Who owns India’s natural resources - Community or Government?

  S.R.Hiremath(i)

Introduction (ii) 

In November 2009 fifty of us from various parts of India met at Sewagram to share experiences of working with movements of local people, mostly tribal and other poor communities for protection of their natural resources. We also reflected on how best we could work together to deal with the challenges, in the context of the “growth-centric” policies being pursued by State and Central Governments after 1991 and their linkages with global economic forces. These economic policies have unleashed various forces who are rapaciously expropriating our natural resources: jal, jungle, jameen and khaneej (water, forests, land and minerals) at an unprecedented rate, causing the most adverse impact on rural livelihoods, environment, ecology and governance. They are a part of a world-wide strategy of global corporations to gain control over the larger commons from seeds (and what we eat) to traditional knowledge, e.g., the medicinal uses of neem and turmeric.  In most instances the global grab threatens the very survival of the poor and the future of this planet itself. Resisting this corporate colonization will determine what kind of societies we will be: free and egalitarian or enslaved and differentiated.

An important question that came up before us was: who owns (or should own) India’s common property resources: the government, private corporations/individuals or communities?(iii) It is important to look at this fundamental issue in the larger perspective of its close linkages to the issues of governance, inclusive politics and a holistic development approach with a strong ethical foundation.

This seemingly simple but very fundamental question made us delve into our history, the freedom movement and tribal rebellions on the issues of natural resources against the policies of the British. We reviewed the correspondence between Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1945 on their visions of governance and development in independent India, We also discussed (i) protest movements of tribal and other rural communities all over India since the mid-1970s and more so since the New Economic Policy of 1991 which has led to an accelerated assault on our natural resources and (ii) the impact of the ill-gotten money on the electoral process and governance  as exemplified by the loot of mineral wealth by the notorious Reddy brothers in Karnataka.1

These discussions led us to an unequivocal answer that   the community is the real owner of India’s precious natural resources.  We then resolved to observe August 9, 2010 (Quit India Day anniversary) as a “Sankalpa Diwas” to assert the community ownership of local natural resources and also for self-rule through empowerment of Gram Sabhas and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs).2

Genesis of the Problem of Natural Resources Management

The genesis of the problem of natural resource management and their expropriation by powerful forces in the society was succinctly stated in a Statement of Shared Concern in the following words:3

‘Nature can never be managed well unless the people closest to it are involved in its management and a healthy relationship is established between nature, society and culture. Common natural resources were earlier regulated through diverse, decentralized, community control systems. But the state’s policy of converting common property resources into government property resources has put them under the control of centralized bureaucracies, who in turn have put them at the service of the more powerful.

‘The process of state control over natural resources that started with the period of colonialism must be rolled back. Given the changed socio-economic circumstances and greater pressure on natural resources, new community control systems have to be established that are more highly integrated, scientifically sophisticated, equitable and sustainable. This is the biggest challenge.’

The expropriation of the commons had been eloquently described much earlier in 1882 by the well-known social thinker  and activist Jyotiba Phule in his Marathi book, Shetkaryacha Aasud (Cultivator’s Whipcord):
‘In the past the peasants who had small pieces of land and who couldn’t eke out enough from it for their survival used to eat fruits from the nearby forests and used to collect leaves, flowers and dried tree branches and by selling these to others supplemented their income. They also used to maintain a couple of cows or goats and were living happily in their villages depending on the village grazing land. But HMs government’s conspiratorial bureaucracy have used their foreign intelligence and have newly established the great forest department and have incorporated all mountains, hills, valleys along with barren lands, and village common grazing lands in the department, thus making it impossible for the goats of the poor peasants to find even breathing space in the forests.’

The genesis of the problem of environmental degradation thus stems from the alienation of local people from their natural resource base, beginning around 1860, during colonial days, when the British began to ‘reserve’ forests as a source of revenue for the state and for their commercial and industrial needs back home. It led to the  establishment of  the Forest Department in 1864.

This policy adversely affected the close and living relationship between natural resources and the rural people, including tribals, who were critically dependent on them for their survival. While the so-called ‘scientific management’ may have served the strategic needs of the colonizers, it led to the destruction of the forest wealth of the rural people, adversely affecting a wholesome life-support system  and culture on one hand and a great civilization that had established a healthy relationship between nature, culture and society on the other.

Three experiences of people’s movements for protection of common lands (1985-1992), against pollution of the Tungabhadra river (1983-1994) and for the empowerment of Gram Sabhas and PRIs (1999-2009) led us at Samaj Parivartana Samudaya (SPS) to understand the dependence of the rural poor, including tribal communities, on common lands.  They  also gave an opportunity to study historical documents relating to the commons and self-rule issues like the Ashok Mehta Committee Report.  For example, during our struggles we learnt about the significant role of common property resources (CPRs) in the lives  of the rural poor through the comprehensive study of N.S. Jodha.4  This important study describes the significant contribution of CPRs to rural livelihoods and how the poor are worse off due to their privatization, in the following words:

“Common Property Resources (CPRs), though neglected by policy-makers and planners, play a significant role in the life of the rural poor. The paper is part of a larger study on the role of CPRs in farming systems of dry areas of India which attempts to quantify the extent to which the rural poor benefit from CPRs. Based on data from over 80 villages in 21 districts in the dry regions of seven states, the study reveals significant contribution of CPRs towards the employment and income generation for the rural poor, i.e. labour and small farm households. The per household per year income derived from CPRs ranged between Rs 530 and Rs 830 in different areas. This is higher than the income generated by a number of anti-poverty programmes in some areas. The dependence of richer households on CPRs is much lower.

