Commons created through purchase of lands from local ‘Nobility’ by Community

[Nayantara]

The village of Purohitasni near the town of Rian in the district of Nagaur has an interesting story. This is a village that had no common pool resources to speak of. Clearly, the need for common resources was strongly felt. The village members have banded together and purchased land (100 bighas) which they are using as a common. The land is registered in the name of one household of every caste that lives in the village. The choice of land chosen for purchase was also important. It seems that the village had a large tract of land -called Jod- owned by the former Raja of Rian, a principality in the former kingdom of Jodhpur. Jods are patches of land having a large number of trees, shrubs, and bushes and provide pasturage. They were primarily kept for the pasturing of the horses of the local lord, and other animals that he might wish to keep. It may be that as this kind of land became less useful once horses ceased to be kept in any sizable number, the former ruler of Rian was willing to dispose of it. Perhaps the rules of land ceiling may have forced his hand, or he simply saw it as an opportunity to earn some money, we do not really know. The land was purchased by the villagers some 40 years ago, and is now being used for a variety of purposes, all of them communal in function. It has a graveyard and a cremation ground in one part. A large part was donated to the govt to build a school and the remainder is being used as pasture for the village livestock.

[Nayantara]

Some photos

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