One of the questions we have been asked is whether Civil Society has a mediation role between MGNREGA workers and the State Government to help enforce these rights.
In this post we respond with a resounding YES, CIVIL SOCIETY DOES HAVE A MEDIATION ROLE BETWEEN RURAL WORKERS AND THE STATE GOVERNMENT TO HELP ENFORCE THESE RIGHTS!
In 1983 when YIP started land struggles under various land reform acts, our investigations revealed that there were thousands of acres of Government, shotriamdar, or lands declared surplus under land ceiling that were being cultivated by landless families, but were registered under the names of the bigger landowners and their friends and relatives. The land reform Act that made cultivators into owners of land had been legislated years earlier but the poor had not been able to enforce the rights given by the acts.
Why not? Because:
A. They did not know the act and therefore did not know what to do to enforce their rights.
B. They were not organised to challenge the landowners on whose names the lands were registered.
C. They did not have the confidence to talk with the Government officials. The situation remained unchanged until YIP intervened in 1983.
The reason why YIP intervened was because many landless peasants approached us as they were not able to get bank loans against their lands. When we asked them why, they answered that though they were the cultivators, the owners were rich landowners and their friends, and therefore being non-owners they did not have the right to mortgage their lands to the bank in order to get loans.
The very first struggle we took up was for 1500 acres of Government land being cultivated by 600 poor families from 5 villages that had been illegally registered on the names of well-off non-cultivators. We organised the families into five village unions, informed them about their rights and guided them to start their struggle. It took 7 years to get all the 600 families their land title deeds for a total of 1,500 acres. Once they received their ownership documents our involvement with them ended, but in the meantime our cadres were already involved in other land struggles.
Between 1983 and 2000 we helped 42,000 landless families to receive ownership titles to 79,000 acres. These struggles were against the landlords and the local Government officials, but we had the support of the senior IAS officers who were pro–poor. Had YIP not intervened 42,000 families would not have gotten ownership of the lands they were cultivating.
While we were taking up land struggles we also started struggles on bonded labour and house sites given by the Government to be registered on the names of women. By 1985 we were working in two districts and by 1990 in 6 districts. We spread our rights movement to all our working districts. Between 1985 and 2000 YIP workers identified and assisted 540 bonded labourers to be released from the clutches of landowners, and 100,000 women agricultural labourers received house sites on their names.
In each case after the struggle was successful YIP cadres withdrew and started assisting other households to take up their rights struggles. In the Indian rural context, without the mediation of civil society, enforcement of the rights of the poor, by the poor cannot happen.
