Month: December 2021

BOOK CHAPTER CO-AUTHORED BY EESHA KUNDURI
URBAN ECONOMY

Context:
Women’s migration has typically been understood as a relational phenomenon, where women are generally seen to be migrating for marriage or as accompanying family members (according to data from the Census and the National Sample Survey). This has been acknowledged as a key shortcoming in the way macro-data captures women’s migration, owing to the nature of the data which attributesonly a singular reason for migration.

Recent studies, however, have suggested that even if women migrate with families or due to marriage-related reasons, livelihood options at destination are factored into by households as part of their migration decisions.

Therefore, migration in general and women’s migration in particular, is complex and multi-faceted, and there is a growing recognition to unpack the nuances of people’s lived experiences of it. In light of this literature, and in the context of low workforce participation rates for women in Delhi (about 10.7 % as per 2011-12 data from the National Sample Survey), researchers Eesha Kunduri and Sonal Sharma decided to engage more deeply with work-life histories of women migrants. The objective of the research was to provide insights into women’s own assessment of their work in the city, and their hopes and expectations from it, since often these apsects are paid scant attention in meta-narratives of gendered work, occupations and migration.

How was the research conducted?
The research draws upon fieldwork among 40 women workers in informal housing settlements around two industrial estates in Delhi: Patparganj in East Delhi and Wazirpur in North-West Delhi. The qualitative data is complimented by insights from a sample survey of 317 workers: 77 female and 240 male workers.
Key findings:

The women interviewed mostly migrated with their husbands or a male household member, and started working out of the realisation that one member’s earnings were not sufficient to sustain in the city.
Typically, the women’s earnings averaged between 4000 and 5000 rupees a month, about a half of what male workers earn.
Women were found to be relegated to tasks on the lower end of the occupational hierarchy, such as removal of excess thread from clothes, in packing, labelling, etc. and as home-based workers (industrial outworkers) undertaking work such as sewing on the sides of jeans, taping of speaker components, putting threads into bookmarks, etc.
While these are precarious employment scenarios, what was notable was a strong sense of self-perception that women expressed with regard to their work and earnings, and a sense of freedom in city spaces. They commented on the sense of independence that their earnings, howsoever meagre, allowed them to have, including meeting small, everyday expenses by themselves, and in some cases, extending support to their children’s education in the city.
Interpreting the findings:
Kunduri and Sharma argue that women’s strong self-perception is related to the opportunities to be mobile in the city. The women workers in the study looked at the city as a space of freedom, especially when compared to the strict norms that governed their movements back in the village. Particularly, for the upper caste women guided by customs of ‘veiling’ (ghunghat) in the village, being able to step out of their home for work, to go to the market, and so on, was an enabling experience.

Women also reported about being able to enjoy leisure time in the city, which included activities like watching television, and chatting with other women in the neighbourhood. Home-based workers especially were seen to be working together in groups in courtyards or outside of tenement settlements, indicating the opportunities for socialisation.

Such everyday practices, the authors argue, also enabled women to cultivate networks that helped them to cope with the uncertainties of urban living, and also served as entry points for finding work opportunities.

However, it was also seen that localities that were relatively more homogenous in term of residents’ regional origins, caste and community backgrounds often reproducedvillage-alike restrictions on women’s mobility, in comparison to more heterogeneous localities which women found liberating.
An overall analysis suggests that mobility as a concept needs to be understood in its subjective dimensions cutting across social, spatial, economic aspects. The micro-narratives of freedom in the city, in relation to the village, particularly offer critical insights in this regard.

The book, Land, Labour and Livelihoods: Indian Women’s Perspectives, which includes the chapter by the authors, ‘Here, We Are Addicted To Loitering’: Exploring Narratives of Work and Mobility Among Migrant Women in Delhi, can be accessed at the publisher link here.

BLOG SERIES BASED ON A CROSS COUNTRY STUDY ACROSS INDIA, INDONESIA AND MYANMAR
LAND ACQUISITION SOUTH ASIA

Land use change is defined as planned, government policy induced land transformations with anticipated or unanticipated environmental and social impacts, most often undertaken without prior informed consent of and/or due compensations for the affected, and abetted by failure of administrative or judicial remedies. The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, supported by a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, studied land use change in India, Indonesia and Myanmar, and found that the impacts of such land use change can be broadly categorised into three categories:

Displacement and dispossession: Individuals or communities lose their homes in exchange for none or meagre compensations, and are expected to relocate to areas identified as rehabilitation sites or migrate to new areas on their own.
Loss of livelihood: This relates to losing out or giving up access to parts of or entire areas on which livelihoods are dependent. This could include agricultural lands, fishing harbours, forest areas and grazing lands. This may occur separately or in addition to physical displacement, causing an incalculable impact on both livelihoods and quality of life.
Environmental degradation and pollution: This leads to a decline in fish catch, agricultural productivity, groundwater contamination, and other related impacts. These have lasting effects on the health, economy and social lives of individuals and communities as a whole.
The table below provides trends and examples of how different sectors have contributed to negative impacts for communities in India, Indonesia and Myanmar.