“Despite contributions of CPRs, their area and productivity are declining in all the regions. The area of CPRs has declined by 26-63% during last three decades. Large scale privatization of CPRs has also taken place. Though the privatization of CPRs was done mainly to help the poor, 49-86% of the privatized CPRs have ended up in the hands of the non-poor in different areas. Further, most of the land received by the poor households was given up by them as they lacked complimentary resources to develop and use the newly received lands. Thus, the rural poor collectively lost a significant part of the source of their subsistence through the decline of CPRs. This loss does not seem to be compensated by privatized CPR lands given to (or retained by) them. The situation calls for greater attention to CPRs as a part of the anti-poverty strategy.”

Thousands of protest movements including well-known tribal rebellions from the late 1700s to 1907 led by leaders like Tilka Manjhi, Sidhu Kanhu, Birsa Munda which do not find an important place in history textbooks, were essentially efforts to protect local natural resources. There is a need to inculcate this in younger minds.
The assault on the country’s CPRs like forests, grazing lands, tanks and ponds, however, continued even after Independence with  disastrous consequences. We now have only 11% land under good forest cover. The continued deforestation has led to a siltation of dams, recurrent devastating floods and an overall scarcity of water in dry seasons. It has also led to starvation of people living on forest produce, which is reflected in an increase in the number of deaths, particularly of children in forest areas.

Our national freedom movement succeeded in incorporating into the national agenda the rights of small and marginal farmers (land to the tiller) and industrial workers. However, the greatest challenge that we all face today, is to establish the rights of communities over natural resources.

The challenge of re-establishing, in the present context, community control and management of natural resources like jal, jungle, jameen and khaneej (water, forest, land and minerals) on one hand and self-rule (empowered gram sabhas) on the other, can be achieved by adopting a holistic and multidisciplinary approach that takes us to the core of our notions of ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’. What we need is a second freedom movement to place the issues of people’s control over livelihood resources and ‘self rule’ on the national agenda, a task left unfinished by our earlier freedom movement.

An Emerging National Agenda and Community Control Over The Commons

From Joint to Community Forest Management: The rights of people always emanate from the responsibilities they shoulder. The tribals, fisherfolk and rural poor derive their rights from the responsibilities that they have shouldered over centuries, of protecting biodiversity against heavy odds and utilizing their natural resources in a frugal and sustainable way.

The greatest challenge to us social activists, scientists and others concerned about the future of this country is to put community rights over natural resources on the national agenda.5 As stated earlier in the Statement of Shared Concern, we have to evolve new community control systems that are suitable to the present complex situation.

The National Forest Policy 1988 is an important landmark. It marks a major departure from the earlier commercially oriented policies of 1894 and 1952. Its implementation, however, requires a radical change from bureaucratic forest management practices established by the British in 1860, a mentality which still dominates the mindsets of foresters.6 For instance, the experience of the implementation of Joint Forest Management since June 1, 1990 clearly points to an urgent need to move from Joint Forest Management (JFM) to Community Forest Management (CFM).

Combating International Economic Forces: The policies and programmes pursued after Independence in 1947 have only benefited a small segment of the society. Simultaneously vast sections of people, especially those who are dependent on natural resources and an increasing number of slum dwellers in the urban areas, have been further impoverished. The natural resource base has been further eroded with increasing deforestation, privatization of the commons and drying up of rivers through the stranglehold of powerful forces both Indian and foreign, who are exploiting them in an unsustainable way.

There is a continuing and ever increasing migration of tribals and rural poor who have often been evicted more than once from their homes. This has been done in the name of ‘development’, ‘scientific management’ of forests and the creation of protected areas (national parks and sanctuaries).

The forces of pseudo-progress which entered this country in the form of the East India Company are again at work, only in a more concerted way than ever before, to colonize Third World countries. Instruments like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank are being fine-tuned to achieve the goal. These institutions are jealously protecting the dominant paradigm of development as evident from the following paragraphs.

