TRIBAL LAND RIGHTS IN INDIA About Centre for Rural Studies The Centre for Rural Studies (formerly Land Reforms Unit) of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration was set C. Ashokvardhan up in the year 1989 by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, with a multifaceted agenda that included among others, the concurrent evaluation of the ever-unfolding ground realities pertaining to the implementation of the Land Reforms and Poverty Alleviation Programmes in India. Sensitizing the Officer Trainees of the Indian Administrative Service in the process of evaluating of land reforms and poverty alleviation programmes by exposing them to the ground realities; setting up a forum for regular exchange of views on land reforms and poverty alleviation between academicians, administrators, activists and concerned citizens and creating awareness amongst the public about the various programmes initiated by the government of India through non-governmental organizations are also important objectives of the Centre for Rural Studies. A large number of books, reports related to land reforms, poverty alleviation programmes, rural socio-economic problems, etc. published both externally and internally bear testimony to the excellent research quality of the Centre. Cover Photo: Captured by Umarani of the Kalleda Photo Project, Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh, India. CENTRE FOR RURAL STUDIES Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Centre for Rural Studies Mussoorie - 248 179 (Uttaranchal) TRIBAL LAND RIGHTS IN INDIA TRIBAL LAND RIGHTS IN INDIA 2006 Dr. C. Ashokvardhan Dr. C. Ashokvardhan IAS IAS Centre for Rural Studies LBSNAA Published by Centre for Rural Studies Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Centre for Rural Studies Mussoorie – 248 179 Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Uttaranchal Mussoorie Presented to Shri Ashok Kumar Choudhary, IAS, Chief Secretary, Bihar. FOREWORD use. Consequently, thousands of small cultivators from the Kalahandi region have sold off their lands and migrated to large towns and cities. RUDRA GANGADHARAN IAS Tribal friendly legal procedures are the need of the hour. While formulating laws to help the tribal people, the procedures must be simplified taking into Director account the levels of awareness and the economic levels of the community. LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie Alienation or transfer for the purpose of this law should cover not only transfers by sale to a person not belonging to the scheduled tribes but all kinds of transfers including benami transfers, transfer to wives, ploughmen, “Tribal Land Rights in India” by Dr. C. Ashokvardhan presents an overview servants, adopted sons or daughters, sons or daughters taken in adoption by of the land rights of the scheduled tribe population in some of the fifth and the non-tribals, transfer through marriage with tribal women, transfer through sixth schedule states as embodied in their respective laws. The work goes on consent decree, declaratory suits, and deeds of surrender or abandonment of to examine how and under what circumstances, these rights have been land executed by persons belonging to the scheduled tribes in favour of non- undermined and infringed and in what way the law-makers have postulated tribals must also be covered. protective measures. There are state-specific and general recommendations which if acted upon, could empower the tribal vis-à-vis mighty forces of A comprehensive survey and settlement of the tribal sub-plan areas should be exploitation operating everywhere. All this tends to add to the value of the carried out using modern survey methods in minimum time period. In this painstaking work, especially in the context of exposing the tribal land scenario endeavour, administrators as well as activists and voluntary agencies should to the administrative service officers in their training phase. be involved. As a part of the process the local situation of encroachment and occupation should be clearly investigated and administratively settled in Today in a typical tribal village, while the natives and the formerly land favour of the eligible tribals. owning tribals are struggling to eke out a living, the alien non-tribals and later settlers, who came in as merchants, moneylenders, liquor vendors and The framework guiding the survey should be based upon the specific forms of absentee landlords, have gained economic control of the area by unscrupulous property rights operative in tribal areas namely customary rights over forest, means. A significant portion of the tribal land is lost due to distress sale. To a and land belonging to the local communities as well as individuals. In this large extent, the land possessed by the tribals is of inferior grade, depending process attention should be paid to the recognition of the rights over exclusively on the vicissitudes of weather. As a result, the productivity of this community property resources. land is so low that it becomes too uneconomical to cultivate it. The difference is seen in lands belonging