India

Indonesia

Myanmar

Displacement and Dispossession

A study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Rourkee, estimates that 50 million people have been displaced due to ‘development projects’ over 50 years in India. The study states that of the 50 million people, 16.4 million were displaced by dams, 2.55 million by mines, 1.25 million by industrial development and 0.6 million by wildlife sanctuaries and national parks
One of the largest dam-induced displacement projects in the recent decades has been the Polavaram Multipurpose irrigation project that involved submergence of 42,000 ha of land across the 3 states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. The estimated number of people facing displacement is 1,17,034 across 276 villages (as per the 2001 Census). All the displacement is in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
From 1970 to 2008, there have been approximately 100,000 people who have been displaced by the creation of Protected Areas (PAs).
Around 40% of the project-affected and displaced people from 1951 to 1980 belonged to tribal communities.
Freeport McMoran’s investment in copper and gold mining in West Papua was the first FDI agreement that Suharto signed after becoming the president. It displaced 15,000 people.
The number of landless farmers has risen from a few to 30% from 2004 to 2009 in Sumatra.
The Jabotabek Urban Development project in the suburbs around Jakarta displaced 40,000 to 50,000 people.
An impending 480-megawatt hydroelectric dam in Seko in North Luwu district of South Sulawesi is looking to displace members of indigenous communities of Pohoneang, Hoyyane and Amballong.
Conservation areas cover 28.2 million hectares in Indonesia and have largely been about exclusion of communities.
Recently, in Labuan Bajo Komodo Conservation area there have been reports of sale and purchase of indigenous people’s lands without their consent.
‘Land grab’ is a widely acknowledged term to refer to the state-driven forced acquisition of land.
The Letpadaung copper project in Sagaing Region involved the acquisition of 6,785 acres of land, largely farmlands, from 30 villages. 245 families from 4 villages have been forcibly moved to resettlement sites. 196 families are refusing to move at the risk of forced eviction.
The Asia Highway, a large-scale project, has a section of it passing through Southeastern Myanmar, crossing 17 villages and 3 townships in Dooplaya and Hpa-an districts. The project was initiated without consulting the locals and has caused eviction from several of these villages.
The construction of Thilawa Special Economic Zone is a prime example of this. The military government started confiscating land from the local farmers in 1997, using the land laws prevalent then, offering very little or no compensation.
Loss of livelihood

The land acquisition law of 2013 in India has added a specific section on assessing livelihood loss through social impact assessments and ascertaining compensations for the same. It clearly laid down the definition of ‘Affected Families’ to include farm labourers, fishers, share croppers, forest rights holders, gatherers of forest produce and so on.
The Parsa East Kete Besan coal mine in Chhattisgarh involves land use change of 2,711.034 ha. The mine is located in the Hasdeo Arand region, which is home to a large population of tribal and other traditional forest dwellers.
In another case, the operations of the Coastal Gujarat Power Limited in Kutch in Gujarat, have impacted two important fishing harbours. This was marked by a reduction in fish catch, impacts of coal ash on fish drying activities, particularly carried out by women, and constrained access to the fishing harbour.
The state in Indonesia considers large tracts of land as ‘non-productive’ and gives them out to oil palm companies despite the fact that these lands have claimants under the customary law and many smallholders cultivate them.
In the case of PT KEM, the gold mine impacted alluvial mining being pursued by local people in East Kalimantan. The loss of livelihood could never be recovered as all those who lost their livelihood could not be absorbed as part of the workforce in the mine.
Fish population in Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi has declined due to PT Newmont Minhasa Raya’s submarine tailing disposal.
Recently fishermen in parts of Komodo conservation reserve have been denied access to their fishing grounds, which forces them to fish farther resulting in higher costs. Access to the forest part of the Komodo conservation area is also blocked for communities to collect firewood.

Farmers made landless, find it hard to secure jobs; the random jobs they pick up are unstable and pay very little.
The construction of Mone Hydropower Dam led to submergence of 13 villages. The government authorities deemed that they were not responsible for compensation or relocation allowance to the villagers because the displacement was not caused by land confiscation but by the flood.
30 villagers from Char Khan fishing village were asked to vacate the area for the first phase of Dawei SEZ – when 3 fishers refused to move, they were imprisoned for a month.
The Labutta Township Forestry Department sued 12 local farmers for illegally fishing, breeding prawns, and felling wood in a forest reserve.
Government-licensed mining has impacted small-scale jade collection. Now, some of them make a living by picking pieces of jade in the waste dumped by mining companies.
Environmental Degradation and Pollution

