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published online 27 March 2014Journal of Asian and African StudiesRamdas Rupavath

PradeshThe Persistence of Land Alienation: The Experience of Tribal People of Andhra

  

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The Persistence of Land Alienation: The Experience of Tribal People of Andhra Pradesh

Ramdas RupavathDepartment of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, India

AbstractThis article provides an overview of the policies of the colonial and post-colonial state regarding the tribal people of Andhra Pradesh. The penetration of colonial capital, the policies of the Nizam state which supported this and the resultant process of land alienation is analysed, followed by the presentation of various attempts by the post-colonial state to return tribal land by means of the Land Regulation Act, to rectify the wrongs of the past and to halt any further alienation. The article concludes by arguing that the state has not been successful in ending the process of land alienation which destroys tribal life.

KeywordsTelengana, land alienation, Land Transfer Regulation, political movements, tribal people post-independence

Introduction

‘Tribals’ refers to the Scheduled Tribes in India, constituting 8% of the country’s population. There are two categories: frontier and non-frontier tribes. The frontier tribes are inhabitants of the north-east frontier state; non-frontier tribes constitute 89% of the total tribal population, distributed in most states of the country. The Scheduled Tribes are known variously as Tribes, Adivasis, aborigi-nals, indigenous and Vanabasi (Shah: 1984 and Sengupta: 1988). Article 365(25) of the constitu-tion of India has defined ‘Scheduled Tribes’ as ‘…such tribes or part or groups within such tribes or tribal communities are as deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purpose of this constitution’.

In considering the present struggle for – and against – the formation of a separate state of Telangana, one thing stands out. The conflict is about having a greater share in all aspects of the social, economic and political affairs of the Andhra Pradesh state. It is also apparent that all the political parties in the Telangana region are dominated by the upper castes; in contrast, the Dalits and tribals of this region are largely ignored. Oft-repeated slogans of the political parties are ‘social justice’ and ‘equity’. But then, should not justice and equity also be provided for the original

Corresponding author:Ramdas Rupavath, Assistant Professor, Department Of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India. Email: ramss@uohyd.ernet.in

527306 JAS0010.1177/0021909614527306Journal of Asian and African StudiesRupavathresearch-article2014

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inhabitants? This paper studies the tribal political agenda, likely to be a critical factor in achieving some measure of equality.

The Telangana people’s movement for separate statehood is not a recent political development. The region has a history of betrayal, as well as exploitation, by both its own people and those of other regions. The ongoing movements for a separate Telangana and its counterpart, Samaikyandhra, together with the Jai Andhra movements, have forced both State and Central governments to con-sider the problem anew. Lives lost, tensions endured by the people, resources, profits, state capi-tals, vanished investments, issues of self-rule with self-respect and many more factors which arose because of the separation movement, compelled the governments to reconsider their positions regarding the age-old demand – that is, the Telengana region to be detached as a separate state.

It is in this context that the demand for the formation of Democratic Telangana, Samajika (social) Telangana, and other, related proposals has become prominent, arguing for an equal share in every aspect of social, economic and political life. While the political parties in the Telangana region are mostly dominated by the upper castes, it is the Dalits and the tribals of the region that are in the forefront of the campaign for a separate state – although they are betrayed and exploited in equal measure in their region. In conjunction with the ‘separate Telangana’ slogan, they seek social justice and equal and just representation in all spheres.

The issues of justice and equality are important to the native residents of the region. Those peo-ple who truly deserve to be called ‘native residents’ have largely been ignored. These are the tribal people who live in forests and who deserve to be called the true native residents of the region: they have been there for centuries. Every year, the government of Andhra Pradesh spends large amounts of money, through ‘Integrated Tribal Development Agencies’, on the welfare of millions of tribal people, but the development is more theoretical than a reality. Today, the tribal areas are rich, whereas the tribal people are poor. In some districts of Telangana more than 50% of the land in scheduled villages is held by non-tribal people (Integrated Tribal Development Agency Office, 1995). There are political and historical causes behind this – unpleasant to some – truth.

I

Historical antecedents: the process leading to land alienation during colonial rule

The problems regarding tribal people in the tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh, particularly in the Telangana region, need to be explored in detail and analyzed in the context of the prevailing state policy. The legislative processes initiated by the colonial state had resulted in the attribution of a judicial nature to tribal land which otherwise was inalienable and had remained under the control of the original cultivators. The conversion of land into a commodity was a late phenomenon in the tribal areas, because capital could not penetrate these areas before the British forced an entry. The causal relationship between the interests of capital penetration and the commoditization of land must be understood in order to study land policy in the tribal areas. These interests, as analysed by Rao (1982), can be considered under three main categories: extension of market connections, demand for raw materials and strengthening of state power.

The tribal population in the Telangana area was almost untouched by the outside world during the Nizam’s rule in the early part of the 18th century (Rao, 1982).1 The activity of the state, which was confined to the plains, where it could bring about a few changes, did not encroach upon the tribal territory because successive governments, including the early Nizams, did not show any interest in interfering with the affairs of the tribals. As soon as the British established their rule over the Circar districts of the Nizam’s territory in the early nineteenth century, they started organizing land surveys and settlement operations in Andhra. The hidden agenda behind the British extension

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of military support to the Nizam was to find raw materials, as well as searching for new markets and trade centres in the region.

The survey and settlement activities helped the Nizam to regulate land ownership patterns and claim land revenues for the state’s exchequer. As a part of this process, the Nizam’s state offered large tracts of tribal areas on lease to others in the second half of the 18th century. This resulted in increased revenues to the Nizam, who was heavily in debt due not only to expenses incurred in the maintenance of the Hyderabad contingent of British Army but also to the scandalous mismanage-ment of the state finances by his minister Chandulal (Andhra Prabha, 1990a, 10). The Nizam attempted to gain more land revenue and began leasing out some areas to British colonial trade interests – especially in the forest regions of Telangana, where raw materials were abundantly available (Haimendorf, 1976). With the construction in 1844 of a railway line from Hyderabad to Palvoncha, for mining operations, the Telangana tribal areas experienced social, economic and cultural changes . The line was extended to Vijayawada in 1899: it also provided a link between Madras and Bombay, the two major colonial trade centres, and opened up the Chandrapur–Balharshah Railway line in 1929 which connected the Adilabad forest areas to the outside world (Census, 1891: 6). All of this served to link the market centres of Delhi and central India to south India.

