at district level but they have no voice in the AMP`s provincial set-up. Regretfully, this undermined our role as activists, she says.

After spending 15 years in the movement, she now feels dismayed by the `chauvinistic tendencies` of her men counterparts in the AMP and the wider Left in Punjab. To cherish her vision and dream, now she is heading her organisation named the Peasant Women Society (PWS).

Through the PWS, Naz is advocating permanent legislation for women ownership whenever any land reform is carried out in future. She is presently struggling to improve legislation that ensures joint land ownership between men and women, including provisions for a defined wage structure for women labourers tilling the land.

`About 50pc of the informal agriculture labour force is women,` she explains, adding that the cause of landless peasant women cannot be strengthened until women are empowered through land ownership deeds. She demands separate seats of landless women in three tiers of local government metropolitan, municipal corporation, and union council levels.

But how will the AMP be revived`? `There is a need to reorganise women`s strength in central decision making processes, where they once enjoyed more than 40 pc decision-making power. In the last three to four years, higher decision-making forums have become redundant. This is not what my women colleagues or I wanted for the movement,` explains Naz.

Naz is very critical while analyzing the role of Left oriented political parties in the AMP movement during and after their 2010 long march. She claims these parties failed to educate and create an organisational hierarchy. `Developing ideological bases is the work of political parties and we didn`t manage to do that,` she explains.

And yet, Naz believes that her struggle needs to continue because landless farmers among 10 districts Punjab are still deprived of ownership rights of 70,000-acre agricultural land.