‘At the World Bank, the high church of development economics, a widening schism over how to fight poverty is sending ripples around the world. Ravi Kanbur, a top Cornell economist and the man hired by the Bank to oversee the writing of its World Development Report, resigned in anger recently when he was ordered to rewrite his staff’s draft. The report is extremely influential among economists, and Mr. Kanbur’s version questioned how well developing countries adapt to capitalism. In fact, it questioned whether the West’s standard prescription for reform does enough to help the poor.’7 

‘The tussle about what the WDR should and should not emphasize demonstrates that there are forces inside and outside the World Bank hostile to even a modest modification of the dominant paradigm on development. The Bank may want to signal that it is turning into a caring organization but, like a leopard and its spots, it cannot change even if it wants to.’8

Powerful forces like the MNCs, in the name of liberalization and globalization, are trying to enslave us with the help of our own elite ruling class. The youth who are being brainwashed into joining the rich through allurements, including messages in the electronic media, need to recall the words of our national poet Rabindranath Tagore delivered at a lecture in China in 1924:

‘We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot drive was progress and that progress was civilization. If we even ventured to ask, "progress towards what and progress for whom," it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculous or oriental to entertain such doubts about the absoluteness of progress. Of late, a voice has come bidding us to take count not only of the scientific perfection of the chariot but of the depth of the ditches lying across its path.’9

Empowerment of Gram Sabhas and PRIs: The concept of self-rule contained in the Panchayati Raj legislation (73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution) and the Bhuria Committee Report (for tribal areas) which was implemented through the enactment of Provisions of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA-96) and the Forest Rights  Act (2006) embodies to an extent the rights of the people over national resources in a broad way. It is essential to strengthen and deepen this process and spread it through empowerment of Gram Sabhas by amending the state Panchayat Raj Acts.10 Further, it is essential that we study tribal history carefully, first to document the true history as it happened and second, to derive inspiration from their protests and heroic struggles. It is also necessary to understand the concept of self-rule as reflected in the actions and writings of persons like Jyotiba Phule, Birsa Munda, M.K. Gandhi, M.N. Roy and J.P. Narayan.

Urgent Need For a Political Movement

Mahamta  Gandhi had clearly stated, ‘Real swarajya will not come by the acquisition of power by the few but by the capacity of the many to resist when power is abused.’

Western civilization and the forces of globalization, liberalization and privatization have concentrated enormous power in a few hands at enormous cost to the vast sections of poor and tribal communities. This power is making the poor poorer and decimating their  wholesome lifestyles and cultures.

In other words, the last man who should occupy the central place in our development paradigm is systematically marginalised and eliminated. The fact that our own democratic governments have since 1947 evicted 1.5 crore rural poor from their homes and habitats in the name of ‘national development’ and that even after 60 years of adoption of the Constitution we do not have a rehabilitation Act is a sad commentary. There is a need to give legal protection to the rural poor by incorporating key features into the land acquisition bill itself. The features of alternate forest, land acquisition and rehabilitation bills proposed by voluntary agencies and activists are unfortunately not being accepted and the interests of the vulnerable communities not protected.11 This neglect has to be protested and fought with non-violent direct action and constructive work to secure people’s rights over natural resources and ‘empowered Gram Sabhas’.12

There is great deal to learn from our own unique freedom struggle. We need to involve broad sections of our people to combat the national and international corporate interests and usher in a humane and holistic development approach based on the “last man”, about whom Gandhiji often reminded us. 
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• Anil Agrawal et al. (ed), State of India’s Environment, 1984-85, Second Citizen’s Report, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1985.
• Sadanand Kanavalli et al., ‘Quest for Justice’, Samaj Parivartana Samudaya (SPS), Dharwad, 1993.
• SPS et al., ‘Whither Common Lands?’, 1989.
• Ramachandra Guha et al., World Environmentalism, A Global History, Oxford University Press, 1997.
• S.R. Hiremath (ed), Forest Lands and Forest Produce as if People Mattered, NCPNR, 1997.
• Charlie Pye Smith, In Search of Wild India, UBS Publisher’s and Distributors, London, U.K., 1993, p p. 177-181.
• S.R. Hiremath, SPS et al (ed), All About Forest Draft Bill and Forest Lands.
• N.C. Saxena et al., Western Ghats Forestry Project, Independent Study of Implementation Experience in Uttar Kannada Circle. May 1997.
• Ajit Bhattacharjea, ‘Moving Mountains’, Deccan Herald, 13 August 1999.
• Ajit Bhattacharjea, ‘Timber Mafia and Supreme Court’, Grassroots, November 1999, Press Institute of India.
• Common Lands, Timber Mafia and Tribal Communities in Bastar Region. Keynote address at the National Workshop on Tribals and Forests, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal (unpublished).
• Paul Kurien, ‘Commercialization of Common Property Resources: Kusnur Satyagraha’, Economic and Political Weekly, 16 January 1988, pp. 73-74.
• Azaadi Se Swarajya, Jan Vikas Andolan, 1996.
• People’s Rights Over Natural Resources – putting it on the national agenda, Jagrut Vani, SPS, March 1996.
• SPS et al., Amended Draft Forest Bill, 1995 (Draft by Voluntary Organizations), 1995.;. SPS et al., The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2000 (Draft by Voluntary Organizations), June 2000.
• State of the World 1989, Worldwatch Institute, Washington D.C., USA (Protecting the Earth) p. 165.
• Lectures and Addresses of Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan Pocket Series.

Footnotes