Almost a month before the outbreak of ethnic strife in Manipur, we had sounded warning bells of a gathering storm in the horizon as Kuki-Chin groups started a vociferous campaign against the strict implementation of forest laws and a persistent drive against poppy cultivation in the hills areas by the state government.
Still some among the Kuki-Chin groups talk about the valley people meddling in the affairs of forests and hills. They say, they are the forest dwellers and they know exactly how to manage the environment and ecological balance. However, we doubt whether they have a love of the land on which they are claiming their rights. However, they slash and burn the hill-sides and plant poppies spoil the fertility of the land with chemical fertilisers.
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In short, they waste the land and its fertility for short-term gains.We earnestly feel that the communities living in the state should be alive to the geo-political reality of ‘Ching-Pat-Turel’ and affinity with hills, lakes and rivers which is very inherent in a shared historical experience through the ages. As we said before, there simply should not be such a thing as ‘ancestral land’ in a composite state like ours and anybody who flags such terms always has an ulterior agenda. They should rather be questioning themselves on what they have done so far for conservation and upkeep of the land or mountains or rivers they are claiming to own.
Land and territory is a dear thing for individuals and groups, even in the animal kingdom. Everyone tries to zealously guard their land and territory. But, any claim has to be backed by proper land records and verifiable documents. Just as the valley people respect the land rights of the people in the hills, the hill people also need to respect the land rights of the valley people, also. It would be considered unwise if the hill dwellers go on claiming every mound and molehill as their ancestral land.
The question of land reforms has always been a problem in the state of Manipur, with certain groups always raising hell over the extension of Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 in the hill areas. Although it is awkward to have separate land laws within the boundaries of a single state we have also been advocating a separate land law for the hills in the interest of hill people.
The lack of land reforms in the hills had always been an obstacle to proper land-use policy and the overall development and welfare of the common people for lack of individual land ownership rights. Certain vested interest groups have created a wrong notion about land reforms and for that matter, land survey. Land survey does not necessarily mean the surveyed land would be taken over by the government. It is basically about determination of the area of land owned by each individual and recording of the land owners’ names and other details.
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The issue of land reforms in the hills had been made very complicated over the years by some powerful lobbies by spicing it with wrong notions of indigenous land rights, an imagined threat perception of the valley people coming to settle in the hills, and of course flavours of sentiment while all the time side-lining the rights of common people in the hills with regard to individual land ownership.
Perhaps, Manipur must be the only state in India which has more than one land-holding system in practice. While the whole of the valley area and some parts in the hill districts are covered by the Manipur Land Revenue & Land Reforms Act 1960, there are two land ownership systems in the hills. In the Kuki areas, all of the village land is owned by the chief and the villagers are his tenants living under his patronage, who are given temporary rights for tilling the land on the condition that a portion of the produce should be given to the chief, the landowner.
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It is simply because of this factor that new villages keep cropping up in Kuki dominated areas as the brothers of the Chief want a slice of the pie. While there is both community and individual ownership in most of the Naga areas, the ownership is not a part of the state land records system. In the lack of collateral in terms of official individual land ownership, banks are often reluctant to give loans to individuals or infrastructural support to hill-based entrepreneurs, thereby stunting individual growth and development.
Read More: IFP EDITORIAL
