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Anxieties, agendas: Bihar land survey opens Pandora’s box

Oct 25, 2024 04:14 AM IST

Farmers in Bihar face challenges proving land ownership amid a controversial land survey aimed at updating records, sparking disputes and anxiety.

It’s been two months but the lines on Naresh Prasad’s forehead have only got deeper. In August, the 45-year-old farmer started searching for documents to prove ownership over 30 bighas (a bigha is around 0.62 acre) of land in Patna district, but to no avail.

An official interacts with villagers during the land survey in Bihar on Thursday. (HT Photo) PREMIUM
An official interacts with villagers during the land survey in Bihar on Thursday. (HT Photo)

He has visited the local circle office and the district headquarters four times in this period in search of a rent receipt that will prove his family has paid the government money for the land since 1910-11, when the last land survey in Bihar was conducted. But at every door, he has been turned away with officials saying they didn’t store 100-year-old records.

“If I don’t get records, I fear the government can claim to own the land,” he said.

Also Read | Special land survey in Bihar to be completed by 2025: Official

About 10km away, Shambu Rai is mired in a similar predicament. The 52-year-oldresident of Ramnagar village is searching for a record of his family’s land rights, called khatiyan. “I have visited the Patna district office several times but they say the records are torn. Now, how will I prove my claim on five kathas (a katha is roughly 0.03 acre) of land? My forefathers did a verbal separation of land without any land deed,” he said.

In Lakhisarai district, 132 km away, Shambhu Kumar has a different concern. The 37-year-old has to submit a family tree to claim his land. “In the genealogy chart or Vanshawali, property share of daughters and sisters will have to be mentioned. If I show their share, they may claim it and I will lose land,” he said.

Prasad, Rai and Kumar are only three among tens of thousands of people in Bihar who have trekked to the local revenue office to unearth dusty sheaves of decades-old files this season. The reason –a landmark but controversial land survey ordered by chief minister Nitish Kumar spanning 45,000 villages and 27 million households to be completed by the middle of next year. The exercise has sparked widespread consternation and even some violence – the houses of 34 Dalits were torched in Nawada district last month during one such process – but if successfully concluded, it could become Nitish Kumar’s trump card in assembly polls scheduled late next year.

Digitisation of records

Bihar’s first land survey was done by the British in 1890 and it was last updated in 1911. After independence, Bihar tried updating the records in 1967 and 1980 but the exercises remained inconclusive with work completed only in four districts — Bhojpur, Rohtas, Buxar and Kaimur.

In 2013, Nitish Kumar started a special land survey (SLA) to find a solution to the large number of land dispute cases and identify encroached government land. In the last 11 years, the survey has covered around 5,000 villages, published draft reports of 3,200 villages and finalised records for only 900.

Now, the government plans to massively expand the survey’s remit.

Also Read | Land survey in Bihar’s Kosi region triggers protests

“We have given momentum to the special land survey by covering all 45,000 revenue villages. The work is in the first stage and the measurement of boundaries of land in the villages will be done in the next two months,” said revenue secretary Jai Singh. To complete the survey by mid-2025, the government has deployed over 10,000 survey personnel in addition to revenue officers, he added.

As part of the exercise, the government has held meetings in 41,333 villages, informing residents about the need to have a family genealogy chart called vanshavali to claim property. Officials said they have digitised over 150 million revenue records and are in the process of digitising the remaining 40 million records so that people can get their documents online. A target of completing the exercise by 2025 has been set but experts and government officials feel it will take at least two more years.

Once that is done, land would be measured by surveyors and revenue officials to ascertain the boundary and plot of any land in possession of a holder. “This process will start in the next three months. Right now, we are only accepting the genealogy charts from land holders and supporting documents of their land in possession,” said a revenue officer in Patna, requesting anonymity.

Officials said that the exercise resulted in huge rush at local revenue offices for documents such as actual land record with marking of boundaries, registered sale deed and mutation papers. Many migrants from outside the state are also coming to get their land records corrected.

Practical challenges

Seamless on paper, the process has run into practical challenges on the ground.

The biggest is to prove possession on paper in the absence of proper partition deeds that show how a particular plot of land has been carved up between family members over generations. “My brothers have a share in our ancestral land of a few bighas but they are not coming to the land office to accept on paper what was verbally agreed,” said Virendra Kumar Singh, a land holder in Mokama.

A second challenge is that a large number of documents are written in Kaithi, a script similar to Hindi used during the Mughal and British era to write sale deeds.

“I have hired an old person in a nearby village who can read the script. I am visiting him regularly to understand the contents of the deed, especially the boundaries of the land I own. I have to submit the translated version with the family chart to update the records,” said Vinod Singh of Mokama.

The government has hired trainers to teach the script to land surveyors and other officials.

Poor internet connectivity is a third challenge, one that is hampering uploading and downloading of land records. There are complaints of “incomplete” land documents uploaded. Sanjay Kumar Verma of Sheohar district had to transfer possession of their family land from his grandfather to himself, but said the papers available online were incomplete with no entries of individual land possession. Akhitur Rehman of Darbhanga found that his registered sale deed was not updated and the land was shown in the name of the original owner. “This survey is totally flawed because the records even online are 50-60 years or even 100 years old,” he said.

Sanjay Kumar, a land expert and retired revenue official, said the biggest challenge was matching the records of the old survey of 1910-11 with the present land records. “The biggest challenge is to verify how the land passed from the old owner, be it a tenant in pre-independence times, to the land owner. In joint families, ancestral land has been divided into many branches of the families and sold to outsiders. The records do not show the changes,” he said.