The introduction of forest conservancy operations in the 1920s and 1930s made retention of land a problem for the tribals in general. In the context of Adilabad (Andhra Prabha, 1990a), the Gonds suffered in particular. The tribal people began to suffer a lack of permanent patta (land own-ing) rights. Meanwhile, the consolidation of colonial interests in tribal areas also enabled the Nizam state to extract more revenue through land leasing, strengthening its base and promoting a set of native non-tribal landed classes in these areas. A nexus was formed between the Nizam state and the British government because opening up of these areas for exploitation benefited both par-ties, through mining, deforestation and land alienation. The joint efforts to discover raw materials resulted in the establishment of the Singareni Collieries (Haimendorf, 1941: 2). There was consid-erable growth of communication and transportation services, with the result that migration of non-tribal and non-cultivating peasant classes increased. All of these changes hastened the polarization and emergence of a clearly-defined exploitative class consisting of absentee landlords such as Velma and Brahmins and traders such as Sahukars (merchant communities) who introduced mid-dle class peasantry, with agricultural cultivation skills, from the plains. These conditions resulted in the colonization of properties and resources, a decline in the ratio of tribal land to tribal owner-ship and the transformation of land into a commodity, all of which led to the alienation of the origi-nal cultivators.

The ignorance of the tribals of laws regarding debts led them into a financial trap during the colonial period. The British law related to land transfer; and the revenue system also forced tribals to sell their land to landlords, moneylenders, traders, feudal lords or rich peasants. These were mostly non-tribals who liberally offered loans and insisted on a portion of tribal land as security. Unable to repay its debts, the tribal population was eventually forced to part with its land. The injustices increased, with many being forced to work on their own farms to pay back the outstand-ing debts. This process led to binding their lives to the exploiters such as the Deshmukhs (land-lords) who brought the cultivating peasant classes of the non-tribal communities into the tribal areas (Ragavaiah, 1971). Because of land survey and settlement activity in the tribal areas of Telangana, the exact boundaries of individual ownership of agricultural land remained without legal sanctions. Prior to the land survey and settlement, areas of tribal communities largely remained almost without judicial recognition (Balgopal: 1988).

Another reason why tribals were forced to retreat deep into the forest was the imposition of heavy taxes. Many of the tribal peasants today admit that their forefathers were forced to relinquish

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their lands during the period 1920–1940 because of their inability to pay these taxes (Balgopal: 1988). When the protective Tenancy Act (1952) was introduced, all of these non-tribal tenants were either evicted by the landlords or asked to pay money in order to claim tenancy rights on the land. Thus, the lands under the ownership of the tribal slowly passed to the hands of the non-tribal peas-ants and then, after the 1950s, passed into the hands of the Deshmukhs (landlords) and Deshpandes (district accountants). The emergence of the civic society with its rules and regulations, courts and other paraphernalia therefore led to the ‘de-peasantisation’ of the tribals (Rao: 1962).

Another factor that contributed to the large-scale land alienation in these areas was exploitation by the Nizam state, predominant during the decade of 1940–1950. During 1940–1946, when the state government sold the land to cultivators or other interested persons, the tribals of Telangana revolted against paying Zalsapatti, ‘the dinner tax’, to officials for purchasing lands. Land was sold to the highest bidder who acquired legal rights from the Nizam ruler or his accomplices. The tribals generally had no knowledge of these legal transactions; and if they did, they had no capital with which to compete against the outsiders. In the process, lands that had previously been cultivated and possessed by the tribals transferred without their knowledge to the non-tribals. Thus, the clear-ing of the forests for cultivation became the only work available for native tribals (Andhra Prabha,1990b: 5).

The causes of land alienation

Deforestation on a massive scale, under the supervision of the land-owning classes, was followed by large-scale clearances. Every year, large tracts of forest were cleared and cultivated, effectively forcing tribals to leave the forest areas. In certain areas, care was taken by the landlords to avoid further legal complications (Andhra Prabha, 1990c: 4). De-scheduling (rectification of boundaries of any Scheduled Area) certain tribal areas invariably posed a threat to the very existence of tribal life.2 They were left with no other alternative than to emigrate from these areas. During the survey of settlement operations, the revenue officials, especially the Patel (village chiefs) and Patwaris (the village accountants), invariably manipulated the records in favour of the non-tribals. In all cases the records show the presence of the non-tribals, and their ownership and possession of the lands, in the period prior to the introduction of protective legislation in 1949. The tribals were shown to be in possession of only a meager amount of land (Report, National Commission on Backward Areas Development: 1981: 50). Studies undertaken after the introduction of protective legislation, or legalization, in 1949 revealed gross violation of the protective laws and revealed continuing land alienation in the tribal areas (Report, Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 1970–1971).

The first form of alienation of lands was the manipulation of land records. It was observed by the National Commission on Backward Areas (1981: 49) that ‘the significant consequence of the unsatisfactory state of land records was that the tribals were never legally recognized as owners of the lands which they cultivated’. Elwin (1983: 49) anticipated the possible dangers of the lack of proper maintenance of the records and observed that in most of the inaccessible and ex-zamindari areas (which held extremely large tracts of land) no proper records of rights had been prepared. Efforts still to be made to address this, some 20 years after the original observation was made.

