States: Uttar Pradesh: The Living Dead

They may still be fighting for justice but officially these poor land owners have ceased to exist.

Her face a mass of wrinkles, her bent frame wrapped in a tattered dhoti, 70-year-old Jhulari Devi of Semraha village is a familiar figure in the Azamgarh district collectorate. For the past 17 years, the widow has been on a bizarre mission: to prove that she is alive. Jhulari's ordeal began in 1982 when the chakbandi (Land Records Department) officials declared her dead and transferred her three-bigha (a little over one acre) agricultural plot to her relatives. Since then, she moves in and around the collectorate from morning to evening, trying to get back her land by proving that she's not dead. With no success. In the process, she has lost whatever money and property she had. But still, she returns each morning with renewed hope.

" Will the government or the court compensate me for the indignity i have suffered?"

" Will the government or the court compensate me for the indignity i have suffered?"
Lal Bihari 'Mritak'

CASE HISTORY
The farmer of Ambarpur village lost his land after being declared officially dead in 1976. Over 18 years, he even contested the Lok Sabha polls to prove he was alive. His ordeal ended in 1994 when the high court declared him alive.

Paltan Yadav's nightmare began almost a decade ago. One morning in 1988 as the farmer was tilling his land in Gadaruva village in Azamgarh district, he was suddenly surrounded by his angry cousins. "Paltan to mar gaya hai, tum kaun ho jo kheti kar rahe ho (Paltan is dead, who are you tilling his land)?" they asked. A shocked Paltan rushed to the local chakbandi office only to be told that he had been declared dead in official records and his land had been handed over to his cousins. After running from one government office to another and fighting a futile court battle to prove his identity and get his land back, Paltan gave up the fight in 1994. He renounced the world and became a sadhu.

There are over a dozen such "living dead" in eastern Uttar Pradesh -- the most backward and crime-prone region in the state -- whoare hapless victims of the land mafia. The modus operandi is simple: influential persons in a village bribe some government officials in the chakbandi office and the record officials in gram panchayats to get the victim declared "dead" in government records and then occupy his land. An insensitive and corrupt government machinery and protracted court battles then ensure the person almost never gets the land back. In some cases, the victims actually die in the process of trying to get justice and the land then anyway goes to the usurpers.

The victims of this land racket are mostly widows, the aged and the poor -- cutting across castes and communities. The reasons why such criminal activities thrive in the region are obvious. With the near absence of any industrial activity or self-employment schemes, the people are dependent mainly on land for survival. "In the absence of any job avenues, people in the region often turn to politics or the land mafia. And poor get caught in between," says Anjana Prakash, a social activist fighting for the creation of Poorvanchal, much like Uttaranchal in the north. "The ratio between the population and the total agricultural land in the region is disproportionate. If a family of four persons had one bigha of land 20 years ago, today the family members have swelled to 20 and the land holding is the same," explains G.S. Mishra, director of the Giri Institute of Social and Developmental Studies. The police too, chooses to view the racket in socio-economic terms. Says Sunil Kumar Gupta, SSP, Azamgarh: "When we attend a tehsil divas or thana divas, more than 80 per cent cases are related to land disputes." Chakbandi Commissioner Anees Ansari has no other explanation than to attribute the scandal to population pressure on land. The racket has just given a new twist to the growing number of land disputes in the region. The fallout is that nearly every district in eastern Uttar Pradesh has several such "dead" people.

Lal Bihari, another living dead of Azamgarh district, was lucky to be still alive when he was declared "alive" after nearly 18 years by the court in 1994. In order to occupy his six bighas of agricultural land in Ambarpur village, Lal Bihari's cousins had him declared dead in 1976. He lost is land but that was only part of his troubles. People started calling him a ghost. He was abused, beaten up and chased from the village. Lal Bihari resorted to all sorts of methods to get into official records as a person alive and kicking. He abused a judge, assaulted a district magistrate and threw paper balls in the state Assembly. He even went to the extent of contesting Lok Sabha elections against prominent politicians. His travails finally ended when a high court order declared him "alive". He is alive once again. But such is the extent of his frustration that he has decided not to fight for repossesion of his land.The well-to-do farmer has now been reduced to a petty vendor of saris.

Giving a comic twist to his tragic tale, Lal Bihari has added the suffix "mritak" (dead) to his name and floated a unique "dead men's" organisation, the All India Mritak Association. Lal Bihari, who claims that his association has 1,000 members, has been travelling around eastern Uttar Pradesh to locate others like himself. He plans to demonstrate against the Government's failure to prevent the racket.

The authorities have so far failed to do anything to check the racket. Since the victims are poor and backward, there seems little likelihood of the police making any effort to book the culprits. But despite being dead officially the victims of the racket, like Jhulari Devi, continue to live in hope.