While the social suffering germinating from not owning a piece of land haunts scores of Dalit families, even those owning a few acres suffer from several kinds of problems that snatch away their social pride.
Inaccuracies in land records and title deeds, absence of passbooks and land inherited not mutated in the name of actual owners are some of the issues which continue to haunt Dalit families over the decades, revealed a survey done by Rural Development Institute (headquartered in Seattle USA), and the NALSAR University of Law.
A pilot survey done in three villages of Jangaon mandal of Warangal district revealed that every SC/ST family faces at least four to six land problems and they are unable to solve these due to lack of legal awareness, says Sunil Kumar, State Director of Rural Development Institute (RDI).
Among the 413 SC and ST families studied, 217 of them possess one to two acres of land and each face up to six problems. Altogether, more than 1,000 problems have been listed in these three villages itself. “In fact, in entire Telangana more than 10 lakh problems exist with regard to land owned by Dalits and it is a big test for the government that has promised to provide three acres of land each to landless Dalit families,” says Prof. V. Balakista Reddy, Registrar, NALSAR University of Law.
The research revealed that even now people purchase land through ‘sada binama’ (unregistered sale transactions) as they can’t afford high registration fee. Most don’t have passbooks as lands are not mutated, thus they lose several benefits. Dalits continue to be stifled by insecurities and these have to be first driven away, says Mr. Sunil, adding that the situation is more or less the same across the country.
Change was visible in Warangal with Dalit families – with help of RDI and NALSAR, opening a ‘Land Centre’, in the district courts premises in 2013 – to provide free legal advice to the poor on land problems, spreading legal awareness and training various stakeholders working on land matters, including revenue officials, police and journalists. It was inaugurated by L. Narsimha Reddy and V. Easwaraiah, then Judges of A.P. High Court.
