19 Land Alienation

Sampriti Panda

INTRODUCTION:

Tribes in India have been facing various problems and issues. Sometime defining the very term “tribe” becomes debatable. Whereas at sometimes, the identity and existing of the tribal groups becomes difficult because of various problems and obstacles faced by them. Some of the major problems are indebtedness, land alienation, shifting cultivation, poverty, employment, health, drinking, housing, education, communication, industrialization, urbanization, migration and many more. Among all these problems land alienation is the most disturbed aspect for the tribals. In this chapter we will focus on the problem of land alienation and its impact on tribes.

LEARNING OUTCOME:

• Definition of Land alienation
• Different types of land alienation
• Tribal rights on land
• Methods of land alienation
• Tribal uprising and land rights
• Suggested measures for land alienation among the tribal societies.

1. LAND ALIENATION:

There have been many scholars who has been debating and focussing on land alienation and its impact on tribals. But first we must understand what land alienation actually means is. Saran (2005) has categorised the definition of land alienation into two categories, i.e. one is in broader sense and the other one in narrow sense. In broader sense, land alienation indicates huge lose of common property and rural commons; whereas in narrow sense, land alienation simply means alienating the individuals alienate from their land holdings and livelihood. Various research papers, micro studies and government actions and committees have been setup at different level to deal with the problem of land alienation, yet the issues exist in the full form. Many activists as well as tribal communities have also been raising their voice against land alienation, and continually struggling to get justice.

Land alienation has been occurring on two levels, one is at individual level and the other one is at institutional level. Saran (2005), further explains land alienation at individual level through four cross sectional categories. They are land alienation in urban and rural area, alienation from tribal to non tribal and tribal to tribal land alienation. The land alienation in urban areas has been induced by the outsiders for constructing houses, buildings, factories or other non-agricultural purposes. Such type of land alienation is usually regarded as illegal as the lands are taken away from the tribal groups by manipulating them or sometimes forcibly too. The other type of land alienation which is prevalent in rural areas is basically among the poor tribals to meet day to day needs. In such type of alienation, the tribals either outright sale their land at very low rates or are trapped by illegal mortgagers.

Institutional alienation of land is also prevalent in many parts of the country. This type of land alienation is done for “public purpose” which may include various big and medium projects of government like industry, mining, sanctuaries, dam etc. Ekka and Asif (2000). Many tribal groups has been agitation against land alienation for public purpose, which leads to various other issues like rehabilitation, displacement, resettlement, inadequate compensation, loss of culture and identity and many others

2. TRIBALS RIGHTS ON LAND:

Tribals and their culture has been always under-assumed to be uncivilised, primitive, backward, even some times forest-dwellers, janglies, by various sections of society. Beside this disrespect to the tribal culture, the tribal are often denied of their basic rights. The right to live with dignity and equality, their right to land, forest, water and other means of livelihood, their right to freedom of expression, etc. has been violated and denied from the tribals for the sake of national interest or public purposes (Parkasham, 2004). There is a symbiotic relationship between the tribal and natural resources, when we recognise the right of tribal to livelihood. These rights include:

a)      Right to food

b)      Right to water

c)      Right to work

d)      Right to forest and

e)      Right to land

Many a times, the tribals are harassed and are deprived of basic rights and freedom through dispossession of their land, territories and resources.

3. TRIBALS AND LAND:

According to rural development institute, 2001, around 45 percent of the world’s population earn their food and livelihood from land. Land is not only a source of livelihood, but along with land holdings, and land ownership comes with social dignity, economic viability and a sense of security. For tribals land is very important, they are strong attached to their land and even emotionally. But the land alienation among the tribals, make them helpless and landless, leading to economical and mental insecurities. Moreover inequitable and unjust distribution of land and natural resources has increased further social issues like poverty, rural-urban migration and escalating violence.

The land distribution pattern is also responsible for tribal misery as it follows existing social hierarchy. Sankaran, 1996 and Mohanty 2001, discusses the land distribution pattern in India is distributed invariably in large amount to people belonging to the upper caste, the next category of people comes to be cultivators, who constitute the middle castes are given the next share of land and the agricultural workers who are largely tribes or dalits are given the least share in land distribution. Moreover there has been continual alienation of land among the tribals. No legislation yet has been able to halt to land alienation among these marginalised populations. Big landholders, outsider, institutions and various other actors have been grabbling large acres of land from the tribals either by using force or by manipulating them. According ministry of rural development, 2000, around 9, 15,442.57 acres of tribal land has been reported to be alienated. The tribal land is also taken away for setting up development projects, industries, national park, wildlife sanctuaries etc. further the advent of liberalisation, and privatisation and globalisation in our Indian economy has increased the mounting pressure on the tribal land for various development activities. Fernandes, (1998) has talked about few amendments which were done in the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 by the government of India, so that it can provide a shield to protect the tribal land.

