State level discussion on land reforms in Chhattisgarh held

Violation of land rights of marginalized communities

Raipur: People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Chhattisgarh organized a one-day state conference in the state capital Raipur on the issue of land reforms in Chhattisgarh, the violation of land rights of marginalized communities and the communalization of laws protecting those rights. In the tribal dominated state of Chhattisgarh, from North to South, large scale governmental and non-governmental projects are wreaking havoc in Fifth Schedule areas. Tribal communities have been displaced and deprived of their right to live on their traditional lands with dignity and purpose. Dalits in the plains have been deprived of land and property rights for centuries. Government accountability for equitable redistribution of land and land reforms among marginalized communities remains a failure in the eighth decade of our country’s independence. All promises of land reforms post independence, the Ceiling Act and allotment of land to the landless have remained confined to paper alone. Cultural hegemony of Brahminism continues to perpetuate the looting of ancestral lands of tribals, with the slogans of unilateral development as defined and benefitting the corporate-state nexus. In Chhattisgarh, the struggle for land rights continues against the establishment of illegal and widespread military camps on tribal lands, revocation of individual forest rights, illegal demand for De-listing, continuous demolition of urban slums and kiosks etc. In a historic initiative, the conference went beyond the narrowly defined frameworks of land rights which are limited to issues of environment and displacement caused by large companies, and also highlighted several important dimensions of land rights from the perspective of their violation and denial to marginalized communities. This marked a radical and important departure from the usual understanding of land rights.
The meeting began with the address of President of PUCL Chhattisgarh, Degree Prasad Chauhan. He described this conference as very important in the context of PUCL’s action plan. Recently PUCL had investigated and released a detailed report on the cases of communalised atrocities on the Christian community. With the release of this report the situation was brought under control to an extent.