Secure Land Rights Still a Far Cry for Workers, Small Farmers

Working class families across India -- whether they live in rural or urban areas -- lack secure rights to the land they use for housing, agriculture or other forms of livelihood, a new study by researchers working with the Social Research Collective has found. This causes them to face harassment, penalties, and evictions, all of which undermine their economic security. Evictions harm children in particular, leading to generational impacts on poverty.

While such actions are justified as being necessary for environmental protection, infrastructure development or to address encroachment of public property, often these objectives are not achieved. Both the Central and state governments have made efforts to address this problem, but so far these efforts have had limited impact and not reached the majority of affected families.

In two urban sites (Delhi and Dehradun in Uttarakhand), the survey participants of a study faced serious problems around housing - 82% in Dehradun and 66% in Delhi were living on land that was not in their names, mostly on land whose status they did not know or which was government land. Contrary to common impressions, more than half of the families in both cities had paid for the land they were living on, often through a broker in the case of Dehradun.

Out of those living on rent across all four areas, the vast majority had no written agreement. Nearly a third (29%) in Dehradun and a tenth (10%) in Delhi had been threatened with eviction and approximately 6-7% in both cities had actually been evicted.

Similarly, even though most lived in rural or semi-urban areas, the researchers recorded that an astonishing 81% of respondents they surveyed in Tamil Nadu had been threatened with eviction, and 19% had actually been evicted. None of those evicted in Dehradun and 90% in Tamil Nadu said they had received no compensation or alternative places to live, but 60% in Delhi had received an alternative place to live, perhaps because of that city's clear rehabilitation policy.

Moreover, 100% of those evicted in Dehradun said there was no change in the use of the land from which they were evicted, while in Delhi a significant number of respondents said the land was given to builders or companies (as well as roads and infrastructure projects).

This calls into question whether these evictions achieved any public purpose.

Finally, those who were not evicted still often suffered from relatively poor-quality housing -- in a surprising finding, nearly one-fifth in Dehradun said they lacked regular electricity connections. Despite being relatively more secure, the majority of people surveyed in the mountain region of Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand did not have taps within their homes (tap connections, where present, were often outside their homes).

While housing problems were more severe in the cities, rural families faced considerable problems in using the lands they needed for agriculture, kitchen gardens and common purposes (such as firewood).

In Tehri Garhwal, around 12.5% of respondents said they were using land whose owner they did not know, and over 90% used forests or common lands for some purpose. But in Tehri Garhwal no one had any recorded rights to this use, as a result of which 16% had been fined and almost 4% had been detained or arrested for such uses.

In Tamil Nadu around one-fifth of respondents had been threatened with eviction from their agricultural lands too, and more than half used forests or common lands, but only 6% had any form of recognised rights.

Government efforts to address these problems have had limited reach. Except for Tamil Nadu, the vast majority have not applied under housing schemes. In Dehradun, 1.2% said they had paid for benefits from under such schemes but not received any benefits.

According to the study, the Forest Rights Act, which would protect rights to forests and common lands, has barely been implemented in both Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand.

As many as 1,840 working class and small farmer families were surveyed as part of this study across four field sites -- Tehri Garhwal and Dehradun in Uttarakhand; Delhi; and the districts of Ramanathapuram and the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. The survey was carried out in July and August 2024.

The study recommends that rights to those using land for housing, agriculture and so on should be recognised as the preferred option, with guaranteed rehabilitation for anyone whose rights cannot be recognised. It also suggests expansion of low-cost housing schemes, guarantees of statutory rights to housing, working class cooperatives in developing housing, and, finally, treatment of both affordable housing and land rights recognition not as ‘welfare schemes’ but as development interventions, intended to enhance purchasing power and economic security.

Shankar Gopalakrishnan is a researcher and activist based in Dehradun. He is one of the authors of the study cited in the article. The authors of the report are grateful to Smita Gupta for her guidance in designing and interpreting the results of the survey.