Legal and Political Economy of Land Rights in the Scheduled Areas of India

Dr. Namita Wahi, CPR along with other panel members in the technical session "Legal and Political Economy of land Rights in the Scheduled Areas of India"

The session on "Legal and Political Economy of land Rights in the Scheduled Areas of India" was initiated with the presentation by Dr. Namita Wahi and Mr. Ankit Bhatia on the findings of recently concluded study report by Centre for Policy Research that describes the legal and political economy of land rights in areas governed by the Fifth and Sixth Schedule Areas of the constitution.

The report talks about the special constitutional and legal protections for Scheduled Tribe’s living in the scheduled areas of India and the conflicting nature of these protective yet displacing laws and policies. The reports emphasized the issue of under utilization of TSP funds the scheduled areas of India. During the presentation Dr. Wahi raised the question that why the schedule tribe are not benefited from this constitutional rights provided to them. There are lack of coherence between the Central Government and State Governments to work together. In the Tribal majority area the Central Government has a big role to play. In the year 1999 the Central Government created a separate ministry for Scheduled Tribes detaching it from the Ministry of Home Affairs. The larger debate is the question of identity of Scheduled Tribes, because they have seen people with distinctive culture, way of life and geographically isolated from the a mainstream of the society. The development, social and economic indicators are lower as compared to the population. There is a need to bring them up to stand equal with the rest of the society. Land is Central to their identity and their culture. Ankit Bhatia spoke about the contribution of other ministries to Ministry of Tribal Affairs based on the population criteria, which is around 84% of total allocation and the expenditures from these allocations are even less. 

The presentation was followed by a vibrant and dynamic panel discussion with Mr. Ambrish Mehta (Trustee, ARCH Vahini) and Mr. Ravi Rebbapragada (ED, Samata). The panel discussion opened up into a very interesting discussion with the audience among whom there were eminent stakeholders of the sector, such as the Raghav Chandra, Secretary, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes and other who advised the panel to provide implementable suggestions and recommendations for effective implementation of Tribal Sub-Plan and other Tribal development programmes. The discussion leaded to opportunities for future research collaborating various stakeholders.