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Mainstream, VOL L, No 40, September 22, 2012

Proposal from the Bottom to Address Land-related Problems

Friday 28 September 2012

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Ground-Up Understanding Of Land Issue

by P.V RAJAGOPAL

Ekta Parishad and about 2000 other organisations are coming together in October 2012 to organise a Jan Satyagraha, one of the largest non-violent actions seen in recent times. One lakh landless people will begin their 350 km padayatra to New Delhi from Gwalior to draw the attention of the state to the promises that were made to them five years ago by the current Prime Minister and apply moral pressure on the government to formulate a pro-poor comprehensive land-reforms policy. In prepa-ration for this historical action, a group of 20 people began a Jan Samvad Yatra from the southern tip of India on October 2, 2011 and are travelling through 80,000 km and 350 districts before reaching Gwalior. The objective of the Jan Samvad Yatra is to deepen our understanding of the land-issue by talking with groups engaged in struggles on the issue of land and livelihood related problems and to invite them for a decisive national struggle. In this article, I am articulating our findings after completing close to 35,000 km on the road and having visited close to 12 States, and presenting a concise proposal to address these issues.

Understanding Land Issue and its 
Complex Nature

PROBLEMS related to land are very complex. It is very difficult to decide where to begin and where to end. In Hindi, they say it is like Lord Hanuman’s tail that can extend to any length. In order to give you an impression of the varieties of problems that can be broadly classified as land problems, I am trying to make a listing of different kinds of problems I have encountered in the last six months while travelling through more than 12 States of India. An instance of this problem is also mentioned wherever it is applicable. Whenever we create a mechanism to deal with land problems it is important to keep these situations in mind and see whether the mechanism proposed will deal with all these situations or at least a majority of them.

Plantation

1. Even after the lease period on plantations has ended, the government is often unwilling to distribute the land to landless Dalits and adivasis and plantations are often unwilling to give up their control over the land. For example, in Chengara, Dalits and adivasis are occupying part of a rubber plantation. According to them, the lease period of the plantation company on this particular land has ended.

2. Plantation companies, like tea plantations, coffee plantations, cashew plantations, have occupied very large areas of land, taking advantage of the exemptions provided in the Ceiling Act. In many cases these lands are not properly measured and the strong suspicion is that they are occupying much more land than what is in the record. This can be seen in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam.

FRA (Forest Rights Act)

3. In settling claims filed under the FRA, preference is sometimes given to the claims of individuals who align themselves with the ruling party. For instance, adivasis are occupying a piece of land in Wayanad and their claims are not settled under the FRA while in the same area, another group of adivasis belonging to the ruling party were given pattas under the same Act.

4. The FRA says that land can be given according to the size that the claimant family is occupying. The only limitation is that occupancy should be before 2005 and the maximum area should be within 10 acres. From Kerala to Odisha, I have come across many cases of claimants who were not given patta for the full area of land that they are cultivating. There are recorded cases in which large numbers of people have received patta for 2 cents, 10 cents, 1/2 acre, 1 acre etc. which is in total violation of the Act.

5. There are many forest villages where the individual and community rights of the marginalised communities over land is not recognised.

6. In many States, there are large areas of disputed land between the Forest Department and Revenue Department. Hence claims submitted under the FRA are not approved. Even those with title to these lands are being evicted by the Forest Department.

7. Under the Forest Rights Act, what is given is called “Adhikar Patrak” which is only authorising people to use the land but can be taken back anytime. This does not allow people to take any benefit from banking and other institutions. Converting the “Adhikar Patrak” to land title will address this problem.

8. The community land claims under the FRA are discouraged in order to give land to corporate houses. The same is applicable to Gairan lands, Panchami lands etc.

Land for Marginalised

9. Panchami land assigned for the Scheduled Caste people during the British rule is being occupied by various departments of the Government of Tamil Nadu as well as by powerful lobbies including institutions. Similarly Gairan lands in Maharashtra, Assigned land or DC land in Andhra Pradesh have not been completely distributed to the target group.

10. Large areas of Bhoodan land are still available for distribution. Some parts of the land are under litigation while some got reoccupied by the donor’s family.

Administrative Roadblocks to Distributing Land and Collusion in Transferring Land from the Poor

11. In many places the issue of caste certificate has become a huge issue. In the absence of caste certificate, the Forest Rights Act and many other programs meant for the SC/STs cannot be availed. (Odisha)

12. The land allotted to economically poor people under various schemes are not demarcated and possession is not given. This includes panchami land, 2 acre scheme of the Tamil Nadu Government, Assigned land in Andhra Pradesh, Akram-Sakram land in Karnataka, Gairan land in Maharashtra, Moh Jameen Moh Diha land in Odisha, and FRA land.