4. METHODS OF LAND ALIENATION:

Tribal economy has been centred on land and land based resources since ages. Even today also, land continues to be the primary dependence of tribal population. Therefore land is the only tangible productive asset among the scheduled tribes (E. Selvarajan, 2000). But there have been a number of methods used to take away the land of tribals. They are discussed as follows:

(a) Illegal sale of tribal land has been often reported by various people. Ekta, Parished,(2002) gives the example of Chambal region, where 51 cases were reported. According to these cases around 190 acres of cultivable land of tribals were sold to powerful families who reside in local areas and had good administrative and political connection.

(b) Manipulation of land records and documents is another way to grab the land of tribals. This is very much done by the patwaries and the land revenue officials to alienate land from the tribal people.

(c) Another common way of alienating land is demarcation of land. In this way, the patwaries of the villages show some land to the tribals and allow them to cultivate it. But later, at onset of harvesting season, the patwaries gives the land to the influential farmers of the villages by the alienating land from the tribals.

(d) Mortgaging lands to repay loans is another method of land alienation. But usually the tribals are unable to repay the loan because of less agricultural productivity, thus leading to alienation of their land.

(e) Many tribal lands are alienated on the account of development projects. Although these people are later rehabilitated and given land entitlements, but many a times the patwariesdid not demarcate the land in accordance with the land entitlement. This also leads to further alienation of land among the tribals, which occurs without the knowledge of tribes.

Land being the only tangible asset of a tribal family has not only the social implications and religious rituals tied with it, but also has emotional connotation among the tribals. Thus land is much more than merely a source of livelihood for a tribal family. There has been various instance and cases where tribal land and its alienation has cause various disruption and violation throughout the nation. May it be the case of Vedanta or POSCO in Odisha or the Singbhum in West Bengal or the Tamil Nadu or Madhya Pradesh or Andhra Pradesh or the Chhattisgarh, every time the land is alienated from the tribals in a mass level, the tribal life and surrounding environment is disturbed alot.

Initially, the tribal communities relied upon food-gathering and hunting. Later the population of these communities grew and the communities gathered the knowledge and skill of agriculture, and they started cleaning forest to occupy land. The individual tribal considered himself as owner of the land he occupied. However the pressure from other advanced communities in a variety of forms forced the tribal to leave his land. The tribe area remained out of reach from the outsiders for a long time because of their geographical isolation and in accessibility. Therefore, the tribal communities had their own way of managing their land in a traditional manner. The landownership thus was categorised broadly into three types; they are: community land, land belonging to clan and individual holdings. With the advent of British administration in India, there was introduction of three main systems of land revenue and land rights. They are: Zamindari system, Mahaldari System and Roytwari system. Under these newly introduce land revenue, various tribal areas also came and these new systems dominated over the tribal area, further more leading to situation and factors that led to land alienation.

5. LAND ALIENATION AND TRIBAL UPRISING:

The British rule in India, through its land revenue policy and elaborate exploitative bureaucratic structure, made land alienable on a large scale especially in tribal areas. The tribe,who were cultivating land and cutting down forest with their own customary norms and practices, were now compelled to work as labours in their own lands and were also subjected to various kinds of exploitation and oppression by outsiders. Such kinds of situation and repeated oppression led to various rebellion and movements among the tribal communities. The Chotanagpur Tribal Revolt of 1807-08, The Munda Rebellion of 1832, 1867-90, The Kol Rebellion of 1831-32, The Santhal Rebellion of 1885-86, The Rampa Rebellion of 1879-90, Madri Kalo Revolt of 1898 and various other revolts by the tribals posted a major threat to the British administration in India. Resistance and violence by the tribals for their land rights in the British raj forced the British administration to come up with some policies and acts to pacify the anger of these tribal communities. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, Central Provinces Land Alienation Act of 1916, Bihar Tenancy Act of 1885 and Bombay Land Revenue Code (section 73A) were enacted as a result of tribal revolts.

