Of the many issues deliberated in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, the issue of land has always been royally ignored. Except for the Meghalaya Transfer of Land Regulation Act 1971 which was enacted over 50 years ago and was subsequently amended to scale down the restrictions in certain cases where land is alienated to serve “tribal interests,” no other land reforms has been taken up. The Meghalaya Transfer of Land Regulation Act was enacted to prohibit transfer of land from a tribal to a non-tribal and from a non-tribal to another non-tribal. This Act however does not apply to areas in European Wards, Jail Road and Police Bazar of Shillong Municipality and Monza VI of West Garo Hills. To administer the Act only the Deputy Commissioner and Sub-Divisional officers were declared to be competent authorities.
Statesmen at the time of the creation of Meghalaya had foreseen that land is a scarce resource and that unless a legislation on the transfer of land to non-indigenous Meghalayans was in place rapid land alienation would take place and the local tribals would lose control over their lands. To a certain extent the Act has been fairly successful in protecting the customary rights of tribals over land. The Act was amended in 1991 to provide that the prohibition of transfer of land from a tribal to a non -tribal and from a non-tribal to another non-tribal shall not apply in cases where land is required (i) as a place of public religious worship by any community or as a burial or cremation ground and (ii) for implementing any scheme that would promote the interests of the tribals in field of education or industry.
So far, so good. The problem today is not that land is alienated to non-tribals but that large swathes of land in the rural areas, particularly in districts that are known to be the rice bowl of the state such as Ri Bhoi district are being owned by absentee landlords and are used for commercial farming purposes including for mono-cropping – tea being one of the crops. Apart from that, agricultural land is also used to promote resorts. The challenge here is that Meghalaya does not have a Land Use Policy. Hence any person owning farmland can use that to set up a factory, to carry out stone and sand quarrying and even mining of limestone. It is common to see agricultural land being converted to habitations including for building institutions. At this rate the weakest in the society without financial clout will not be able to own even a homestead. Landlessness is growing at a rapid pace. It is curious that this issue has never found mention in the Assembly and neither has the imperative for a cadastral survey. What are the MLAs afraid to discover? Or will the truth that will be uncovered hurt them too?