Around 49 areas have been declared unsafe for human habitation in the Raniganj coalfield area of West Bengal.
The Damodar River is the major source of water in the regions of West Bengal and Jharkhand and is perhaps the most polluted river in India as it receives wastes from many industries situated on its banks.
Studies have indicated that open cast quarries, coal washeries, thermal power plants, coke-oven plants, cement factories and fertiliser plants add to air pollution.
The construction of large dams and ports alters the relationship of water and land, destroying the existing ecosystem balance, hydrology and fisheries.
Air and water pollution and soil erosion are the two main issues that occur when large areas on landscapes get changed for the construction of roads and railway lines.
Freeport’s Grasberg in Papua gold mine spread across 2.5 million hectares of pristine alpine forests, lowland montane forests, freshwater swamps, mangroves and coastal ecosystems, dumps an extraordinarily large amount of waste (as per its own estimates 700,000 tons per day) into local streams.
Lake Limboto is situated right next to Gorontalo city and the land conversions for this ever-expanding city have taken a toll on it. In 1932, the lake used to span over 70 square kilometres but today it measures only 25 square kilometres in area.
In North Borneo, fisher interests and shipping uses are in conflict. The coastal law doesn’t give any priority to fisher people. It doesn’t recognise fishers’ first right to the sea and categorises areas for fisheries as well as activities such as tourism and mining under the same ‘general use area’ category. This creates a conflict between the coastal law and fisheries law.
The Tigyit Coal Mine spews dangerous chemicals and pollutes the water and air. The operations compromise access of communities to their fishing areas, farms, and forests. Waste from the mine is dumped either on the grazing lands or on the path to the grazing areas.
People living close to industrial projects, who most often are the ones initially displaced for initiation of these projects, find themselves facing pollution impacts on a daily basis. Toxic and harmful wastes are discharged in local water sources and garbage is dumped on their farms and grazing lands. Air pollution and decline in groundwater are other challenges they are forced to live with.
Lakes in industrial zones have been reported with high level of contaminants. Wastewater from the industries of Shwe Pyi Thar Industrial Zone is released indiscriminately into nearby water sources.
Often, these impacts do not occur in isolation – loss of land essentially leads to loss of livelihoods; many times relocations after land-loss force people to stay close to industrial and development areas facing pollution on a daily basis; and environmental degradation translates into loss of income for communities dependent on natural resources. The study, Understanding Land Conversion, Social Impacts and Legal Remedies in Asia, is an attempt to bring out the interconnections, complex nature and severity of these impacts by highlighting these and several other trends and examples of land use change through the detailed country reports and granular case studies.

This is the first blog based on the study carried out by the CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, and supported by a grant from IDRC, Canada.

The other pieces in the series can be accessed below:

Understanding the Strategies used to address the impacts of Land Use Change
Understanding the Outcomes and Remedies sought for impacts of Land Use Change
Detailed Studies of cases of Land Use Change Conflicts: Part I
Detailed Studies of cases of Land Use Change Conflicts: Part II

CO-AUTHORED BY PARTHA MUKHOPADHYAY AND MARIE-HÉLÈNE ZÉRAH
URBAN GOVERNANCE

This policy research working paper presents the results of an investigation of selected census towns in northern India. Census towns are settlements that India’s census classifies as urban although they continue to be governed as rural settlements. The 2011 census featured a remarkable increase in the number of census towns, which nearly tripled between 2001 and 2011, from 1,362 to 3,894. This increase contributed to nearly a third (29.5 percent) of the total increase in the urban population during this period.

Only part of this evolution can be attributed to the gradual urbanisation of settlements in the vicinity of larger towns. Instead, the majority of census towns appear as small ‘market towns,’ providing trade and other local services to a growing rural market. The case studies of representative census towns in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal show the role of increased connectivity and growing rural incomes in driving the demand for the small-scale and non-tradable services, which are the main sources of non-farm employment in these settlements.

The case studies also reveal that the trade-offs between urban and rural administrative statuses are actively debated in many of these settlements. Although statistical comparisons do not show a significant impact of urban or rural administrative status on access to basic services, urban status is often favored by the social groups involved in the growing commercial and services sectors, and resisted by the residents still involved in the traditional farming sectors.

The full policy research working paper can be accessed here.

THE FIRST ARTICLE IN A FOUR-PART SERIES ON INDIA’S AIR POLLUTION IN THE HINDUSTAN TIMES
AIR POLLUTION ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

The quality of India’s air needs to be addressed as a pan-India public health emergency. Air pollution was responsible for 12.5% of the total deaths in 2017, as per the most recent iteration of India State Level Burden Assessment. The World Health Organization reports nearly 100,000 deaths in infants to be attributable annually to air pollution in India. But deaths form only a part of the story — there is growing evidence of how it causes illnesses in nearly every organ of our body. It affects the elderly and babies still in their mothers’ wombs – newborns show traces of particulates in their blood stream. It affects all of us.