The second form of the land alienation is reported to have occurred as a result of fake trans-fers. The report of the study team of the Union Home Ministry (1975)3 identified large-scale transfers of ownership of the tribal land by illegal and fake transactions. Even the working group on tribal development appointed by the Planning Commission was of the opinion that ‘in spite of the protective measures to restore land to the tribal, it is still reported to be taking place. It

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appears that in most cases these are caused because of fake transaction’. Falsification of docu-ments of ownership by the non-tribals remains pervasive throughout the country. In the case of the Jharkhand tribal region of Bihar, it was reported that even though de facto possessions were brought to its notice, the government continued to ignore the matter (Tortured Tribes, July 20, 1980: 43).

The third form of land alienation is related to the leasing or mortgaging of the land. For various reasons, the tribal people raised loans from traders, feudal lords and rich peasants. Invariably, either gold or land was offered as security. Many poor tribal peasants leased their lands to the non-tribals; only very rarely were those lands returned to the tribals. Analyzing this, a researcher on tribal studies commented:

‘In the past few years, the non-tribal cultivators have adopted a novel method of retaining the land of the Kondareddis and Koyas for raising tobacco and chillies. On expiry of the lease, these non-tribals enter into a fresh agreement with the Kondareddis for share-cropping on the condition that the entire cost of cultivation would be borne by them and the yield be distributed among themselves in the ratio of share seven the non-tribal cultivator, and one share to the tribal land holders.’ (Rao, 1983: 83)

In addition, in the regions of black cotton soil (that is, land that is very fertile, with high organic content and very suited to cultivation), where the commercial production of crops was possible, the non-tribals supplied capital and took lands on lease in order to have a control over the lands, with-out legally coming into possession of them.

Encroachment was another mode of dispossessing tribals of their lands, adopted by the new entrants in all the areas where there were no proper land records (Prakash Rao, 1982: 275). Another method involved bribing the local Patwari to manipulate the date of settlement of land disputes on record prior to the stipulated years. According to the legislation, land sold or mortgaged within that specified year were required to be declared as illegal and restored to the tribal in question. To avoid this, ante-dating became one of the powerful means adopted by the non-tribals to enable the courts to assess and confirm their claim. This was done with the involvement of the Patwari, lower rank-ing officials in the revenue operations, who rarely noted down details of all these operations accu-rately (Rao, 1982: 275).

Entering into a marital alliance with a tribal woman was another method used to circumvent the law. Large areas of fertile land were purchased by the non-tribals and then registered in the names of tribal women whom they made, or falsely claimed as, their mistresses. These marital alliances helped non-tribal communities to obtain political power and usurp reserved seats of authority at local levels. This method came into use because many protective laws permitted intra-transfers of land within the tribal communities (Haimendorf, 1982: 236).

Fictitious adoption of non-tribals by the tribal families was also prevalent in some areas of Andhra Pradesh. According to Dhanam (1977: 54), the tribal administrator said that ‘ [a]cquisition of lands in the names of non-tribal boys who become tribal suddenly after the execution of the bogus adoption deeds in the name of a tribal person was another important method used by the non-tribal to grab tribal lands’ (Economic and Political Weekly, 1981: 796). The falsification of records has also extended to de-scheduling or eliminating the villages from the scheduled areas and declaring or notifying certain villages as falling within the scheduled areas (Dube and Murdia, 1977: 16). Landlords also produced false medical certificates in order to establish the incapacity of the tribals to cultivate their lands (Dube and Murdia, 1977:16). It has been further recorded that the exploiters would not hesitate to employ ‘strong-arm’ tactics or make use of political influence to countermand the tribals when they tried to assert their rights on their lands or make other legitimate demands (Srikakulum Report: 37).

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Violation of Land Transfer Regulation Acts in the Telangana region

The constitution of India directs the state to protect the Scheduled Tribes from all forms of exploi-tation and to promote with special interest the economic and educational interests of the Scheduled Tribes. In exercising powers conferred under paragraph 5(2) of the Fifth Schedule in the Constitution of India (Andhra Pradesh Land Transfer Regulation, 1959; Andhra Pradesh Land Transfer Regulation 11, 1963), the Government of Andhra Pradesh made the following regulations to pro-tect the tribal lands in scheduled areas.

The First Land Alienation Regulation, 1937. This was enacted on an experimental basis by the Nizam government to prevent land alienation in two districts of Aurangabad and Osmanabad (Dubey and Murdia, 1977: 16). The two important clauses that were added were as follows.

(1) The Act provides that a non-member of a protected class is allowed to sell his land to a member of his own class or group without the approval of the Talukdar (administrative power) unless he has retained in his permanent possession a piece of land having an assess-ment value of at least 30 rupees per year.

(2) The act restricts protection under the regulation only to these members of the protected classes who pay assessment of less than 500 rupees annually to the government. All excess land a person of a protected class possesses can be sold under the ordinary law as before. The holders of such estates will, so long as their holding is assessed at not less than 500 rupees, be grouped as the non-protected class. (Dubey and Murdia, 1977:12).

The Agency Tracts and Land Transfer Act, 1971. This was enacted mainly to stop the mon-eylenders from exploiting the tribals and gaining control over the virgin resources of the forest area, and to restrict any transfer of immovable property (Murdia, 1975: 1204–1213). The transfer of land can be declared null and void when there is no written record made by the Agency or its prescribed officers. However, the Act cannot be imposed when a transfer is in favour of another person of the hill tribe (Government of India, 1970). Nevertheless, the money lenders and mer-chants from the plains continued to migrate to the Agency Areas and to carry on their business, because eviction of the tribals under the Estate Land Act was not nullified by this Act. Thus the Act enabled the non-tribals to acquire lands in the tribal areas with the covert consent and approval of the Agency. The major loophole in the Act was that it did not cover the tribes of the Telangana area under the Nizam’s rule. It was only during the end of the Nizam’s regime that a similar Act was enacted in Telangana, to deal with the Telangana Armed struggle. Thus the Hyderabad Tribal Areas Regulation of 1359 (Fasli) was introduced in 1949 (Government of India, 1979).

