An account of the impact of restoration projects in common lands

[Yazhini]

On the relationship between the village community, the common lands, and the restoration project on those lands.

Recently we went on field visits to different villages to understand their relationship with commons. It is a relationship with social, economical and cultural dimensions, and the nature of this relationship affects the kind of approach that the villagers took with respect to the restoration activities in the common land. When their relationship with the land was such that they thought that the land never really belonged to them and it is in the whims and fancies of those in power to determine who exactly the common lands belong to, it was a natural conclusion that there can be no restoration activities on the land. One more thing to observe is that at this stage, the restoration activities that were undertaken were through the NREGA scheme, which was indirectly representing the State and thus gains more legitimacy over villagers themselves due to its greater proximity to State power as compared to that of the villagers. Now, the question is whether villagers need greater legitimacy over the common lands of their village and if so, how should that be achieved? When one takes a paternalistic view on the behalf of the State, a highly possible answer would be that the villagers cannot be led to control their common lands as that would not ensure the optimal usage of the land for the greater good of the country. But the thing is, such an argument and other argument in a similar direction can be applied to the idea of democracy itself and a State that is liberal and democratic cannot truly endorse this view without damaging its own legitimacy derived from the ideals of democracy. Now, in a country like India which proclaims itself to be liberal and democratic, this argument is thus squashed. However, the reality of the State having greater legitimacy over the commons as against the villagers still exists and the question of how to give the villagers a more level playing field against the State on the issues of the commons and the kind of rights that they have over the commons. Here, an obvious solution to this issue would be villagers gaining more awareness regarding their rights over the commons and asserting these rights forcefully. We did observe that in those villagers where the villagers were more aware of their rights over the commons with the help of an NGO, the villagers actively planned and undertook restoration activities in those lands. At this point, another question that arises here is whether this dependence on an NGO is truly sustainable for these villages. While an NGO could help a village community in understanding their rights over the commons and in maintaining the commons in a sustainable way, is it really a good idea to depend only on the NGO(s) to spread awareness on the community’s collective rights over the commons. Given the constraints that they naturally have in the course of their operations and the sheer size of this country and the countless villages in it, each of which has some type of relationship over a common land, one cannot help but wonder if there could be a better alternative that effectively reaches the people in need of awareness about their rights and the resources that they may require in asserting their rights.

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