In Guna: Bhoodan land that no one owns

“On October 29 Galsingh complained against the Banjaras in the village for encroaching upon the 33 acres of agricultural land allotted to us, Bhilalas, under the Bhoodan [land-gift] scheme. They had started occupying it by erecting huts on it. The complaint made the Banjaras angry and two days later they assaulted Galsingh brutally. He was gravely injured in the attack and was taken to a hospital in Indore – where he died a month later. We complained to the administration more than once but because of the influence of the powerful people in the village and political pressure nothing happened.” Kallu Bhilala recalls the 2024 violent conflict between two communities in Guna’s Panehti village over a piece of land that neither seemed to own. He was also one of those who was injured in the incident.

Following the news of Galsingh's demise, violent altercations broke out between the Bhilala Adivasis and the Banjara community. This resulted in 10 Banjara homes being set on fire. Several families from both communities were left homeless. Scores of people fled the village out of fear and were forced to spend freezing nights under the open sky.

“Our ancestors were given Bhoodan pattas,” Galsingh Bhilala, 46, had told this reporter when we met him in early 2024. “They settled here some 50-55 years ago. Today these pattas are known as bhoo swamitva patta [land ownership deeds]. But after so many years we have failed to get true ownership of the land. It is a burning issue for all the Bhil, Bhilala [a subgroup of Bhils] and Sahariya Adivasis of this area. There are many Adivasis in this Bamori tehsil whose farms are occupied by the dabang [landlords from the dominant community].”

“A number of Bhoodan pattas falls under the village khasra [land parcel number],” he had explained then, “and others have encroached upon them. Patwari, tehsildar, none have been able to demarcate the land for us till date.” In the absence of revenue officers completing the process, communities are in constant conflict. Galsingh had explained this months before one such event cost him his own life.

The major issue in all such conflicts is a simmering, highly complex, land conflict and a multilayered mess. The one that has pitted Adivasis against other Adivasis in the area, and has led them into conflicts with not so well off Other Backward Classes, dominant community landowners, forest officials, and politicians.

This reporter has seen many of these conflicts around Adivasi land since 2022 when he started documenting them. Rampyari of Dhanoriya village in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna was burnt alive that year in her own field by dominant-caste landlords. That too after she had won a 20-year-long legal battle for the right over her land. Violent conflicts like these over land rights predate her death and are raging even today.

History leads us to a decade-long movement initiated by Vinoba Bhave in 1951. Where the Gandhian social reformer made a moral call to big landowners in the country to voluntarily donate part of their holding for redistribution among the landless.

Almost 4.4 million acres of land that was pledged under the movement remained as a land bank, to be controlled and re-distributed by the government through the Bhoodan Act. According to the 2017 Land Records Reforms Commission, Madhya Pradesh had 82,780 acres of Bhoodan land from which 52,633 acres were distributed. A majority of the undistributed 23,475 acres remain in Morena, Shivpuri and Guna districts.

“It was 1973-74. Many Bhilala families having migrated from Dhar had settled in Guna. It was a time when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. It was on their behest that we had come here,” says 70-year-old Mandya Bhilala. In their native villages of Kairva, and Kuwad in Dhar district farming was sparse and the land was barren.

“With not much work, we lived in the fear of starvation. That is why we migrated and settled here. First we were in Karamda village.” Mandya was 22 when he came to Guna. “I got married in this village. Me, my in-laws, my relatives, we all had migrated to this place. We used to work as labourers and back then our wage was 1.5 rupees and 8 annas worth of jowar [great millet]. We sustained on that. Wheat used to cost 12 annas,” he says.

In the absence of wage-work they relied on the forest, collecting puar (Senna tora), mahua (Madhuca longifolia), or resin. “Whatever we found in the forest, we ate. Villagers didn’t even allow us to drink water from their wells. We were like untouchables.” Mandya speaks khadi (standardised) Hindi with a touch of Nimadi, his mother tongue.

“After two years the tehsildar took 300 rupees and gave us the land in Panehti to live and farm. It was in 1973, in the Indira Gandhi’s time that we got the 8 bigha patta under Bhoodan. We started cultivating. And after two years, during the emergency, it was seized from us,” Mandya says opening an obscure chapter of an otherwise well-known era of history. There is no documentary evidence of government seizure of the Bhoodan land in this period. It could have been a zealous or corrupt government official taking a decision under the Twenty Point Programme introduced during the emergency.

“We were told that the land belongs to the shashan [government] and the shashan has taken it back," says Mandya sitting in the veranda of his mud house. “Later [we were told] some plots went to the Sahariyas [listed as STs in MP] and some to the forest department. After they seized that Bhoodan land, we started clearing some patches in the forest,” he says.

The Bhoodan land once taken was never returned to them. “Then we occupied and cleared out a patch in the forest and started farming on it. It is 50 years now and till date we haven't received any patta for it. The forest department has always objected, they try to stop us from farming. They even prevent us from boring or digging a well." Mandya Bhilala points out that even the Forest Rights Act of 2006 had failed to get them justice.

His younger son Gopal, in his mid-30s, interrupts us, "Here no work gets done without any ‘len den’ [financial transactions]. We have to bribe the forest department for farming, for irrigating our own fields. This time because of lack of irrigation we only got 45 quintals of wheat from the 15 bighas [nearly 4.1 acres] we cultivated. This much land should have easily produced 150 quintals." Gopal is visibly agitated.