Regulation 1 (ibid, 1959), passed in the post-second era, repeated the provisions of the Agency Tracts Interests and Land Transfer Act, 1917 and provided protection to tribal land. This regulation was originally made applicable to the scheduled areas of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari and West Godavari Districts. It was later extended to include the scheduled areas of Adilabad, Khammam, Warangal and Mahaboobnagar districts, by Regulation 11 (ibid, 1963), to bring uniformity throughout the scheduled area of the State. Regulation 11 (1963) repealed the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana areas) Tribal Areas Regulation (1959 F). The 1959 Regulation attempted to protect the land rights of tribals in the following manner.

(a) In the Scheduled Areas, transfer of immovable property by a member of Scheduled Tribe to anybody other than a member of Scheduled Tribe without permission in writing from the competent authority shall be null and void.

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(b) Where a transfer of immovable property is affected in favour of any member other than of a scheduled tribe, either the Agent, Agency divisional officer or any other prescribed officer on application by any interested person or suo moto may restore the property to the transferor or his heir.

(c) Rules were framed under Section 8 of Regulation 1 of 1959.

The content of particular interest is that which states that the property may be assigned or sold to any other member of the Scheduled Tribe or cooperative society of the tribals, or disposed of by sale to the government, under two circumstances. First, if the transferors or their heirs are unwill-ing to take back the property; and, second, when their whereabouts are unknown. The clause deal-ing with conferring powers onto special officers to carry out the activities was defective. Furthermore, the safeguards contemplated in the Regulation were frequently violated and transfers took place in spite of it.

However, in most cases, the alienation process started with a lease or mortgage of the land and culminated in the transfer of the ownership rights (Hindu, The, 1981: 8). In some cases, the owner-ship was in the name of tribal people in the official records, but the land was cultivated by the non-tribals. Some cases were settled against tribals on the pretext that the tribals concerned did not possess any heirs, despite that fact that the tribals had children. As well as the legal loopholes men-tioned above, several informal methods were also used to transfer land to non-tribals, with help from lower-ranking revenue officials (Haimendorf, 1982: 65). These unethical methods included transferring property to the name of another tribal working for the non-tribal owner, effectively a fake transfer; marrying tribal women for the same property and giving them the status of concu-bines; and forcibly cultivating their lands by denying pattas to them, despite their having previ-ously been declared to be the owners. Because these loopholes were identified, both at the state and district levels, the Regulation was amended in 1970 (Government of India, 1981).

The Amendment Act of 1970 came into force on 01 July 1971: it applied to all lands in the scheduled areas, except those lands covered by the Mahals and Muthas Abolition Regulation (Regulation 1 and 2 of 1969, District Gazetteers of Khammam, 1981). Under this Regulation, every tribal ryot (peasant) was entitled to ryotwari patta (ownership of lands) for all cultivatable lands in his holding. When the land was situated in an estate taken over by the government under the Estates Abolition Act, the non-tribals who had been occupying the land for a continuous period of eight years immediately before the commencement of this Regulation were also entitled to ryot-wari patta (Intergrated Tribal Development Agency, 1995).

In 1971, the government of Andhra Pradesh amended further the Regulation of Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation (Amendment) 1 of 1970. Under the previous Regulation 1 of 1970, cooperative societies and mortgage banks faced some practical difficulties in the tribal areas. To remove the technical difficulties, Regulation 1 of 1971 was enacted by amending Section 3 of Regulation 1 of 1970 (Raghavaiah, 1971: 40): it permitted mortgaging of any immovable property to any cooperative society on condition that in the event of default the property should be sold only to members of the Scheduled Tribes. Whilst the Regulation appears to be very restrictive in its formulation, in practice it again gave freedom to non-tribals to involve tribals in legal and civil litigations, which they, the tribals, could not afford.4

All these activities culminated in the declaration of a Government Order (Government of India, 1979) of Andhra Pradesh, which declared the non-tribal land holdings in the tribal areas justified, with certain limitations. A move initiated by the District Collector of Khammam in 1974 to evict the non-tribal holding lands in the scheduled areas was the immediate reason for introducing the Order. The government issued this Order on the basis of a resolution adopted by the Zilla Parishad, which pleaded for the exemption of non-tribal landless poor in occupation of lands in the scheduled

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areas of up to five acres of wetland or ten acres of dry land. The government’s order (ibid, 1979), operated both in spirit and content against the very interests of the tribals.5 The executive order also nullified the provisions of many legislative Acts, while creating an extra constitutional sphere of authority to affect the lives of tribals.

Taking advantage of the order, landlords and rich peasants subdivided their lands into small-holdings, in order to avoid breaching the maximum acreage limit fixed by the government order. Lands were sold to non-tribal small peasants, using these non-tribal peasants as pawns in the game played to satisfy the selfish demands of the landlords. Tribal chieftains were bribed to ensure their control over land would circumvent regulations. Whenever the courts gave favourable judgments to the tribals, the land had to be restored back to them. This was thwarted by adopting coercive measures such as engaging hired agitators or, sometimes, with the connivance of the police, to threaten the tribals not to press for ownership of the land. As a result, the lands remained in the possession of the non-tribals (Sundaraiah, 1972: 243). Another major consequence of the Order was that it consciously and deliberately attempted to pit the non-tribal small peasant against the tribal small peasant, so that the non-tribal rich peasants were left undisturbed despite their illegal occupation of the tribal lands.

While earlier regulations did not openly support the non-tribal peasants’ right over the lands, this Order explicitly revealed the power of the vested interests in favour of the non-tribal peasants. This ignored the very essence of socio-economic justice, creating and encouraging enmity between the tribals and non-tribals. By this means, the ruling class was able to divert the attention of the tribals from problems such as exploitation by landlords to those such as the alienation of land due to the presence of the non-tribal small peasants, thereby creating a contradiction among the poor peasantry. As such, continuous use of oppression and manipulation were the two methods adopted by the largely semi-feudal ruling classes in control of state power (Ragavaiah, 1971: 41).