13. Tenancy registration is applicable in many States but the officials refuse to register the tenancy of tenant farmers because of pressure of the landowners.

14. In the process of land consolidation and settlement, survey and settlement many poor people have lost their land to the rich due to malpractices at the local government level.

15. It was noticed that powerful people influence the local officials and manipulate land-records and the classification of land to suit their interest. This practice is rampant in areas where land records are not properly maintained.

Land Acquisition

16. Before claims under the FRA are settled, land that was cultivated by the marginalised communities is allotted for development projects, SEZs etc. They not only lose their land, they are also not eligible for compen-sation or rehabilitation.

17. In many cases, farmers’ lands are getting stamped and sealed when their lands are forcefully acquired for infrastructure deve-lopment projects like expansion of highways. Such lands cannot be sold, transferred or mortgaged. (Malegaon, Maharashtra)

18. Many people were thrown out of their land in the name of wild-life sanctuaries, develop-ment, mining, and industrialisation. This happened before the Forest Rights Act. This has also happened before the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy was announced. They continue to suffer without livelihood resources. There is a huge backlog of cases for rehabilitation and resettlement.

19. Government officials are trying to influence the Gram Sabhas and public hearing process in favour of the corporate houses. As a result, people are losing their land in a big way in spite of their refusal and resistance. In the PESA areas, this behaviour of government officials amounts to a violation of law that was meant to protect the interests of adivasis.

Indirect Land Acquisition

20. In order to avoid conflict, corporate houses are now acquiring common property and agricultural lands without disturbing the settlement of people. Having lost access to the commons and livelihood resources, people are compelled to migrate. Their homestead land is then acquired by the companies and powerful people. Because land was not directly acquired, their loss of land does not count for rehabilitation and resettlement.

21. Because of the dumping of industrial waste and heavy transportation, large areas of land have become unfertile. Land is becoming unfertile because of the pollution caused by factories that do not adhere to environmental norms and extraction of water for industrial purposes. This forces farmers to sell their land at throw-away prices. Because their lands were not acquired directly, their displacement is not recognised and hence they are not eligible for compensation and rehabilitation. (Sundargarh in Odisha, Tilda, Raigarh and other places where new industries are being set-up.)

22. With the arrival of massive industrialisation and power generation, huge towers are erected to transfer power from place to place. Generally this is done on the land of a private farmer or on a common land. In both cases, this is affecting the local people in terms of land and security.

23. Big absentee farmers who do not cultivate the land or are settled in cities tend to sell their land to companies rather than giving it to the landless people. This provides opportunities for companies to move in and destroy the land of many other small farmers, finally forcing them also to sell their land.

24. Land is being acquired and sold by the government to the corporate houses without considering the claims of those tenants living on the land for many years.

Other Ways of Land Alienation

25. Acts like the Sarfasi Act are used to deprive them from their own land. Small farmers, who have taken loans from banks, are being trapped in a loan cycle and eventually the bank auctions their land using the provisions of the Sarfasi Act when they are unable to repay their loans on time.

26. According to law, land that is taken for a specific purpose and is not used for that purpose within a period of three years should be returned to the state for redistribution. Even when the land that is taken from the marginalised communities is not used for several years, it is not returned to them. For example, in Attapadi, land was taken from adivasis 40 years back to construct a dam but the dam was never constructed. In some cases factories are defunct but the land they have acquired is not returned to the government for redistribution. This is creating conflict in many parts of the country.

27. In many places across India, the land of the poor is being occupied by powerful people by using their muscle power, or corrupt methods. In some States, there are laws to retrieve the lost land of the adivasis. There are many reported cases where the land is not retrieved to the affected families. They are also occupying common lands whereas the Dalits and other marginalised communities have no land for defecation, roads, and graveyard.

28. In many areas where adivasi lands cannot be sold to non-adivasis, large scale benami transactions are taking place. In some cases marriage is used as a mechanism to take adivasi land.

29. Many poor people have occupied government revenue land in the rural areas for homestead purposes for years. Regularisation of this piece of land is yet to take place. In the absence of regularisation, they are exploited by the government officials and powerful sections of the society.

30. Large numbers of people are living in precarious housing conditions in the urban context due to lack of resources and social acceptability.

31. Water-rights of the fishing community are like land-rights of the farmers. Their rights are lost in the name of mechanised fishing, sea ports and oil-wells, tsunami buffer zone, tourism etc. without providing them alter-natives.

32. There are many examples where the Land Ceiling Act was violated. In spite of the land being irrigated, the ceiling limit applicable to irrigated land is not respected and land-owners are able to hold on to areas larger than permissible.