This article is the first of a four-part series by researchers at the Centre for Policy Research written in collaboration with leading air pollution researchers. We take stock of what we know about air pollution, and what we could do to improve the air quality in India. In this series, we focus on fine particulate matter (or PM2.5), a useful proxy indicator for air pollution. These particles — a complex mixture of solid and liquid particles, originating from different sources and comprising multiple chemical substances — are the most damaging, as they can penetrate the lung barrier and enter the systemic circulation. In this article, we will lay out four foundational facts about when, how much, and where we should worry about air pollution. In short, the answers are: most of the time, a lot, and all over India.

First, air pollution is a near year-round problem, even though we notice pollution much more during periodic spikes especially in winter (see figure). Many parts of India, especially in the Indo-Gangetic belt record poor air quality levels across the year. In 2018 (so far), PM2.5 levels were ‘poor,’ ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ 56% of the time in Delhi (RK Puram), 49% in Patna and 32% in Kanpur. Conversely, it was ‘good’ for six days in Delhi, one day in Patna and 37 days in Kanpur. While it is understandable that we focus on the visible peaks, adverse health outcomes result primarily to high long-term exposure, not just pollution spikes. To understand the severity of the problem, we have to look at annual average levels of emissions.

Second, annual average emission levels in much of India are multiple times safe levels (see figure). Three quarters of India’s population lives in areas where levels of PM 2.5 exceed the Indian national standard of an annual mean of 40 microgram/m3. These norms themselves are four times the far lower levels recommended by the WHO (see figure). Big western cities such as London, New York City and Paris have air quality nearly at these levels, and make the news when some of their neighbourhoods exceed the WHO norms by a few microgram/m3. Our levels are not just somewhat higher but many multiples higher: 72 of 640 districts in India, primarily in Delhi, UP, Bihar, and Punjab, have annual averages 10 times the WHO levels. Even Beijing, infamous for its air pollution, had PM2.5 levels about half of Delhi’s in 2016. We often hear that India suffers from inadequate data and knowledge of air pollution. While India does indeed need much better data and more sensors – much of the data reported here is from satellite data – this uncertainty should not be a reason for inaction, since new monitors will only tell us what multiple above safe standards we are.

Third, air pollution is not just a city or industrial area problem but a regional problem. Satellite data shows that air pollution levels are especially poor across the entire Indo-Gangetic Belt stretching from Punjab and parts of Rajasthan in the west to Bihar in the east. To an extent, this is a curse of geography. Sandwiched between the Himalayas in the north, and the Vindhyas in the south, this belt becomes a virtual valley where outward dispersion is difficult. Thus, while cities contribute to their own air pollution through traffic, industry, and waste burning, they are also affected by emissions from the broader regional ‘airshed’. As a result, rural areas are frequently also polluted. In addition, emissions from cookstoves using solid fuels not only lead to high levels of indoor air pollution, but also account for an estimated quarter to a third of outdoor pollution. India is dealing with both modern sources of pollution such as industries and vehicles, as well as pollution from traditional practices such as cooking with firewood, and we need to tackle both.

Finally, PM2.5 levels have been growing. Across Punjab, pollution levels nearly doubled between 1998 and 2016. It is sobering that India’s air quality is worse than China’s even while its GDP (PPP) per capita is less than half that of China. Clearly, the environmental quality of India’s growth is not sustainable.

Any serious plan to mitigate air pollution has to be long-term in nature, target multiple sources, operate year-round, and focus on regions rather than cities. In subsequent articles, we describe the impact of air pollution on health, explore the different sources of air pollution and conclude with a reflection on an approach to air pollution across India.

Santosh Harish is a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research. 

This article is the first in a four-part series on India’s air pollution. The original article, which was published in the Hindustan Times on December 19, 2018, can be found here. For more information on CPR’s work on air pollution, visit the Clearing the Air? project page. 

In this Series:

Understanding the curse of air pollution (1/4)

Public Health in India a Casualty of Air Pollution (2/4)

Delhi Has a Complex Air Pollution Problem (3/4)

Air pollution: India’s waking up, but there’s a long way to go (4/4)

AS PART OF ‘POLICY CHALLENGES – 2019-2024: THE BIG POLICY QUESTIONS FOR THE NEW GOVERNMENT AND POSSIBLE PATHWAYS’
CPR LAND ACQUISITION

By Namita Wahi

An estimated 7.7 million people in India are affected by conflict over 2.5 million hectares of land, threatening investments worth $ 200 billion.1 Land disputes clog all levels of courts in India, and account for the largest set of cases in terms of both absolute numbers and judicial pendency. About 25% of all cases decided by the Supreme Court involve land disputes, of which 30% concern disputes relating to land acquisition.2 Again, 66% of all civil cases in India are related to land/property disputes.3 The average pendency of a land acquisition dispute, from creation of the dispute to resolution by the Supreme Court, is 20 years. Since land is central to India’s developmental trajectory, finding a solution to land conflict is one of the foremost policy challenges for India.