Another lacuna of the land Regulation Acts is the exclusion of Wattandari, Jagirdari, Makta, and Kaul lands from the purview of all the Regulations. Specifically due to financial insolvency, the Nizam gave full freedom to the Jagirdars to introduce any kind of change in those areas that would help enhance the state revenue (Haimendorf, 1982: 42–43). This had a negative effect with regard to implementation of the Acts or Regulation.

In addition to the Agent (District Collector) and the agency Divisional Officers, the Deputy Collector (Tribal Welfare), Elwinpeta (in respect of Vizianagaram, and Srikakulam districts), spe-cial Deputy Collectors (Tribal Welfare) at Paderu (Visakhapatnam district), Rampachodavaram (East Godavari District), Kota Ramachandrapuram (West Godavari District), Bhadrachalam (Khammam District), Eturunagaram (Warangal District), Utnoor (Adilabad District) and project officers of all Integrated Tribal Development Agencies were competent to enforce eviction of any person in possession of the property situated in scheduled areas and restore the property to the transferor or his heirs. The special Deputy Collectors (Tribal Welfare), assisted by his subordinate staff, detected cases of violation of land transfer regulation and passed orders as deemed fit after conducting an enquiry as ordained by the regulation (Ragavaiah, 1971: 41). At central government level, a Joint Secretary of the Home Ministry heads a separate tribal agency and manages the tribal tribunal and co-ordinates the regulatory and developmental activities.

Implementation of Land Transfer Regulation performance appraisal. As a result of effective implemen-tation of the provisions of the Land Transfer Regulation, a sizeable extent of land has been restored to Tribals. The details of land restored under this Regulation up to the end of June 1995 are listed in Table 1.

The data in Table 1 show that some 751,436 acres of land were in the possession of non-tribals in the scheduled areas of the state.6 It is significant that 57,150 cases covered an extent of only

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245,589 acres. There was prima facie evidence that the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation Act (1959) had been violated and that proceedings were initiated under the Regulation. Some 217,574 acres of land involved in 48,234 cases have been disposed of, of which 23,702 cases covering an extent of 118,487 acres were disposed of in favour of the non-tribals: that is, 49%. It is significant that the number of cases disposed of in favour of the tribals was 24,532, that is, 51% of the total cases disposed of by the competent authority, whereas the proportion of land ordered to be restored to the tribals compared to the total land area involved in litigation for which final orders have been issued is 46%. Of 48,234 cases disposed of, representing some 217,574 acres, the land restored to tribals is 99,088 acres (45.54%). It is significant that the largest number of cases – that is, 25,311 – were registered in Khammam district alone: this is nearly 50% of the total. 76,585 cases were disposed of in favor of the non-tribals and less than 33,000 acres were ordered in favour of the tribals.

A matter of serious concern is that the most fertile alluvium lands, extending over thousands of hectares in the catchment areas of the Godavari River in Khammam district, had attracted non-tribals from all over the state. In fact, a major controversy arose with regard to implementation of the land transfer regulations in some of these areas, resulting in the transfer away of officers who were known for their commitment and probity. In the districts of Warangal, West Godavari and Adilabad the extent of land restored to tribals after favourable orders ranged from 5% in West Godavari to 46% in Adilabad. In most of the cases, the problems were the subject of litigation for several decades (National Commission on Backward Area Development, 1981).

However, these statistical data do not fully reflect reality. Several non-tribal peasants were in fact in occupation of land through various means such as leasing, tenancy, mortgages and share-cropping – as well as illegal transactions such as the transfer of land in the name of tribal women and tribal farm servants through false tribal certificates. Furthermore, several non-tribal peasants were in occupation of lands even after the order for eviction was authorised by the competent authority, under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation 1959, either due to the insensitivity of the non-tribals or the protracted process of litigation. As well as these legal loopholes, the present administrative arrangements have been found to be weak with regard to implementation of land transfer regulations, due to lack of staff. That this administrative

Table 1. Details of the land restored under Regulation Act 1970, up to 1995.

Number of non-tribal occupations in scheduled villages. Extent of land involved.

5750 cases2,455.23 acres

Cases in which enquiries were initiated under LTR. Extent of land involved.

57,15024,589.23 acres

Number of cases disposed of Extent of land

48,234217,574.24acres

Number of cases disposed of in favour of non-tribals Extent of land

23,702 118,486.51 acres

Number of cases disposed in favour of tribals Extent of land covered

24,53299,087.73 acres

Number of cases in which land was restored to tribals Extent of land covered

20,23368,520.98 acres

Number of cases pending disposed Extent of land covered

2,1007,653.43 acres

Source: National Seminar on ‘Scheduled Tribes and Social Justice’ 29–30 July 1995, Department of Tribal Welfare, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad.

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machinery could do very little to alleviate the suffering of the tribals is clear from the relevant facts and figures.

The statements of the cases registered from the time of inception (1955) of the office of the Special Deputy Collector (Integrated Tribal Development Agency) in Khammam, Adilabad and Warangal districts provide a clear picture of the total number of cases and the number of cases disposed of. Of a registered number of 92,293 in Khammam and 42,965 in Adilabad, covering areas of 92,293 and 42,965 acres respectively, 9531 in Khammam and 3622 acres in Adilabad were disposed of in favour of the tribals and the land was restored. It is interesting to note that the num-ber of cases pending at the end of June 1995 was 22 in Khammam district and 583 in Adilabad district, covering an area of 3484 acres. Thus, a number of cases that are likely to affect the land-lords adversely are being deliberately held back as undecided.

It is also pertinent to note that 12,949 cases, covering an area of 43,198 acres in Khammam and 16,288 acres in Adilabad, were decided against the tribals, on the basis that the transactions in favour of the non-tribals took place before 01 December 1963, the date on which the Regulation came into force. The dates on which the transactions took place were decided arbitrarily and the same dates were taken into consideration in the course of the judicial proceedings. There is every reason to suspect that the transaction might have been ante-dated to circumvent the Regulation. Even the Andhra Pradesh land transfer regulation, which established 1963 as the cut-off year, ren-dered the tribals helpless with regard to the restoration of lands shown as being sold in earlier years in order to negate the very purpose for which the Regulation was introduced. Thus a large area of fertile lands was transferred to the non-tribals in the absence of opportunities to question them in a court of law, seemingly because of the inability of the tribals to understand fully all the finer points of the legislation.