33. People, who lost their land due to small dams and ponds, are not able to cultivate their land when the water recedes as this land is generally auctioned and only people with money can compete in these auctions.

34. Because land is generally owned by men, women become powerless when it comes to dealing with property. They get further marginalised if they become widowed, divorced or deserted.

35. There are large numbers of nomads who have lost their livelihoods because of various Acts proclaimed by the government, including the Wild Life Protection Act. As a result they have lost their only source of livelihood. Balakrishna Renke Commission is recommending land-based rehabilitation for the nomads.

 In the rest of the article, I want to explore the issue of land-redistribution. The moment one talks about land-redistribution the common argument heard is ‘where is the land available that can be redistributed’. Based on our yatra experiences over the last six months, I want to propose how this can be achieved.

Land-Redistribution—Proposal in Capsule Form

WITHIN the agenda of land-redistribution, there are two broad objectives that are emerging after travelling through 15 States of India as part of the Jan Satyagraha Samvad Yatra campaign:

1. Homestead land to the rural poor and housing for the urban poor.

2. Agriculture land to the landless poor in the rural areas who are wholly or partially dependent on land.

Distribution of homestead land can be achieved by authorising the Gram Sabhas and Panchayats to identify all available government land within their vicinity, and distributing 10 cents to each homeless family. In places where there is no land available, the government should buy land from willing sellers and distribute the same to the homeless. Similarly, significant progress towards distribution of housing for the urban poor can be achieved by authorising the municipalities and corporations to regularise current place of dwelling of the urban poor as the first step and ultimately moving towards constructing public housing. No government land should be given to builders or other infrastructure projects unless the homeless are first settled as a priority agenda.

Distribution of agricultural land to the landless poor in the rural areas can be achieved by taking the following steps.

• Implementation of the Ceiling Act.
• Implementation of the Tenancy Registration Act.
• Implementation of the FRA.
• By taking surplus land from companies, factories and plantations.
• By reducing the ceiling for plantations, industries and institutions.
• By distributing Panchami land, Gairan land and many other kinds of land that are set aside for the poor.
• By taking excess land that is available with religious trusts.
• By taking land from the Forest Department for adivasis, nomads, etc
• By retrieving the lost land to adivasis and other communities.
• By providing water rights to fisherfolk as for them water is their land.
• Distributing all the available Bhoodan land.
• Preventing sale of agricultural land by the landed community to outsiders and encoura-ging the sale of land by the landed to the landless. This would be making the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, that is applicable only in Jharkand, applicable in other areas and to other marginalised groups.

By looking at the above list of problems one may realise the complexity and vividness of the problems related to land. Land governance in this country has totally failed in addressing these issues. With the arrival of globalisation, there is a tendency to ignore these problems and the only interest for the government seems to be to discourage people from land and agriculture and make the land available for industries and infrastructure development. Unless public opinion is built around a crucial subject like land and agriculture, its relation to food security, environmental justice, climate change, equitable growth, urban poverty and problems of workers in the unorganised sector, there is not much future for this country and its people. Similarly there are ways to address the issue of landlessness and homelessness which are so crucial for social justice, inclusive growth, food security, peace and harmony in the country, decentralisation of power and so many related issues. But the question is whether there is the required political will.

P.V. Rajagopal is a Member, National Council for Land Reforms and Co-ordinator of Ekta Parishad.

Jan Satyagraha’s Objectives

• A comprehensive National Land Reforms Act and effective implementation and monitoring institutions to provide access to land and livelihood resources to the poor landless, homeless and marginalised communities
• In order to begin the process of land re-distribution to the poor landless and homeless (rural and urban), all available legislations, policies (Central laws as well as State laws) need to be compiled in a comprehensive framework and implemented in a time-bound manner.
 
• Progressive recommendations made by various committees constituted by the Central and State governments on the issues pertaining to land that are pending for attention, should be seriously implemented
 
• A legal provision should be made whereby women will have equal right over current land holdings of the family as well as new land entitlements that are distributed, and this should be done within the next Plan period. The government should proactively ensure that women get all benefits that farmers are entitled to the Single women should be ensured an independent title on a priority basis.
 
• Natural resources like land, water, forests and minerals, that provide sustenance liveli-hood to any group, cannot be appropriated for other purposes without full prior informed consent. Even in an extra-ordinary condition when these resource are used for any other purpose after obtaining full prior informed consent, it should be through a lease arrangement with the individuals and/or the community.
 
• Non-implementation of pro-poor laws or violation of fundamental and legal rights pertaining to land, water, forests and minerals by administrative and other officials should be made a punitive offence.
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