The extent and nature of individual tribal land alienation in fifth schedule states in India

This is a report on the situation of tribal land alienation in India. Recent literature and public policy debates have focused attention on development- induced land alienation – large tracts of Adivasi land acquired by state or negotiated by private parties, for setting up development projects, with no or very modest returns for Adivasi, individually and collectively, and mostly, adverse after-effects. What has been missed in this, admittedly important debate, is the significant alienation that adivasis suffer across the country due to factors not necessarily directly related to large development projects and acquisitions of land related to those. Adivasi land is alienated also in small trickles, one family at a time, through the actions and inactions of state agents, lawyers, real estate brokers and land-hungry rich, acting in collusion, through individual purchases and acquisitions, mostly illegal and unrecorded, to deprive the often poverty-stricken Adivasis of what is her source, not just of sustenance but also identity and cultural moorings. Indeed, even the stories behind the relatively minuscule number of ‘legal’transactions between Adivasis and non-Adivasis, are in fact, studies in fraud and deceit, with Adivasis being roundly shortchanged at every step. ‘Non-development’induced Adivasi land alienation has been a common, often un-recorded and under-reported phenomenon, for generations.The cumulative scale of these, is equal if not wider, than that of development-induced ones. This report, based on detailed field work in Fifth Schedule states of the country – perhaps the first such, given the scale - is about the causes, the routes and processes of the phenomenon of “non development-induced” Adivasi land alienation, providing an up-to-date picture of the goings-on. The intentions of the study are strongly, policy-relevance.