The officials in charge of these operations can be generally classified into two groups. The first group consists of those reluctant to visit in person the Naxalite-affected villages7 and who thus submitted reports without covering all the facts. The second group consists of officials who were generally sincere, but who were either ‘pressurized’ or confronted with non-cooperation within and outside the department. Moreover, the office of the Special Deputy Collector at the district level usually received ‘unfair treatment’ from the Revenue Department in particular and from the gov-ernment in general. There were frequent transfers of personnel. Responsibilities were often entrusted to senior officers of the District Collectorate who could pay only little attention to the task because they were already burdened with other duties. At the initial stages of enquiry, the trib-als were threatened not to report or seek the help of the special Deputy Collector of Land Alienation (Sundaraiah: 1972).

Although setting-up the institution of a Special Deputy Collector was intended to achieve resto-ration of lands to the tribals, it was beset with many inherent limitations as a result of which it was unable to function as planned. This institution appears not have served the purpose for which it was intended and in reality the restoration of land to the tribal continues to be more of a myth.

Political movements: pre- and post-independence period. During the colonial period, tribes rebelled against both local Hindu rulers and the British colonial administration, wherever they felt their rights in the territories were being threatened. For example, the tribal armed revolts against the Nizam’s state was started in 1940 by the Gonds of Adilabad under the leadership of a tribal leader, Komaram Bheemu. The Koyas also revolted in Khammam district (Rajaiah, 1983); and the muttadars (accountable to the government for maintaining law and order in a group of vil-lages) used questionable and violent methods to terrorize the impoverished Koya and Konda Reddi tenants and to achieve several illegal and unconscionable exactions from the helpless tribal people.

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The movement under Bheemu represents an attempt by the Gonds to protect their cultivable land from both outsiders and the corrupt forest officials of the Nizam government in the Dhonora reserve forest area. By the 1940s the landlords, money lenders and traders had begun to migrate into the tribal area, causing severe social dislocation to the tribal land holding structure. Bheemu, a literate Gond leader, attempted to solve the problem of Kolam and Gonds in the area in hilly vil-lage of Babjere. However, because they had no documents, the forest officials were given the task of evacuating the Kolam and Gonds from the area, which resulted in armed conflict. Bheemu even travelled to Hyderabad, to return with documents granting permission to settle in a nearby village. However, even this did not give the tribals possession of the cultivatable land. The struggle against land alienation, which involved the death of a large number of the Gonds in police shootings, con-tinued up to the mid-1940s (Desai, 1979).

During the period 1946–1951 the tribals were mobilized under the leadership of the Communist Party in the Telangana districts. Their struggle was against exploitative practices, such as collection of illegal dues. After the death of leading comrades such as Macchaveerraya and Ganga Varapu Srinivasa Rao, and the arrest of Machikanti Rama Krishna Rao and others, the leadership sus-pended the tactic of armed struggle: the remaining squads and cadres were forced to retreat to the forest. As a result, the party had to reorganize the struggle in the forest area of Palvancha, East Illendu, and the whole of Madira taluq, to include a further 200 villages. During June and December 1949 some 20,000 agricultural labourers participated in armed struggles, the outcome of which was a doubling of their wages (Sundaraiah: 1972).

In parts of Khammam and Illendu Taluks, the Communist Party extended itself to the forest areas where the tribal people were exploited by the landlords of the plains and the village authori-ties (patels and patwaris). Forest officials also exploited the labour of these people and did not allow them to collect firewood or other materials without bribes. The traditional leaders, who took bribes from contractors, were used to force the labourers to work for nominal wages. However, the party encountered major difficulties in organizing and educating the people in order to raise aware-ness of their rights. A large number of Koyas and the tribals living in Palvancha and Illendu taluka united and moved into action on a large scale: this led to many victories. The movement also grew among the Chenchu people in the Nallamala forests in the Krishna river forest area and the Gond tribal area in Adilabad. Distribution of landlords’ lands, cattle and paddyfields was also undertaken by the people (Sundaraiah: 1972).

From 1946 to 1970 Adilabad did not witness any large-scale tribal movement, although resist-ance against exploitation continued. Large-scale tribal movements led by Communist groups took place in the Warangal, Khammam and Karimanagar districts of Andhra Pradesh. Land that had been taken away from the tribals was the main focus of attention. In some areas, the Communists were successful in distributing land to the tribals. While this movement did not spread to Adilabad, it offered the Gonds an example to emulate.

Mobilizing the tribals: the 1970s

The process of development since independence has brought about extensive exploitation of natu-ral resources of tribal areas and the decline of traditional activities without any viable alternative, with consequent marginalization and exploitation of cheap labour, thus continuing land alienation. This has created fertile ground for mobilizing the tribal people against both non-tribals and the Indian State. After the Telangana movement a number of left-wing activists – including some well-known leaders such as Venkteswara Rao – took refuge in the forests of Adilabad district where they began to live with the tribals, learning their language and educating them (Kranthi, 1985: 8). In 1978, because of their efforts, the Girijan Ryothu Coolee Sangham was established and by 1980

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was very popular in the area. The formation of this organization led to a sudden, violent outburst of attacks in 1978 on money lenders in Asifabad Taluk, leading to the government declaring it, and adjoining areas, a pippaldhari, binera (villages). The tribals attacked forest guards, merchants and landlords and destroyed standing crops. Large number of bonded labourers, beedi (Beedi is a thin, Indian Cigarette filled with tobacco flake and wrapped in tendu leaf) workers and agricultural workers took part (Kranthi, 1983: 10).