Understanding Incidence and Pendency of Land Conflict in India

Legislative and administrative factors are responsible for the high incidence of legal and extralegal conflicts over land, and judicial factors are behind the pendency of land disputes. Competing historical and current policy narratives of property rights over land, have resulted in the coexistence of numerous, conflicting laws leading to legal disputes over land. This is the legislative factor. This problem is compounded by administrative failure to comply with the rule of law. This is the administrative factor. The pendency of conflict, in turn, is a result of legal and evidentiary barriers in bringing land disputes to court, largely due to administrative and judicial incapacity; this prevents expeditious resolution of land disputes. This is the judicial factor.

Conflicting narratives, policies and land laws create land disputes

There are two conflicting narratives about ownership and management of land in India. The first narrative – inherited from the British colonial state5 – views common land, or land that is not privately owned, as merely a commodity, no different from labour and capital, with the state as the ultimate owner.6 This claim to ultimate ownership gives the state the power to redistribute land at will, as largesse to selected beneficiaries.7 Such state acquisition of land has historically been the source of considerable dispute. According to estimates by CPR’s Land Rights Initiative (LRI), these disputes constitute 30% of all land litigation in the Supreme Court over the past 70 years. LRI’s comprehensive study of land acquisition litigation before the Supreme Court over a 66-year period, from 1950 to 2016, reveals that all litigation is with respect to privately held land. In contrast, data from the Land Conflict Watch project reveals that the vast majority of current, on-ground, extralegal conflict over land is with respect to common lands.8 Thus, it is clear that in the face of state acquisition of land, when people have legally recognized land rights, they go to court. Where their rights are insufficiently recognized by law, they protest on the ground.

The second narrative – articulated by the ‘people’, including farmers, both landowners and tenants; and other traditional communities, such as cattle grazers, forest dwellers, tribals and fisherfolk – views land as an economic, social and cultural resource over which multiple groups exercise property rights. Usually, after intense on-ground contestation, the property rights of certain groups like Scheduled Tribes (STs)and tenants have been protected by the Constitution9 and statute,10 while in case of other groups like fisherfolk,11 their rights are protected by custom and, often, executive action.

As a consequence of these two historically competing policy narratives, the constitutional, legislative and administrative framework governing land is as fragmented as the land holdings in India.12 Enacted at different points of time, land laws clash with each other, because they seek to articulate in law these two competing narratives. For instance, the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, are in conflict with those of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and are also threatened by proposed amendments to the Indian Forest Act.13 Legal conflicts also arise when laws are enacted or amended at different times to appease different stakeholders. For instance, the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act has, in the five years since it came into force, been amended by seven state legislatures.14 This will likely create more legal disputes with respect to land acquisition, because the original RFCTLARR Act provisions had been included with a view to addressing growing conflict over land acquisition.15 Moreover, in many states, we find laws that provide for eviction of unauthorized occupants over public lands coexisting with laws that provide for regularization of unauthorized occupation, thereby creating potential for dispute/conflict at the level of law itself.16

Finally, the legislative landscape is complicated by the fact that many subjects pertaining to ‘land’ are in the ‘state’ and ‘concurrent’ lists of the Constitution, leading to a multiplicity of original and active land laws.17 Yet, there is no official comprehensive database of all land laws in India. A first of its kind, ongoing LRI study estimates that India has over a thousand original and active central and state land laws.18

The problem of ‘multiple laws’ is exacerbated by the fact that these laws are administered by numerous government ministries at the central level, and departments at the state level. These include, for instance, the ministries of Law and Justice, Rural Development, Mining, Industries, Infrastructure, Urban Development, Tribal Affairs, Home Affairs and Defence.

Administrative non-compliance with law also creates and prolongs land disputes

Where laws are clear, disputes and conflicts arise because of administrative non-compliance with the rule of law due to both unwillingness and incapacity. The LRI study of all Supreme Court cases on land acquisition during 1950-2016 shows that 95% of the disputes arose because of administrative non-compliance with the legal procedure for acquisition of land, including the process of computation of market value compensation for land acquired.19 Around 34% of the disputes involved irregularities in completion of the procedure for acquisition. Almost half of such cases concerned with procedural irregularities involved administrative unwillingness to comply with the rule of law. The remaining half of the cases involved administrative incapacity to comply with the rule of law, in part because of governmental failure to regularly update administrative manuals based on changes in the law. Moreover, the government was more likely to lose than win these land disputes before the Supreme Court.20

Additionally, since colonial times, land in India has been broadly administered by the revenue and forest departments. But there have also always existed disputes between both departments as to which land belongs to which department. This in turn creates and prolongs land disputes.