“Hum Adivasiyon ko sunne wala koi nahi hai. Sarpanch, sachiv, adhikari, sub hame lootane mein lage hai. Hamari kahin sunvai nahi hoti. Raj neta bhi hamari nahi sunate. [No one to listen to us Adivasis. Sarpanch, secretary, officers, all are busy looting us. No one gets us justice. Even the politicians don't listen to us]. All big leaders keep on changing parties, but where do we Adivasis go? We have no one to look out for us, our rights,” he says.

Many in the community have never received their Bhoodan land, nor have they managed to occupy a patch on the forest land. Prahlad Bhilala, 34, is one of those. His family came to Panehti from Dewas about 40 years ago with his father Mangulal Bhilala. They have survived on wage labour for generations now, sometimes migrating to nearby villages for work.

"We don't have any land; we survive only on sharecropping and manual labour-work. Also, when we are cultivating, we don't get water. Even drinking water is unavailable. The rich and powerful have tubewells. We go to them begging for water, but we are very scared. They verbally abuse us." Prahlad is picking up the remains of his makeshift hut as he speaks to us. Last evening’s storm has ravaged his home completely.

The situation is equally bad for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group of Sahariya Adivasis in Karamda, 8 kilometres from Panehti. “I am 60 years old. Even my father was born in this village. I farm on those 7-8 bighas [1.9 to 2.2 acres] of land that we had cleared. The forest department objects to it. Till date we have not received the forest rights patta,” says Puran Sahariya. He also lost his Bhoodan patta. Doesn’t know where it lies.

“Arre sa'ab, dasiyo baar kalektari mei likh kar aye [Oh sir, several times I have submitted written complaints to the collectorate],” Rakesh Sahariya, 38, interrupts us. He also has the same story. “The officers don’t see our problems as problems. The Bhoodan pattas from the time of our ancestors have not been measured [demarcated] till date. It is the forest department and powerful people who have taken over our land. The government and the administration are not paying any heed to us.”

We are surrounded by people arriving with documents in their hands— some burnt, some torn, ink faded out. Many have brought forest department notices, applications, and other official papers relating to land and leases. Some are holding Bhoodan books in their hands, but they do not know where the land mentioned in the book actually is.

Rakesh shows me the land donation papers of 1975. “Our forefathers have passed away, still we have not got the possession of the land. From the collector to the tehsildar, we have applied to everyone. They merely give assurances of demarcation, but nothing happens. The government should hand over our land to us.”

Standing in the crowd, Kamlesh says, “My land hasn't been demarcated either. We've been suffering for years. We just reapplied for demarcation a few days ago. The patwari and tehsildar make fools out of us. They don't keep their promise. Those who have got the demarcation done have paid the officers. The Bhils, Bhilalas and others are encroaching upon the land of the Sahariyas, living here for decades. This has led to violent disputes among us. If things get properly demarcated once, these conflicts won't happen anymore. People will know where their land is.”

Suraj Sahariya of Guna's Ekta Parishad, working with the Adivasi communities for land rights, says, “Bhil, Bhilala, and largely Sahariya Adivasis from 40-30 villages of Bamori-Fatehgarh tehsil had received Bhoodan pattas. But most of them are left with only patte ki kitaab [patta book]. No one knows for sure where exactly their land is. Even if they are aware, it has been occupied by big people. You had been to the Karamda, where 34 Sahariya Adivasis have pattas, yet they do not own the land. Sometimes their land is found to be under the forest department, and sometimes it is under the yoke of the rich and the powerful.”

In some rare case, as in Paronda village of Guna, five Adivasi families got an order passed in their favour. And they were finally granted the land under Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code on 27 March 2021. But five years down the line they are still waiting for the implementation of the order. Dabangs are occupying their land.

Sooraj Sahariya says, “7,000 vanadhikar pattas are pending across 80 gram panchayats of Bamori. Orders for demarcation of land donated under Bhoodan have been passed several times, even officials have visited, yet the administration continues to bow before the pressure of these powerful people — and the demarcation remains undone.”

Almost every other house has the same story of lost land, empty papers, years of getting caught between the bureaucracy on one hand and the land mafias on the other.

Ramprakash Sharma, an Adivasi activist working in Sheopur and Shivpuri, explains, “The donated land is not supposed to be sold without the collector's permission. However, it is being sold, even when there are countless landless Adivasis in the area. Secondly, the Bhoodan donations haven’t been implemented till date, and the Adivasis are holding onto that hope. While the land donated to the Adivasis through Bhoodan is now occupied by wealthy individuals.”

The local administration is utterly helpless in front of the land mafia, says Ramdutt Tomar of the Ekta Parishad. Even the Revenue Commissioner and Principal Secretary’s letters for demarcation simply get shelved in the tehsil office. Demarcation is supposed to be free for the Adivasis but often they end up paying a lot of money.

Guna's Bamori tehsil has 13 Adivasi sarpanchas, two Janapad (taluka) panchayat members, and one Zila panchayat member. But none of them are able to bring about any change in the lives of 45,000 Sahariya and 43,000 Bhil and Bhilala voters in the constituency.

Even today the forest department prevents Adivasis from sowing in their own fields, and continues to destroy their standing crops. People keep waiting for the patta. The demarcation remains undone. While a new Panehti Dam project gets approved near the village threatening to submerge the forest and revenue lands. The Adivasis now live in fear of being drowned forever. Without demarcation and proper land title, this will be a loss without compensation.

This story is originally reported in Hindi.