My
work area lies in the ST dominated regions of Bagli block, in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh.
Among the ST communities here are the Bhilala, Korku and the Barela. But among
them, for a variety of reasons, the Barela evince much more interest. One of
the reasons for coming here was to gain an understanding of the developmental
story of the people here. Based on my months here, there is an outline of the
Barela story that is quite fascinating. It’s a story that is quite common to so
many communities and regions in a world undergoing rapid change. It’s a story
of migration, complete with ecological, economic, social and political
causations and ramifications.
The
Barelas were the latest to migrate into this region, after the Bhilalas and
Korkus. Based on oral records, a bulk of them moved in from areas in and around
Badwani, beyond the south bank of the Narmada, some 200 kms away.
Oral
sources here cite a flood in the early 60's on the Narmada, near the town of
Anjad in present day Badwani district. (But I'm yet to find references to this
flood in official records). The exact causes of the migration could be
several.
Upon
reaching, they received actual land pattas of over 10 Hectares per family from
the state government. But all the land they received was forest land with thick
bush vegetation; they were poor, red-soiled, loose land. The task of clearing
the forest, and make it cultivable was entirely up to them. So, this period
witnessed a large government mandated clearing of forest lands, as they were
officially parted away through government pattas to these migrant families.
Barela families, thus have settlements much closer to the present day forest
boundaries.
This
story we see here can now be linked to the story of Land Reforms in India. In
brief, Land reforms meant
1. Tenancy rights to tenant
farmers.
2. Land ceiling to large land
holding families
3. Land redistribution to
landless families.
We
shall focus on points 2 and 3, as there are more relevant to this discussion.
Point 2 meant there was to be a limit over how much a single family could own.
The surplus agricultural land over and above the limit was to be seized by the
government, with due compensation paid to the families. This was to then create
a massive land-bank of seized agricultural land, which was subsequently to be
distributed among landless families willing to eager to farm, which is Point 3.
Thus, what was envisaged was a more socially equitable ownership pattern of the
existing agricultural land. In other words, points 2 directly feeding
into point 3.
But
Point 2 and Point 3 did not simultaneously occur in Madhya Pradesh. There is
extensive scholarship available which highlight the political reasons for which
states like Madhya Pradesh did not enforce point 2 effectively - as landed castes were an immensely powerful lobby within the ruling Congress. So in the name
of Land Reforms, what got enforced was only point 3. But where would the extra
land needed for such distribution come from? Being India's most forested state,
Madhya Pradesh ate into its ample forests for precisely this.
This
practice also conveniently converged with India's then agrarian policy of
increasing agricultural land to produce more food for its population - a policy
of extensive agriculture, rather than intensive. Back then, increasing food
production was linked to increasing cropped area, rather than increasing
productivity. Our focus shifted to the latter only after the mid 60's, when the
Green Revolution was sought after. Ecologically, agricultural land increased by
eating into forest land. Socially, it did not change the power held by landed
castes.
A
check at the official statistics ('India Forestry Outlook Study - MoEF') conveys the contrary:
One
guesses the devil is in the detail, based on the definitions used for forest
land - about which lands were considered ‘forest’, which were considered waste
land, etc. One would need to explore that further.
But how and why exactly the
government decided and actually managed to give formal pattas to them remains
unanswered, especially when it is so hard to set right their land records even
now.
I'll conclude with a clear hypothesis on the implementation of Land Reforms in India, in different states - States where political will to take on the landed gentry was lacking, tended to distribute forest/common land, as part of its Land Reforms and increased the net sown area.
This hypothesis surely deserves to be tested, and I'm sure there is plenty of work already done on it.
PS: The full India Forestry Outlook Study is available online here