The Sangham adopted a method of political mobilization, which found favour with the tribal population. Plays and cultural performances, in the tribal language, were used to attack the feudal oppression of landlords and moneylenders, who were depicted as being responsible for the poor conditions of the tribals. The ‘Jana Natya Mandali’ troupe toured various villages and spread their message (Kranthi, 1990: 13). Songs which proclaimed that the forests and lands belonged to the tribes were used to bring people into the movement. Due to the police presence in the area meet-ings was often held at night. The activists often received food from villages. Police brutality, land alienation and lack of justice from the government led increasing numbers of tribals to turn to the Sangham as an alternative which would give them protection and improve their lives.

It is this perception of the organization that underpinned its success. The turning point came at Indravelli in 1980 when the police opened fire on a large gathering of tribals demanding prevention of future land alienation and establishment of status on tribal lands. After thirteen tribals were killed the movement gained momentum and resorted to violent action, although initially the tribal leaders attempted to use established administrative channels and submitted petitions to officials, asked the police for help, appealed to the courts, and so on: these proved to be of no avail (Barthamum Udayam: 1990, 20 April).

The second phase: establishment of praja courts

Following the Indravelli incident the tribals, under the guidance of the Sangham, established praja or people’s courts which administered justice to the tribals (Times of India, 1990). These courts consisted of a committee comprising tribals and non-tribals that dealt with land disputes. Often, land was confiscated from rich landowners and given to tribals. The Praja courts frequently speci-fied severe punishments such as the amputation of hands and feet to those found guilty. Many land disputes pending before the courts for many years were hence solved expeditiously. It was this that made the state government pass an Act which advocated that land could not be transferred from tribals to non-tribals (Government of Andhra Pradesh Act: 1970).

The Praja courts also made representations to the government and, in some cases, were success-ful in obtaining written documents in the name of tribals and poor non-tribals. They were also successful with regard to ‘dowry’ payments and harassment of women (Andhra Prabha, 1990b). In a few cases the police also attended these people’s courts. In 1983 nearly 4714 cases of land aliena-tion were registered, covering 33,499 accesses. However, the people’s courts did not succeed in breaking the power of the local landlords who dominated all the local institutes – the courts’ admin-istration, police stations, etc. The landlords also still retained the power to exploit tribals through the local traditional panchayats, which they continued to control (Reddy, 1988: 78).

The third phase: the movement turns violent

By the end of the 1970s the movement became far more organized and violent as students and workers also took action against feudal landlords and the local police. Collectively, they refused to pay land revenue – for instance, in Asigabad Taluk. At the same time, the labourers also went on strike, demanding better wages. On 18 April 1981 the first conference of the Girijan Ryothu Coolee

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Sangham was held at Indravelli. The police attempted to stop the gathering and 13 people were killed (Kranthi, 1978: 19). The government of Andhra Pradesh declared the district a ‘disturbed area’. The tribals began to occupy and clean the forests in Bodh Taluk which, they pointed out, had previously been cultivated by tribals (Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberty Committee: 1984, 01 April). They also raided the houses of rich landlords and confiscated valuables which were then handed over to the people’s courts. A conference, attended by 3000 people, was organized against govern-ment policies and it attempted to gain control over land for which they held ‘Pattas’ but which were under control of the landlord. Violence against forest guards and occupation of forest areas contin-ued throughout this period, often leading to armed conflict. In March 1984, tribals occupied 300 acres of land, demanding proper compensation for land lost to the irrigation project on the Sathanla River. They were awarded very low rates of compensation (Scheduled Castes Commission and Scheduled Tribes Commission, 1983–1984).

A second tribal conference was organized on Martyr’s Day in 1985, at Indravelli. Initially the Telugu Desam government granted permission, but later imposed a curfew to prevent the confer-ence taking place (Balgopal, 1989: 2587–2591). Prominent Sangham leaders were arrested and all bus routes and roads were closed. However, the conference did take place, albeit on a smaller scale than planned.

The situation was aggravated in Adilabad during 1988 because of famine. This led to migration of families to Karimnagar and Nizamabad seeking employment. However there were few jobs available in urban areas. There were reports of deaths due to hunger and large-scale migration as the famine worsened in Uttnoor and Wankadi Taluks. The famine reduced many to existing on a diet of wild roots and flowers; and there were raids by tribals on the houses, shops, and granaries of the Saukars, resulting in many areas in grain being confiscated. In 1988 in Pemi town in Akhanapur Taluk, more than 250 girijans participated in an armed raid (Kranthi, 01 November 1981).

III

The true condition of the tribal people after independence

Let us now consider the welfare of the tribal people after independence, for which both the Indian government and the state government enacted several Acts. However, in a number of cases the landlords were able to sustain their power over their land because of loopholes in the legislation. According to Haimendorf, the non-tribal people who had migrated from the delta areas of the coastal districts encouraged the tribal people to drink, to the extent of alcohol addiction, and con-spired to occupy their land. Acts, Amendments, and Regulations which were made for the welfare of the tribal people were of little practical help (Haimendorf, 1982).

The Land Act was enacted in 1956. Even after the formation of Andhra Pradesh State, the Act was in existence for seven years until it was abolished in 1963. In 1970, the government of Andhra Pradesh made some amendments by eliminating the loopholes in the 1963 Land Act. This led to the 1970 (1) Regulation Act being introduced, but indirectly this helped the landlords instead.

It can therefore be asserted that there is large-scale alienation of lands belonging to the sched-uled tribes. The Polvaram irrigation project is likely to displace about 1, 20,000 people. It appears that the government is not really interested in the welfare of the tribals (Reddy, 2006:1431).

By considering the stark reality of the situation, social scientists and both state and central gov-ernments have to ask themselves whether the Regulations and Acts introduced for the welfare of the tribal people are being properly implemented, or not. By studying the hamlets, we can estimate the success of the tribal welfare and development programmes. The tribal people are suffering:

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their basic needs are not being met and tribal girls are being sold like commodities. Thousands of tribal people are suffering from epidemic diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and AIDS and the effects of malnutrition, and so on. Others are taking advantage of their precarious condition because the tribals are seemingly unaware of their own rights. We must ask: is there not a need for the members of the tribal community to be conscious of their pitiful conditions and raise their voices; to fight for their own rights?