Finally, legal disputes over land are also created by evidentiary barriers for establishing rights over land in the absence of documentary proof21 because of outdated/no land surveys22 and inaccurate/outdated land records23 in most states. The Department of Land Resources has sought to resolve the problem of inaccurate land records through the ‘Digitisation of Land Records Modernisation Programme’. However, unless the government makes a serious attempt to update land records on the ground to reflect the property rights of all landowners, digitizing them would not eliminate the problem of inaccurate land records.

Judicial reasons cause pendency of land disputes

Once a land dispute goes to court, serious judicial incapacity leads to pendency of disputes. First, a major cause for pendency of all disputes is India’s low judge-to-people ratio.24 Land cases form more than half of all civil cases and constitute over a quarter of cases before the Supreme Court; they also have the longest pendency compared to other cases. Hence low judge-to-people ratio particularly prolongs resolution of land disputes. Second, the judiciary, particularly at its lowest levels, lacks the financial, technical and infrastuctural capacity necessary to resolve disputes quickly.25 Finally, poor enforcement of court decisions by the government, and limited judicial capacity to follow up on such enforcement, especially when such decisions go against the government, also lead to prolonging of land disputes.

Policy Recommendations for Reducing Incidence and Pendency of Land Disputes

Eliminate legal conflicts. No government has ever attempted an exercise to rationalize existing land laws. But this is the need of the hour. The Law Ministry and Law Commission are best positioned to conduct or commission such an exercise. This would involve, first, the creation of an exhaustive database of all land laws in India. Once such a database of laws is created, the Law Ministry and Law Commission must identify, and Parliament must repeal, laws that deny rights of certain groups of people, particularly women,26 and eliminate genuine conflicts between laws.

Improve administrative willingness and capacity to implement the rule of law: The government must take steps to ensure greater administrative capacity and willingness to implement the rule of law. In addition, we need greater coordination between government departments dealing with land, transparency of land administration, and better access to land data. This can be achieved by undertaking the following measures.

The Department of Land Resources, currently under the Ministry of Rural Development, is the nodal agency for coordination of land policy across states. But land is not merely a rural concern. As India becomes increasingly urbanized, the government needs to have a more comprehensive imagination of land requirements for rural and urban populations. The creation of a separate Ministry of Land to serve as the nodal agency for coordinating land policy across different types of land is critical.
There needs to be a coordinated effort between the Ministry of Law and Justice, Department of Land Records, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, state boards of revenue, and state forest departments to resolve conflicting land laws and streamline land administration.
All government departments dealing with land, and particularly those involved in land acquisition, must update administrative manuals in accordance with changes in legislation and judicial precedent.
Through dedicated interdepartmental meetings and other coordination, government must resolve land boundary disputes between the revenue and forest departments.
The government must devote financial and technical resources to conduct land surveys and update paper records to reflect property rights of all the people, as opposed to digitization of existing records that are substantially inaccurate.
The government must ensure better skills training so that officials dealing with land have both the knowledge and the capacity to implement the rule of law. Institutional mechanisms should be designed to incentivize compliance with, not defiance of, the rule of law.
Given the low success rate of government appeals, the government must carefully evaluate the likelihood of success of an appeal before pursuing it. Government officials must be incentivized to not appeal cases that have little likelihood of success following such an evaluation. This would go a long way in reducing pendency of land disputes.
The government must wholly commit to transparent land administration and comply with its obligations under the Right to Information Act, 2005, to make digitally accessible all land laws, executive notifications, rules, circulars, etc. pertaining to land administration. In addition, the government must open up to public scrutiny departmental data on compliance with land laws.
In addition to legislative and administrative reforms, judicial reforms can go a long way towards reducing the pendency of land litigation in India. The first step in this direction would be the implementation of key recommendations of the Law Commission.27 These include:

Changing the base for determining sanctioned posts for judges from ‘Judge: Population Ratio’ to ‘Rate of Disposal Method
Filling up all existing vacancies
Increasing the retirement age of subordinate judges to 62; and those of High Court and Supreme Court judges to 65 and 68 years respectively.
Greater financial allocations to the lower and higher judiciary, to enable infrastructure, technical and skills upgradation
Some states like Bihar have created separate land tribunals for expeditious resolution of land revenue cases. This model should be studied, and if found effective, should be replicated in other states.

Conclusion

Land conflict in India, both legal and extralegal, has existed from colonial times because of the imposition by the British state of the notion that all land not privately held belongs to the ‘state’. This concept has been continuously resisted by the ‘people’ who were disempowered by the colonial state’s deprivation of their legal property rights under precolonial administration. Over time, competing ‘state’ and ‘people’ narratives over land have led to conflicting policy and legal interventions. This has, in turn, led to legal disputes over land. Even when laws are clear, administrative failure to comply with the rule of law, due to unwillingness and incapacity, contributes to the incidence and pendency of land disputes. Serious judicial incapacity in turn prolongs pendency of land disputes.