Again various revolts among the tribes aroused because of land alienation through debt mechanism, tenancy and other illegal and dishonest practices by non-tribal. (Haimendrof 1945; Pathaiak 1971; Rao 1987; Mohanty 1997).The tribal movements like The SriramaRaju’s Uprising of 1922-24 in west Godavari, Gond Revolt of 1940 in Adilabad, Telengana Revolt of 1946-51 in Nalgonda, Warli movement of Maharastra in 1946-48, Santhal Agitation in Purnea in 1937-40, Munda Rising in Sundergarh, Orissa and Jharkhand in 1936-39 are to be named a few tribal protest, Which create pressure on state to protect and promote the land rights of the tribals. This led to various legislative measures for protection of land rights of scheduled Tribes. The Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land (Extension and Amendment) Regulation of 1963, Bihar Scheduled Areas regulation of 1969, Kerala Land Assignment Rules of 1964, Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Codes of 1959, Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Land Act of 1950, Orissa Land Reform Act of 1960, Rajasthan Bhoodan Yogana Act of 1954, Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Rules Act (Amended) of 1969, West Bengal Land Reform Act of 1955 are some of the legislative measure of independent India, that were brought about in our constitution to protect and safeguard the land rights of the scheduled tribes and curb down the process of land alienation among the tribal. (Mohanty, 2001)

6. SUGGESTED MEASURES FOR DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF LAND ALIENATION:

As Land alienation is a multi-dimensional problem, affecting involving various aspect of life, thus we need a long-term strategy with multiple levels and factors to deal with this problem some of the suggestions are as follows:

(a) There should be a formation of an appellate authority involving members from the judiciary revenue department and Scheduled Tribes department. The formation of such an appellate authority would help in improving the procedure of restoration cases, which usually takes a long time.

(b)  Few legislative measure and changes has to be taken place so that the gram sabhasat village levels become more active. This would in return help in identification and restoration of alienated land.

(c)   Various steps should be taken regarding restoration of cases and timely disposal. Establishment of fast track and mobile courts would be a great step towards disposing of large number of pending cases. Even monitoring cells also be recommended to set up at district as well as state level so that the restoration of alienated land becomes faster and easier.

(d)   Ignorance regarding the procedures of filing a case or regarding the provision of various acts is another problem faced by the majority of people. Thus, programmes and campaigns at level should be conducted and organised to disseminate the knowledge regarding the procedure and various provision of act.

(e)  Women have been kept away from their rights and land, as they have no right of inheritance or ownership on immovable properties. But the tribal societies have customary provision for safeguarding the rights of women. The Madhu Kishwar’s case, who filed a case on the behalf of a Ho woman in Supreme Court, becomes one of the important landmarks on the right and ownership of women over land.

(f)  Institutional alienation is yet another problem very large amount of land has been alienated from the adivasis in the name of public purpose and very few people are provided with the facility of rehabilitation and resettlement. In many cases even compensation is not all given, if also compensation is given to some group, the amount tends to be very minimal. Thus under the provision of the PESA 1996, it become mandatory to take the consent of the community before acquiring their land for any purpose. In fact the state has also to ensure that the quality of life of the displaced and rehabilitated people has to be protected and safeguarded.

(g)  One of the major reasons for illegally alienating land has been the missing or mutilated land records because of which it becomes difficult for the tribes to claim their right on the land. Thus it becomes very essential that the land records at both district as well as circle level should be updated and upgraded using the help of computer technology. This would help in maintaining a proper record of the land and also help tribes to claim on their land.

(h)  Land alienation is so much prevalent among the rural people because of less or low return from the agriculture and poor irrigational facilities. As a result the tribes and the farmers are not able to repay their debt for mortgaged and fall as a victim of land alienation. Therefore irrigation facilities should be improved in these tribal and rural areas. Even focus should also be given towards development of agriculture so that the need for non – institutional credit gets diminished from the surroundings, which is a major reason for land alienation.

(i)    Many a times the farmers and tribes take institutional credit from various banks to improve agriculture. The recovery of these credits was initially very slow; creating an impression that the credits need not be paid at all. But later the adivasis were forced to alienate their lands to recover their loans. In some cases, the interest was multiple times compared to principle amount. In many cases it was reported that even the farmers had no idea about the loans, sometimes the loan was contracted by their previous generations too. Thus to stop such type of land alienations, laws need to be passed which would not allowed the interest to go beyond the principle amount of loan taken.

(j)   According to the Fifth Schedule of our constitution, the governor has a major role to play in land alienation. According to this provision the Governor’s secretariat has a special cell which can prepare its own report on the land alienation. But unfortunately use of such provisions has not been done by many of the governors. Thus if these constitutional provisions would be practiced then, the additional pressure on government can help in curbing out the problem of land alienation.

(k)  Formation of self – help groups, seed- banks, and various other institutions should be encouraged in the tribal areas to fulfil short term credit needs which in turn can be helpful for tribes to prevent mortgages and alienation of land.

(l)   Social awareness is also very important among the tribal communities to prevent land – alienation. In many cases the habits like alcoholism, gambling, cock- fight, drinking, and other such habits and practices have been quiet common in tribal villages, because of which they face the problem of land alienation. These bad habits and social practices, which are a kind of weakness among the tribes is used by local – traders and non – adivasis to alienate the tribal lands. Thus social reform and social – awareness is very much important among the tribes which would help in restricting land alienation.

