By H H Mohrmen
The recent Supreme Court order permitting banks to dispose off land mortgaged by tribals even to non-tribals in case of a bad loan, in spite of the prevailing state laws prohibiting the same should raise serious questions. The order should help open our eyes, our ears and our minds to the reality of the existing land holding system prevailing in the state vis-à-vis the traditional land holding system of the tribals in a tribal state. It is also pertinent that we ask ourselves whether we can still claim that the current land holding system that we follow is still the same system as that which our ancestors had practiced since time immemorial.
Like any indigenous people, the Pnars of Jaintia hills too have deep connection with land and the nature around them. Their culture and identity is entwined with their land and the community’s land tenure system is a culture within a culture in itself. But mining, rapid industrialization and to some extent commercial farming is becoming a threat to this unique culture. Coal and limestone mining in the region has not only had an adverse impact on the environment; but neo coal-rich members of the community and the owners of the cement companies not only help change the demography of the area but they have even been party to the change that occurs in the land holding system in the area.
The recent socio economic census had portrayed a very grim scenario with regard to land ownership in the state of Meghalaya. It was found that a large section of the population in the state does not own land. Many people find it hard to believe that something like this can happen in ‘the nation that the gods love’ (ka ri baieit ki blei), but this is a reality and this happened because our traditional land holding system has gone awry. The land holding system that we follow now is everything but traditional.
Very often when we speak of land grabbing we tend to think that it is a story of outsiders who grab the land of the indigenous people for their selfish interests and the case in point are the cement industries in the Narpuh area. Or it could also be a case where a government be it the local or central government taking over the land of the local people for what they deem to be in public interest as has happened in the new Shillong area. But land grabbing in Meghalaya also happened in subtle ways and in some cases by manipulating the traditional land holding system which enables the clan which are supposed to be mere custodians of the land, to claim ownership of the same.
Ownership of land changes hands from the poor and the marginalized section of the society to the elite of the society happens in cases where rich coal miners bought the land belonging to poor people and in some cases when the community forest is sold for a song. It is also a case where industrialists in the name of development and creating jobs for the local populace circumvent the rules to enable the company to own land in what is a tribal area where land transfer from a native owner to a non indigenous owner is against the law.
The Sixth Schedule of the constitution guarantees that land ownership in the tribal areas is protected. To ensure that this right is protected, the state government has also legislated its own land transfer act that allows transfer of land in the scheduled areas only amongst the tribals. But land tenure system among the tribes of the state is a complex issue and the ownership system varies from place to place. Many books and write-ups were published which has dealt at length with the complex subject, but one aspect that the previous work has ignored is that like any tradition, land tenure system in the state is changing and evolved with time.
How can one best describe traditional land ownership prevailing in the area in the fifties and early eighties than to share stories which one has experienced in real life situation? My grandmother Hat Lyndoh Mohrmen is originally from Nongtalang and because we do not have land of our own, by tradition her family from her father’s side (and in this case the Lyndoh sohbatan) allowed her to start an orange orchard in a place call Shmia thylliang in Nongtalang. My grandmother produced the best oranges which were then exported to East Pakistan, later Bangladesh. Then my grandmother married our grandfather u Lakhon Lamar who is from Jowai and from then on spent the remaining part of her life shuttling between Jowai, Nongtalang, Dawki and Muktapur. But when our grandmother died and since nobody from the family is interested in continuing with the activity, we then went to inform the Lyndoh Sohbatan (my great grandfather’s family) of the situation and the ownership of the land revert back to them.
The few clans in Nongtalang like the Myrchiang, the Lyngdoh, the Nonglamin etc which own large tracts of land under the eleka Nongtalang not only allowx their own kith and kin to use the clan land for cultivation, but even members of the community can cultivate in the land by paying a nominal fee and earlier it was in kind. The cultivators can use the land as long as they can. It will only go back to the when the farmers cannot use the land anymore. Traditionally this same kind of arrangement is followed even in community land, but since population has increased while the availability of land remains stagnant, tradition gradually started to give way.
In War Jaintia area we now have stories of conflict between the clan and the community which people never heard before. Earlier both used to live in a perfect harmony. There were incidents in which clan prohibits the construction of approach roadx to village because it has to pass through the clan land. There is also a story of a clan preventing the community from erecting electric posts which are intended to connect the village to the power grid. In both these cases it is obvious that the role of the clan as mere custodianx of the land for the welfare of the people and the common good has changes. The clans are behaving more like owners than custodians of the land which by tradition they are not.
Commodification of land which has for so long been considered as resource by our ancestors is happening in the mining areas and as land is becoming scarcer by day, clans which claim ownership of the land have become rich. In Nongtalang where limestone mining is happening, clans have started dividing the remaining free land between the families and the custodians became land owners instantly. The families then leased their respective land to miners to start their mining activity. In coal mining areas there were instances where even community reserved forests were sold to coal miners and in this case a forest land which is supposed to be a common resource was sold to an individual which then becomes his personal property.
Land which by tradition is considered a common resource is now being commodified and land ownership is concentrated only amongst the few clans in the villages. The change has not only made many families in the villages landless, but it also created a division in the community where landless sections of the society are dependent on the neo elites in the society. In the light of the above mentioned changes with regards to land ownership amongst the tribalx of the state, perhaps it is not wrong to say that the land tenure system that we follow is no longer as per tradition. Perhaps it is in the light of the above mentioned changes that the apex court has passed the landmark order because we can no longer claim that our land holding system is traditional anymore.