Additional chief secretary, revenue and land reforms department, Deepak Kumar Singh said the department already made it clear that the family tree required no certification and also uploaded a big volume of old land records, which is available for people to procure. “Only 10% of rent receipts (jamabandis) are not updated online. People should have some document to show they own the land. We are trying to sort out the issues such as adequate time to procure documents which people are facing,” he said.

Disputes among families, communities

In some parts of Bihar, frustration is simmering. In the first week of September, angry demonstrations rocked Saran district, with villagers demanding a suspension of the survey. “In Saran, ever since the survey work has started, there is growing discontent among villagers because of discrepancies in land records,” said Awadesh Singh, a resident of Chapra, who holds few bighas of land.

On September 9, two brothers were allegedly shot at Bhojpur district over a property dispute. Kamlesh Rai, 50, died and his brother Manoranjan Rai, 35, sustained gunshot injuries. Police said the cause of the firing was a dispute between the victims and their cousins over property.

On September 19, 34 huts at a Mahadalit village in Nawada district were torched during a dispute over land possession. Police said village strongmen were eyeing large tracts of land currently occupied by Dalits to get it under their name in records. “For that, they needed possession and burnt the hutments of the poor,” said a policeman aware of the developments

Families also say the survey is pitting relatives against each other.

In Patna, Pooja Devi told the police that her father and brother assaulted her when she refused to issue a no-objection letter for the father to claim ownership of the property. The father and son filed a counter complaint, accusing the daughter of cheating. A police officer said several such complaints have been received across the state

And it has stoked old patriarchal feelings.

“We sold large chunks of land in the past 20-30 years to marry my sisters and now they are demanding their share in land. This is not fair,” said Akhitur Rehman, 45, a professional and resident of Darbhanga.

Om Prakash Yadav said that the government had opened a proverbial Pandora’s box. He said the state government should bring a law where married daughters would be not eligible for ancestral property as done in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh through amended revenue code.

“My sisters have long been married and now they are demanding share in the family land, which was to be divided among brothers. We have to show the names of my sisters in the genealogy chart and might have to part away with some land,”Jay Ram Sharma, a businessman from Nawada said.

Nivedita Jha, a social activist based in Patna, feels the inclusion of names of married and unmarried daughters/ sisters in their geneology chart is mandatory as a right given by court.

“But the biggest challenge is family pressure especially from male members on married daughters to give up their claim either voluntarily or by force. This is creating tension in the family and is likely to strain relations. The survey is bound to have its impact on straining family ties in general wherever there is share in ancestral property for women members,” said Jha.

Dr Barna Ganguly, faculty, Bihar Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Patna, said: “When there is provision of giving concession to women in registration of land and also wider representation in government jobs, local bodies, why should they be deprived of ancestral property? It is good, government is insisting on inclusion of women members in the family charts,” Ganguly said.

Mandawi, 44, a home maker and social worker based in Saharsa, said the charts are being prepared in villages without much scrutiny , a reason why there is scope for manipulation. “I have come across many women who are now complaining of being omitted from their family charts. In many, married women are being asked to give an affidavit declaring that they do not want a share in the ancestral property. This is actually coercion,” she said.

Political agendas

The land survey is the second major exercise ordered by Nitish Kumar this term after the landmark caste survey in 2023. And just like the caste survey, this one too has a political motive.

The 2023 caste survey showed there are 9.4 million families categorised as poor and earning less than 72,000 per annum; a revenue department survey in 2014 estimated 24,000 landless households in Bihar.

Now, speculation is rife that the ruling Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance might announce a scheme to distribute government land to landless families and poor.

Ashok Kumar Sinha, a senior BJP leader, said that one of the motives of the state government is to identify spare land so that it could be distributed among the landless. “Over 60% of crime in Bihar is because of land disputes and ownership rights. A big chunk of land is encroached. Of course, the survey would help identify the actual owner of land and get an idea of what volume is land is vacant,” Sinha said.

Neeraj Kumar, MLC and JD(U) spokesperson, said the perception that government is conducting the survey to give land to landless is “wrong” as the exercise is to update land records so that disputes could be lessened. “How can government take somebody’s land? The survey is to bring in land reforms and make records more transparent so that disputes are lessened,” Kumar said.

“CM Kumar may be eyeing a big ticket promise for landless people in Bihar before the next assembly polls in a bid to increase his popularity among the poor and weaker sections,” former principal of Patna College, Nawal Kishore Choudhary, said.

Once the survey is completed, the government will have a fair idea of how much land it has and can distribute it.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has not opposed the survey. Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has only demanded that the government make the survey simpler and help people get all land-related papers on time.

Political observers say the Opposition has not criticised the government on the survey despite complaints because they do not want to antagonise the weaker sections and poorer classes.

“The land survey may have angered a section of upper castes but it is connecting well with the rural masses mainly from the backward sections, who are largely marginal or small farmers and migrants having small land holdings or totally landless,” said Rakesh Tiwary, a Patna-based poll observer.

Minister for revenue and land reforms Dilip Kumar Jaiswal said all pending applications for getting land documents online will be addressed within next three months while additional revenue officers will be posted in such circles where applications for mutation and correction of entries is high. “Around 85% of people holding land have their papers in order. There are only 15 % of people who are finding it difficult to get the papers. We will give them adequate time to submit the papers,” the minister said.

Anxiety has gripped millions of land holders in the state as they have to get the papers in order.

“I have never seen my ancestral land in Rajgir and only heard about it. Now, I am running from pillar to post to dig out old records. This is an onerous task as we cannot just bring back my ancestors to find out about the ownership. My great grandfather died 100 years back. The survey is like digging an old grave,” said Prasad.

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