SUMMARY:

Land alienation has been an important issue in the tribal areas. Historical and situational factors and agencies have been responsible for the alienation of land. But land alienation has become a problem for most because of lack of proper addressing to the tribal communities. But with rising consciousness and struggle by the tribes, there has been a decline in the pace of the land alienation. Yet the basic issue of land alienation remains the same i.e., the illegally alienated land of the tribes should be restored back to them. Further a more integrated and fresh approach should be adopted towards acquisition of land so that the tribes are no more the victims of land alienation, but they can be of use and help like partners in the process of development and growth.

REFERENCES

• Annual Report, 1999-2000, Ministry of Rural Development. New Delhi: Government of India, 2000.
• Ekka, A, and M. Asif. Development Induced Displacement and Rehabilitation in Jharkhand, 1951-1995: A Database on Its Extent and Nature. New Delhi, Indian Social Institute, 2000.
• Fernandes, W. “Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 1998: Rights of Project affected People Ignored.” Economic and Political Weekly XXXIII, no. 42(1998): 2703 – 06.
• Haimendorf, C.V.F. “Tribal Hyderabad.” 1945 in The Adivasi Question, edited by IndraMunshi, New Delhi: Orient Blackswanpvt. Ltd, 2012.
• Mohanty, B.B. “Land Distribution among Scheduled Castes and Tribes.” Economic and Political Weekly XXXVI, no.40 (2001): 3857-68.
• Mohanty, B.B. “Land Distribution among Scheduled Castes and Tribes.” Economic and Political Weekly 36, no. 40 (2001).
• Mohanty, B.B. “State and Tribal relationship in Orissa.” Indian Anthropologists 27, no. 1(1997): 1- 17.
• Parishad, E. “A Perspective on land and Forests in Madhya Pradesh.” In Land Reforms in India: Issues of Equity in Rural Madhya Pradesh, vol. 7 edited by Praveen K. Jha, New Delhi: Sage Publication, 2002. P. 58-61.
• Patnaik, N. Tribes and Their Development: A Study of Two Tribal Development Blocks in Orissa.
• Hyderabad: National Institute of Community Development, 1971.
• Prakasham, G. “Tribals and Their Right to Livelihood: Tribal Right to Land in Madhya Pradesh.” In Tribal Issues in India, edited by D.C. Shah and Yatinder Singh Sisodia. Jaipur and New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 2004.
• Rao, B.J. Land Alienation in Tribal Areas of Andhra Pradesh. Warangal: Kakatiya University, 1987.
• Sankaran, S.R. “Introduction.” in Land Reforms in India, vol.3, edited by B.N.Yugandhar. New Delhi: sage Publication, 1996.
• Saran, R. “Alienation and Restoration of Tribal Land in Jharkhand: Current Issues And Possible Strategies.” Economic and Political Weekly, (2005):4443-4446.
• Slevarajan, E. “Alienation of Tribal Lands in Tamil Nadu: Panel Data Analysis.” Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 37 (2000): 9 – 15.
• Washington. “Rural Development Institute (RDI)”. www.rdi.org.2001 (Accessed on 25/12/2014).

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• Firth, R. Elements of Social Oraganisation, Watts and Co. 1951.
• Fuchs, S. The Aboriginal Tribes of India, New Delhi, The MacmillianCompany ,1973
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• Mohanty, B.B. “Land Distribution among Scheduled Castes and Tribes.” Economic and Political Weekly XXXVI, no.40, (2001)
• Mohanty, B.B. “State and Tribal relationship in Orissa.” Indian Anthropologists 27, no. 1(1997)
• Parishad, E. “A Perspective on land and Forests in Madhya Pradesh.” In Land Reforms in India: Issues of Equity in Rural Madhya Pradesh, vol. 7 edited by Praveen K. Jha, New Delhi: Sage Publication, 2002.
• Patnaik, N. Tribes and Their Development: A Study of Two Tribal Development Blocks in Orissa. Hyderabad: National Institute of Community Development, 1971.
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    SUGGESTED READINGS:

• S.C. Dube (1958) India’s Changing Villages, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Stephens Fuchs (1973) The Aboriginal Tribes of India, New Delhi, The Macmillian Company.
• Max Gluckman (1965) Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Societies, London, Basil Blackwell.
• E.R. Leach (1954) The Political System of Highland Burma, London, G Bells and sons.
• Harvey, David (2003) The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Marshall D. Sahlins, (1968) Tribesmen, New York, Prentice Hall.