Denial of tribal rights behind raging conflicts

Land and resources conflicts have been a major setback to development and responsible for stalling investments to the tune of lakhs of crores in the country. Of the total, 289 land-related conflicts, half are related to infrastructure projects, according to a study conducted by Rights and Resources Initiative, Indian School Business, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS.)

The research study group analysed 289 ongoing land conflicts which are affecting 32 lakh people, and deal with 12 lakh hectares of land in the country. A majority of the land conflicts (72 per cent) are related to common lands rather private lands. Particularly, forest land common in conflict form 43 per cent of conflicts, affecting 18 lakh people. The livelihoods rights of the people are closed interlinked with the common property resources and that is the causative factor for opposing industrial and infrastructure projects.

The Government of India identified 106 districts in 10 States as affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) including Telugu States – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Seventy four of the land conflicts are located in these LWE-hit districts affecting approximately 10.1 lakh people, and related to 4.9 lakh hectares of land.

The number of mining and industry-related conflicts is higher in the LWE-affected areas than the national average. A much large number of people are affected by these projects than the national average. Almost 80 per cent of the conflicts in LWE districts involved common lands and 45 per cent involved forest lands, the study pointed out.

Most of the land conflicts arising from the Scheduled V Areas are infrastructure, mining and industry and power projects, and tribals are the worst sufferers of these land conflicts. The intensity of land conflicts is high in the Scheduled V Areas of the country, which constitute 12 per cent of total districts in the country and account for 18 per cent of all land conflicts.

In spite of several constitutional protections extended to the Schedule V Areas benefiting the tribes, various projects are endangering the very sources of their survival. The number of people affected due to land-related conflicts in the Schedule V Areas constitutes 30 per cent of the total people affected by land conflicts in the country.

The major reasons for these conflicts are non-recognition of customary rights of the tribal people over community lands. The community lands are outside the scope of Land Acquisition Act proceedings and payment of compensation. Over 60 per cent of all land conflicts studied arises from the process of land acquisition. In both central and north–east India, almost 90 per cent of the conflicts involve common lands, and in central India three quarters of the conflicts involve forest lands.

There is no guiding strong legal instrument to recognise the rights of the people over common lands and resolve the land conflicts arising due to development projects in the country. Resistance against projects is built due to mockery of land administration and failure of project officials in obtaining free, fair and pre-informed consent from the project-affected people.

The major interference of the study is that there are notable flaws in structures manning the projects, including ambiguities in property rights regime. Thus there is a need to have a legal space for negotiation under Land Acquisition Laws to articulate the customary rights of the people over the common lands.

The Forest Rights Recognition Act 2006 recognises the community rights over the forest lands. But there is no law recognising the community rights over assessed or unassessed waste drylands, or poromboke and other classified common lands even in Telugu States. Due to development projects, the livelihoods depending on such common lands are thus lost to tribals who have intertwined relationship with the common lands for their bare survival.

It is hoped that the findings of the study would help policy makers come out with an integrated legislation to reduce tensions among the people affected by the projects and protect their common lands and also compensate for any loss of livelihood and customary control over such commons. Otherwise, the present land and resources conflicts will continue and stall the development as well as affect the very survival of the tribal people of the country.

By Dr Palla Trinadha Rao