Due to the increasing population pressure on land, and the corresponding demand for land to fuel the development engine, the scale and scope of land conflict today has assumed gigantic proportions, stalling development projects and threatening livelihoods and investments. Equitable and efficient intergenerational management of land is necessary not just for India’s economic development, but also for its political and social stability. Therefore, working towards resolving land conflict, in light of the above policy recommendations, is an imperative agenda for the new government.

Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:

The Future is Federal: Why Indian Foreign Policy Needs to Leverage its Border States by Nimmi Kurian
Rethinking India’s Approach to International and Domestic Climate Policy by Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani
India’s Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World by Shyam Saran
Need for a Comprehensive National Security Strategy by Shyam Saran
A Clarion Call for Just Jobs: Addressing the Nation’s Employment Crisis by Sabina Dewan
Time for Disruptive Foreign and National Security Policies by Bharat Karnad
Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot Economy by Mukta Naik
Schooling is not Learning by Yamini Aiyar
Clearing Our Air of Pollution: A Road Map for the Next Five Years by Santosh Harish, Shibani Ghosh and Navroz K Dubash
Protecting Water while Providing Water to All: Need for Enabling Legislations by Philippe Cullet
Interstate River Water Governance: Shift focus from conflict resolution to enabling cooperation by Srinivas Chokkakula
Managing India-China Relations in a Changing Neighbourhood by Zorawar Daulet Singh
Beyond Poles and Wires: How to Keep the Electrons Flowing? by Ashwini K Swain and Navroz K Dubash
Regulatory Reforms to Address Environmental Non-Compliance by Manju Menon and Kanchi Kohli
The Numbers Game: Suggestions for Improving School Education Data by Kiran Bhatty
Safe and Dignified Sanitation Work: India’s Foremost Sanitation Challenge by Arkaja Singh and Shubhagato Dasgupta
Safeguarding the Fragile Ecology of the Himalayas by Shyam Saran
Female Labour Force Participation: Asking Better Questions by Neelanjan Sircar
Towards ‘Cooperative’ Social Policy Financing in India by Avani Kapur
1 Land Conflict Watch, https://www.landconflictwatch.org/.
2 This is based on preliminary findings from a CPR Land Rights Initiative study, and is also consistent with findings from a comprehensive quantitative study of the Supreme Court’s caseload between 1993 and 2011. See Nick Robinson, ‘A Quantitative Analysis of the Indian Supreme Court’s Workload’, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies,10(3) (2003): 570-601.
3 Daksh, ‘Access to Justice Survey, 2016’, http://dakshindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Daksh-access-to-justice….
4 Namita Wahi et al., ‘Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court Cases from 1950 to 2016’ (New Delhi: CPR, 2017).
5 Articles 294 and 295 of the Indian Constitution stipulate that the Indian state succeeds to all property, claims and assets of the British state.
6 B.H. Baden Powell, The Land Systems of British India (Oxford University Press: 1892); B.H. Baden Powell, A Manual of Jurisprudence for Forest Officers Being a Treatise on Forest Laws (Calcutta, 1882).
7 An LRI study estimates that there are 102 laws of land acquisition alone, including state amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Supra note 4.
8 ‘Land Conflicts in India: An Interim Analysis’, https://rightsandresources.org/en/publication/land-conflicts-india-inter….
9 Article 244(1) and Article 244(2), read with the Fifth and Sixth Schedules respectively, create special protections for land rights of Scheduled Tribes in geographically demarcated areas, known as Scheduled Areas.
10 Starting with the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, almost each agrarian state has laws protecting tenancy rights. Similarly, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, recognizes land rights of Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwelling communities.
11 A prolonged movement has sought the enactment of a Fishing Rights Act, along the lines of the Forest Rights Act.
12 86.21% of all land holdings in India are small and marginal holdings taken together (0.00-2.00 ha). See Census of India.
13 Nitin Sethi et al., ‘Modi government plans more draconian version of colonial-era Indian Forest Act’, The Wire, 21 March 2019, https://thewire.in/rights/modi-government-plans-more-draconian-version-o…
14 These include the states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. See Namita Wahi, ‘How central and state governments diluted the historic land legislation of 2013’, The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/how-centra….
15 Jairam Ramesh et al., Legislating for Justice: The Making of the 2013 Land Acquisition Law (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015); Namita Wahi, ‘The Story of Jairam Rajya’ India Today, June 2015, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/books/story/20150622-jairam-ramesh-la….
16 Ongoing LRI study on ‘One Thousand Land Laws’.
17 Article 246 read with the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India.
18 CPR ‘Land Laws’ Database; see: https://www.cnbctv18.com/legal/hundreds-of-indian-land-laws-cause-confus….
19 Wahi et al., ‘Land Acquisition in India’.
20 Ibid. p. 28.
21 Sections 61-64 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, emphasize that documents must be proved by primary evidence, that is, presentation of the document itself. However, many people with legally recognized land rights do not have documentary proof for the same. This makes judicial resolution of land disputes extremely difficult.
22 Much of the northeastern part of India, including the state of Assam, has never been fully surveyed. The last full land survey for the state of Bihar happened in 1950s-1960s.
23 Former Minister for Rural Development notes that the state’s failure to fairly compensate those who lost land under the 1894 Act arose due to inaccurate land records, rampant undervaluation of sale deeds, and absence of land markets in many rural areas. See Ramesh et al., Legislating for Justice.
24 Two reports – the 245th Law Commission Report on ‘Arrears and Backlog: Creating Additional Judicial (Wo)man) power’ (2014), http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/Report_No.245.pdf, and the 230th Law Commission Report on ‘Reforms in the Judiciary: Some Suggestions’, http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report230.pdf – highlight this as a major cause for disputes.
25 Ibid.
26 Bina Agarwal, ‘Gender and Legal Rights in Agricultural Land in India’, Economic and Political Weekly A39 30(12) (March 1995).
27 Supra note 24. (Q: Pl give direct source)
28 245th Law Commission Report, 29.

