‘Shamlat’ lands hold key to Dalit empowerment; alleviation of rural poverty in Punjab

‘Shamlat’ lands hold key to Dalit empowerment; alleviation of rural poverty in Punjab

Subject: Polity

Village common land:

• The concept of village common land dates back centuries in rural Indian tradition.
• The Supreme Court of India in its landmark judgement, Jagpal Singh & Ors v/s State of Punjab & Ors (2011) defined these lands as:
  • Since time immemorial, there have been common lands among the village communities of India, variously called Gram Sabha land, Gram Panchayat land (in many north Indian states), shamlat deh (in Punjab), mandaveli and poramboke land (in south India), Kalam, Maidan, etc, depending on the nature of the user.
• These public utility lands in the villages were, for centuries, used for the common benefit of the residents of the village.
• These lands stood vested through local laws in the State, which handed over their management to Gram Sabhas / Gram Panchayats.
• They were generally treated as inalienable in order that their status as community land be preserved.

Amendments:

• Village common lands have assumed even greater significance since the replacement of the erstwhile arbitrary legislation of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR).
• The LARR makes it compulsory to undertake prior social impact assessment before the acquisition, which entails the consent of 70 per cent of affected families in public-private partnership projects and 80 per cent in case of private projects.

Division of village common land:

• The village common land is divided into cultivable and non-cultivable land.
  • The non-cultivable land is used for fulfilling the community needs of the village and most of its schools, dispensaries and ponds are built on this land.
  • The cultivable land is leased out through auction on a yearly basis to those residents of the village who seek to practice agriculture on it.

Shamlat in Punjab:

• Shamlat is a village common land in the Punjab region.
• The village common land or shamlat  holds high importance for Dalits of the Punjab region because they own only 3.5 per cent of the state’s total land.
• Almost 73.33 per cent of the Dalit population in the state resides in its villages, is largely landless and faces housing shortages as well.
• Dalits comprise 31.94 per cent of Punjab’s total population.
• According to an RTI response, there are an estimated 170,000 acres of land falling under the definition of common land or shamlat in Punjab.

The Governing Statutes for shamlat in Punjab are:

• The Punjab Village Common Land (Regulation) Act, 1961.
• The Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Rules, 1964.

Rules regarding the village common land (Shamlat) in Punjab:

• Rule-6 of the Punjab Village Common Land (Regulation) Rules,1964 states that “one-third of the cultivable land proposed to be leased, shall be reserved for members of the Scheduled Castes only”.
• Rule 3 (xvi) lays down that village common land may be leased out, for purposes of housing, to families having insufficient accommodation.
• Rule 13-A provides that a Panchayat may, with the previous approval of the government, give land in shamlat deh free of cost to a landless worker residing in the Sabha Area for the construction of a house for his residence.
• Despite these empowering provisions, the majority of SC citizens in rural Punjab continue to be deprived of this shamlat land owing to social dynamics and a lack of political will.

Historical background of land ownership in the Punjab region:

• Absentee landlordism was a significant feature of land holdings during the Mughal and British periods in Indian history.
• In Punjab around 1710, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur led a historic campaign for the abolition of the Zamindari system and conferred the ownership rights on actual tillers of the land.
  • The status of these land-owning castes, especially the Jatt Sikhs, was further consolidated upon the formation of the 12 Sikh Misls (the Sikh Confederacy) and subsequently during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s reign over areas situated to the north of the Sutlej or trans-Sutlej (mainly Majha and Doaba).
• British dominance over Sikh rulers in Malwa led to a strong prevalence of the Zamindari system in the region, especially the erstwhile PEPSU (Patiala and East Punjab States Union).
• The land ownership was primarily vested in a handful of Zamindar families whose estates ran into thousands of acres tilled by tenants or peasants referred to as Muzaras locally.
  • These Zamindars as well as the Muzaras belonged to similar agrarian caste groups but were separated in their social standing on the basis of land ownership.
• Post Independence (during the 1950s), the Malwa region of Punjab witnessed the famous PEPSU Muzara movement wherein the rallying cry was “The land belongs to the tiller”.
• The movement was a big success and the surplus land freed from erstwhile Zamindars was redistributed amongst the Muzaras or crop tenants.
• The primary legislations governing the redistribution of land to its actual tillers were the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972 and the Punjab Utilization of Surplus Area Scheme, 1973.
• Land Reforms Act, 1972 replaced the previous land governing laws and acts.