Conclusion

In post-independence India, both the central and state governments have undoubtedly attempted to improve the conditions of the tribal population. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minster of India, under the influence of Verrier Elwin and Haimendorf, devised a strategy whereby the tribal popula-tion could experience economic progress but not face large-scale cultural disruption and disloca-tion. However, this proved to be very difficult toimplement and it was abandoned in the 1960s. Since then, the policy regarding the tribal population in Andhra Pradesh has been aimed at provid-ing special area schemes under the control of special agencies such as the Integrated Tribal Development Agency; and the provisions of a subordinate plan. The government has also attempted both to distribute cultivable land to tribals and prevent land alienation in tribal areas.

As this study has shown, the government has not succeeded on all these counts. The policies devised, with their poor implementation, have been largely ineffective, leading to the alienation of fertile land and forests. Disruption of the tribal pattern of life, especially the agricultural economy, as well as exploitation by outsiders, has caused social alienation which has rendered the tribals susceptible to mobilization of the land and forests. This is a historical process which began in the colonial period when the area was part of the Nizam’s dominion: the introduction of private prop-erty disrupted the earlier system. A nexus of feudal landlords, moneylenders and the traders/Shahukar developed which was instrumental in causing indebtedness. The existence of corrupt partners was the main factor underlying the transfer of land from tribals to non-tribals, in spite of attempts by Nizam to halt the process. This was the immediate cause of the movement in the 1940s in Telangana.

In the post-independence period, the establishment of wood-based industries such as paper, tim-ber and furniture manufacture has resulted in this process continuing. The Land Regulation Acts passed by the Andhra Pradesh government could not halt the process. Moreover, while the state government hand has banned the felling of forests, it has also granted licenses to a large number of wood-based industries in and around Telangana which will involve the felling of trees. Large sec-tions of the tribal population have been reduced to the status of agricultural and industrial labourers on land they once owned. The link between loss of land and the tribal movements is made clear by the fact that the main target of the 1980s movement was reacquisition of lands which the tribals believed had been previously under their control. The introduction since the 1960s of commercial cash crops such as cotton has increased cash values and made the land attractive to landlords. Indebted tribals are often forced to cultivate cash crops in order to pay rents or repay loans. As a result, less space is then devoted to food grains, which instead are often purchased at high cost in the market.

Lack of proper land surveying and settlement, systemized land administration (which was clearly intended for the promotion of various class interests), passing of regulations contradictory in nature, lack of sympathy and anti-tribal bias among the non-tribal officials, the negative role of the revenue officials, judicial delays and cumbersome and complicated procedures are but a few of the legal and administrative lacunae. As a result the legal processes have to operate in accordance with this inheritance of fraud and are, inevitably, unhelpful to those for whom they were intended.

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This is the end product of this situation and represents a psychological chasm between tribals and non-tribals.

The tribal leaders always tried to raise their problems, but this fact has not been given proper attention anywhere – even in the Telengana Movement, an upper caste movement with no proper representation of the tribals. Because there is no proper representation, the demands of the tribals have been undermined. Tribal leaders are neither positively nor negatively inclined towards inte-gration or break-up of Andhra Pradesh because they think that whatever happens the same exploi-tation will continue and conditions will stay the same. They have not been given proper assurances from the mainstream leaders of the Telengana movement that their basic problems – such as land alienation and the Polavaram project – will be solved after the formation of Telangana state. Tribal leaders state that the tribal people will support Telangana only if they will receive support regard-ing the Polavaram project. To emphasize their problem, the tribal leaders have met many Members of Parliament (MPs): the tribal MP from Odisha, Shri Bhakta Charan Das, has also raised the issue in Parliament, but did not get any support – not even from Telangana MPs.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Terminology (selected)

AIDS: Acquired Immuno Deficiency SyndromeDeshmukhs and Deshpandeys: in Telengana, the the majority of the Deshmukhs and Deshpandeys were ini-tially tax collectors in Nizam Khalsa or Diwani areas, and during the Salar Jungs Diwanship (Prime Minister). They were granted ‘vatans’ (annuities) based on the percentage of the past collections.Girijan Ryothu Coolee Sangham: an official landless labour organization of the CPI (ML) led by Chandra Pulla Reddy. Each village had its own village communities to solve problems.Gond: tribal group.Kondareddis : tribal group.Koyas: tribal group.Muttadars: responsible to the government for maintaining law and order in a group of villages.Pattadars: registered land owners.Patwari: revenue collector.Ryot: peasant.Sangham: association.Talukdar: official head of Mandal/ Block, as the administrative power.Taluks: Mandal/ Block.The Jagir: a free grant of area or more villages from the ruler of the state to the grantholder as a reward for conspicuous service, either military or otherwise.

Notes

1. Nizam of Hyderabad was a former monarch of Hyderabad State.2. The area which was occupied by the Scheduled Tribes may be declared a Scheduled Area by the

Government of India, according to Article 244.3. Land alienation is reported (1975), the study team of the Union Home Ministry, Government of India,

New Delhi.4. It is reported in several studies that the revenue officials have generally colluded with the landed interests

in the matter of the manipulation of land records according to the progress report of the Special Deputy collector of Tribal Welfare, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Gazette 1972–1980.

5. Ms Refers to the Government Order Number.

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6. Data are analysed as round figure for the manuscripts.7. Naxalite is the generic term used to refer to various Communist guerrilla groups in India, mostly under

the influence of the CPI–Maoist Party.

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Author biography

Ramdas Rupavath is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. His areas of specialization include Tribal Politics, Land Alienation Indian Political Processes and Comparative Politics in Indigenous Societies. He obtained his MA, MPhi and PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was born in a small South Indian Telangana hamlet in the 1970s and grew up in the 1980s as part of the first generation born in post-colonial Telangana.

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