Farms and forests

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