The MQM have submitted its land reform bill in the National Assembly Secretariat which seeks to distribute large landholdings among the tenets and landless people. It is unlikely that MQM bill will be passed by the National Assembly and Senate, which are dominated by large landowners whose only pastime is politics. It is not for the first time that land reforms attempts have been made. The first land reforms were introduced by General Ayub Khan in 1959, in which the upper sealing of land was set at one thousand acres arid land and five hundred acres irrigated land. The feudal lords with the connivance of land Revenue Department Officials managed to manipulate their ownership of fertile lands. The second land reforms attempts was made by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972 where the upper sealing of land holding was lowered to hundred acre irrigated land. Bhuttos land reforms were never implemented, due to feudal lords joining the PPP. However, later the federal Shariat Courts declared forcible acquisition of land by the government as contrary to the teachings of Islam. At present times, the peasant, farmers, haris are starving and working like bonded slaves having no rights at all. Even wages allowed by the labor laws are not given to them. This is also a sad reflection on the state of democracy. The state structures and its power are fully in the hands of landowners. To implement land reforms, a grass roots movement is imperative, which presently appears to be out of the realm of possibility. ENGR. S.T. HUSSAIN, Lahore, October 14.