to non-tribal landowners having relatively stable Several development projects have been launched involving the acquisition of irrigation facilities. The problem is particularly acute in the drought-prone the tribal land by the Government and tribal agencies. The process of areas like those of the Kalahandi district in Orissa. Under chronic drought acquisition should involve consultation with the affected tribal people through conditions, the land is highly unproductive and agriculture highly labour their institutions like panchayats and Gram Sabhas. intensive. The input-output ratio is highly unfavourable to the marginal and small farmers. There is hardly any incentive to the owner-cultivator who falls Displacement and rehabilitation programmes of tribals should be re-examined. a prey to middlemen. The small cultivator prefers to dispose off his land and Wherever displacement becomes inevitable, the tribal community should be seek other avenues where he can put his labour to potentially more productive re-settled as a village community, with adequate land in similar environment rather than mere monetary compensation given to individual families. A much more pro-people rehabilitation policy, which assures tribals land for land and direct benefits from all development projects that displace them, should be an indispensable component of any package of measures to prevent tribal land alienation. I compliment the author for presenting a rather terse subject matter dealing mainly with the statute book, in a rather lucid style, in the larger interest of the Officer Trainees in the Academy. RUDRA GANGADHARAN INTRODUCTION The customary rights of the tribals in land must be recognised. It is inevitable that many of the customary rights of the tribals would require change in T. K. MANOJ KUMAR course of time for the sake of adaptability in the larger national interest. However, it must be kept in mind that the tribal interests are not sacrificed. Coordinator Centre for Rural Studies The measures enforced to prevent tribal land alienation can succeed only if the LBS National Academy of oppressed people intended to benefit from these provisions are truly Administration, Mussoorie conscientized in the paulo friecian sense. They must firstly be made aware about the provisions of the law, and convinced about their legitimacy. There are several ways in which such legal literacy and mobilisation can be secured. The issue of tribal land alienation has to be seen as an issue of alienation of One way is to intensively educate tribal youth in the large number of tribal forests and agricultural lands accentuated by alien concepts of boundaries, high schools and tribal hostels that abound in the states, about the laws and ownership deeds and reliance on the written word. The tribal development motivate them to be activists in their village to educate and mobilise their policies failed to incorporate tribal values and the tribal people were expected elders to benefit from these provisions. Booklets in simple local language to enter the mainstream on terms dictated by a highly non-tribal mind-set. which demystify the law and legal processes would also be invaluable. The primary resource base of the tribal people has been the land, but not so A well-designed awareness programme will include the harnessing and much the agricultural land as the forest land. The tribal society, its norms and channelising the consciousness of the tribal masses into requisite pressure its identity came from those forests. The people were forced to give up their groups for the assertion of their rights. Such groups will provide the much- traditional rights over the forests and remain content with agricultural lands. needed evidentiary support in court cases and keep the enforcement The practice of agriculture may not have been alien to them (as they had machinery on the alert and non-tribal transferees under check. already been forced to work as agricultural labour), but the concept of land ownership was absent. Special role would be assigned to the traditional tribal community organisations in the detection of cases of the alienation of tribal lands and Unimaginative forest policies are responsible for not only making inroads into their restoration. This role may include the following: traditional forest rights but also into the very basis of the tribals’ subsistence. Thus the symbiotic relationship between the tribal and the forests is getting (a) entertaining complaints of the alienation of tribal land; disturbed. The traditional relationship of the tribals with the forests does not (b) making an enquiry into such cases. state about a new right. The Dhebar Commission also stated in its report that (c) authorising the community to direct the adversary party to move out of the forest rights had been reduced to mere concessions and afterwards these the land of the tribal if the tribal claim is found correct. concessions also almost ceased to exist. (d) reporting the matter to appropriate revenue court/ authority in the event of the non-tribal refusing to accept the direction of this body.