CPR-LAND RIGHTS INITIATIVE REVIEWS SUPREME COURT CASES ON LAND ACQUISITION FROM 1950 TO 2016
RIGHTS LAND ACQUISITION

Context:

India faces serious challenges in creating development processes that generate economic growth while being socially inclusive, ecologically sustainable, politically feasible, and in accordance with the Rule of Law. Equitable and efficient acquisition of land by the state for economic development projects, including infrastructure and industry, lies at the heart of these challenges.

Simultaneously, securing constitutionally guaranteed land rights to the poorest and most vulnerable communities in India against the state and other dominant communities, has been considered crucial to their economic and social empowerment. Land is not only an important economic resource and source of livelihoods, it is also central to community identity, history and culture. Unsurprisingly then, throughout India, dispute over state acquisition of land that deprives people of their land rights spans various dimensions of economic, social, and political life.

How do we mitigate this conflict?

The CPR Land Rights Initiative report on ‘Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court cases from 1950-2016’, offers some preliminary answers to this question. Not only is this report the first comprehensive country-wide study of land acquisition disputes since India’s independence, but also for the first time ever analyses these disputes along various metrics, such as i) public purpose, ii) procedure for acquisition, iii) compensation, iv) invocation of the urgency clause, v) pendency of claims, and vi) tracks trends with respect to distribution of disputes across geography and time, and central and state laws. The Report also analyses litigation under the newly enacted Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR Act) for the three year period, 2014 to 2016.

Key findings:

Reasons for inequity between state and land losers: The Report concludes that the political and social contestation over land acquisition stems from the inherently coercive nature of the land acquisition process, which creates a severe imbalance of power between the state and land losers. While much of this imbalance was created by the text of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, a considerable part of it could also be attributed to executive non-compliance with the rule of law. The result is a situation of great inequity for the land losers.
Legal reform under the LARR Act should be implemented by government, not subverted to redress these inequities: The Report finds that specific provisions of the LARR Act are steps in the right direction to redress the imbalance of power that was built into the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 in so far as: i) they empower livelihood losers along with title-holders to bring claims for compensation and rehabilitation, ii) bring compensation requirements in accordance with existing reality, and iii) introduce requirements of consent and social impact assessment. The Report shows that litigation helps channelise political contestation of state action into legal as opposed to extra legal disputes. Therefore, by empowering hitherto disempowered land losers to bring claims under the LARR Act, the Act will help preempt extra-legal conflict. Since conflict inevitably stalls or derails legitimate development projects, it is in the interest of the government to comply with, and not subvert the LARR Act.
Legal reforms must be supplemented by administrative and bureaucratic reforms: The Report highlights that legal reform is a necessary but not a sufficient precondition for ensuring greater equity and efficiency within the land acquisition process. In the absence of administrative and bureaucratic reforms, the introduction of the LARR Act will not succeed in eliminating inequities and inefficiencies embedded within the implementation of existing land acquisition procedures. In fact, the increase in procedural requirements under the LARR Act implies an even greater need for securing executive compliance with the rule of law, in order to translate the equities intended by these additional procedures into reality for land losers.
Types of administrative reforms required: Such administrative reforms include building of state capacity to meaningfully comply with the increased procedural requirements stipulated by the LARR Act, and designing institutional structures that incentivise such compliance with the rule of law. This, in turn, requires a serious mind-set shift within the government toward accepting the reform enshrined in the LARR Act, and not subverting it as we have seen in both the LARR Ordinance, and the state amendments to the LARR Act, as also the rules adopted to implement the LARR Act in the states.
Watch (above) a detailed presentation of the findings from the report.