Society · 11 Aug 2026
With reference to inheritance rights over agricultural land in India, consider the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005. Which one of the following best describes its effect?
A ground report from Maharashtra's farmer-suicide-affected Vidarbha districts documents widows increasingly declining remarriage to assert land rights and economic independence under the 2005 Act, even as in-laws routinely delay actual transfer of land titles.
UPSC often tests the gap between what a law formally grants and what social custom actually enforces - here, the exam-relevant distinction is that the Act imposes no remarriage condition, even though ground reality behaves as if it does.
The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gives women unconditional equal inheritance rights to agricultural land. Any "non-remarriage" requirement seen in practice is social custom, not law.
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