COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sixtieth session
Item 10 of the provisional agenda

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS

Written statement submitted by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a non-governmental organization in general consultative status

Denial of rights to land and livelihood in India

1. Across India laws originally intended to benefit the landless poor are being perverted in favor of corrupt landlords, businessmen and government officials. These laws, enacted after independence, were intended to reduce inequities in land ownership but they have never been properly implemented. Landless people who have in the past years occupied tracts of disused government-owned land are now being evicted. Vast amounts of land under government title are lying fallow while people starve.

2. To illustrate how authorities across India are perverting the original intention of laws and deliberately denying people their rights to food and livelihoods, the Asian Legal Resource Centre this year draws the Commission's attention to the dire situation facing a community of landless tribal people in the state of Maharashtra. Like a number of others, the state government of Maharashtra introduced a 'land ceiling' law in the early 1960s. The Maharashtra Agricultural Land (Ceiling on Holdings) Act (1961) was intended to limit the amount of land any individual may hold, with the purpose to distribute "agricultural lands as best to sub serve common good." Lands in excess of the ceiling would fall under government control and be redistributed to landless farmers. However, little land was successfully redistributed. Landlords in collusion with corrupt officials avoided regulations by partitioning land or transferring it illegally. Furthermore, in Maharashtra the government set up the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation and gave it cultivation rights over the land. Yet the Corporation has never cultivated about 35,000 acres under its control, which have lain fallow for the last four decades. Additionally, the laws are now being re-engineered to favour landowners. A 2001 bill has effectively set aside earlier arrangements for distribution of land to the poor, and is likewise attempting to bypass the constitutional provisions under and for which the original act was set up. This is despite the fact that the landlords were already adequately compensated for excess lands taken by the government.

3. In May 2003 the Supreme Court of India in a right to food litigation issued directions to the government to implement without delay, programmes for the eradication of poverty. Among its directives, the court ordered the government to implement drought relief measures, employment schemes, free food for the poor and to identify people belonging to the 'below poverty line'. However, not only has the Indian government failed to implement the directives, but state governments have now launched a massive drive for evicting tribal people from their land on the pretext of government land preservation or deforestation. Forceful evictions were witnessed in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar & Madhya Pradesh. Without any alternative measures for rehabilitation, these poor people are thrown into the viciousness of urban life and are forced to take up jobs in inhuman conditions.

4. For years, landless tribal people in Maharashtra have been occupying small parcels of government-owed land that was lying fallow and have been involved in confrontations with officials and powerful local interests. Being among the most downtrodden peoples in India, the majority living as semi-bonded labourers, these people have had little hope of success. Lawyers and rights groups representing individual cases in the courts find that they become bogged down in the cumbersome legal system, causing further suffering for the victims. Small groups of squatters are easy prey for the police. They have great difficulty in getting bail after arrest, and are constantly harassed through trivial legal proceedings. The Asian Legal Resource Centre has this year made a separate written statement to the Commission on proposals to reform the Indian legal system.

5. In 1995, one community at Puntamba, Ahmednagar District, set up the Bhumi Hakka Andolan (Land Rights Movement), and began a campaign for their rights in the Bombay High Court, as well as organizing mass occupations of ceiling lands. More recently they started a legal campaign on the grounds that by leaving 35,000 acres of ceiling land fallow, the Farming Corporation is grossly violating the objectives and spirit of the Ceiling on Holdings Act, not to mention the provisions of the Constitution of India under which the Act was constituted. As a 1990 ruling permitted landless encroachers certain rights to stake claims of ownership on vacant government land, the community lodged an application with the Bombay High Court in 2000 for consideration of title over occupied ceiling lands. In 2001, the Court ordered revenue officials to assess the claim, but they have rejected it on technical grounds. The Asian Human Rights Commission has sought intervention in the case from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India, but according to Bhumi Hakka Andolan, staff from the NHRC have come to the area but visited only the police and other officials in order to assess the situation. Under any circumstances, the NHRC has no powers to enforce its decisions arising from investigations, an issue addressed in part in the above-mentioned separate written statement.

6. Despite the fact that legal action is still pending, on 21 July 2003 about one hundred police and security personnel of the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation demolished hundreds of huts and more than a thousand acres of crops belonging to some 200 families, leaving them utterly destitute in pouring rain. "There was absolute peace when the demolition was taking place. Nobody could see or hear the burning in our hearts," wrote one eyewitness. "It's a heart-rending scene to see the young ones lying in the bushes without any cover above them. Only barbarians can do such acts of cruelty to a hapless people." The police action was on the orders of the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation, without notice and despite community leaders showing documents that an appeal over the title was pending. At least one leader was placed under detention without charge for the day. The following month, around one hundred persons went to reoccupy the land and rebuild the huts, again to be attacked by the police and have them demolished. Attempts at hunger strikes in front of government offices have also been quickly broken up.

7. Rights to land and livelihood are intimately connected with the right to food. It is patently obvious that persons lacking the means for a basic daily subsistence will go hungry, and perhaps starve. The newly established Permanent People's Tribunal on the Right to Food and the Rule of Law in Asia has begun its work by pointing to the connections between social inequality, maldistribution of food and water, and malfunctioning legal institutions. To maintain inequality in the distribution of food and water requires state-managed violence. Fear is instilled to deprive people of basic economic rights and retard their capacity to react. Detention, torture and extra-judicial killings are a normal part of police actions in dealing with landless people such as those in Maharashtra, because to deny rights to land, food and other basic resources for survival is to deny the rule of law. The Asian Legal Resource Centre has this year also submitted a separate written statement to the Commission on denial of the right to food in Myanmar, in which the work of the Permanent People's Tribunal is discussed in greater detail. It has likewise submitted a statement on other abuses against indigenous communities in different parts of India.

9. In light of the above, the Asian Legal Resource Centre urges the Commission, and in particular, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to:

a. Investigate the denial of rights to land and livelihood, and hence, the right to food, of tribal people in the state of Maharashtra. In particular, the Commission should make detailed enquiries into the amendments to the Maharashtra Agricultural Land (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, with a view to giving strong recommendations to the Government of India on how the act may in fact be implemented to ensure effective distribution of land in Maharashtra.

b. Urge the Government of India to review its programme for the forceful eviction of indigenous communities from their native lands and take serious steps towards addressing the routine use of violence against indigenous groups, and in particular investigate all reports of atrocities against these communities during the past year.

c. Encourage the Government of India to amend the Human Rights Act to permit the National Human Rights Commission to conduct independent inquiries and provide it with executable authority.

d. Examine ways through which landless communities in India may be provided with resources to direct towards defense of their rights, through the courts and whatever other avenues may be available. The Commission should also use its influence with concerned international agencies and governments to direct their attention towards the plight of landless people in Maharashtra and other parts of India.

Link to document on UN site:
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/%28Symbol%29/E.CN.4.2004.NGO.27.En?Opendocument