Whose Land, Whose Memory? India’s Rural Protests

In an Indian village in the southern state of Karnataka, a group of men sit under a tin-roof shelter, arguing over a number: 40 acres. That, they say, is the land their families once cultivated before they were driven out decades ago. Today, they have legal recognition for barely two. The rest lies beyond reach—occupied, reclassified, or caught in a dispute that has outlived those who first fought over it. “We are not asking for new land,” Vishnu M., the affected person from Nanjanayakana Halli village about 60 km away from Mysore city, says. “We are asking for what our fathers were farming. But on paper, it is as if we were never there.”

Their story begins in the 1960s, when tensions between lower-caste villagers and a dominant caste group escalated into violence. Families left, some for only a few years, expecting to return. When they did, the land had changed hands. Portions were sold by the upper caste people or transferred informally. Some areas were later settled by Tibetan refugees who arrived in India after the Sino-Indian War, part of a broader state-backed resettlement effort. They built the Dzongkar Choede Monastery on the disputed land. Then, what had once been a local conflict became layered with a transnational aftershock.

Monastery stupa built on disputed village land. Photo: Robert Bociaga

No formal settlement followed. Instead, the dispute stretched across decades, shifting from confrontation to paperwork. Petitions were filed. Cases were submitted, and names appeared in surveys, but then disappeared from records. Committees tasked with reviewing land claims were, villagers say, “not formed.” Access to officials was mediated by intermediaries. For most, there was no rejection—only the absence of a decision.

Across villages in India, similar patterns emerge. Families have cultivated farmlands for decades, having cleared forest edges after oral approval from local authorities which continue to tolerate the practice that sustained generations. Yet in official records, many remain classified as “encroachers,” a designation that carries legal and social consequences. Without formal titles, they cannot access bank loans, crop insurance, or many government welfare schemes. More than that, the label places them outside the system of recognition through which land confers status.

Contested Sphere

The term itself is contested. For the state, it marks unauthorized occupation. For those living on the land, it erases history. “Encroachment” becomes not just a legal category, but a narrative—one that denies continuity and reframes long-term settlement as illegality.

Land disputes are not isolated to a handful of villages but form a systemic feature of India’s rural landscape. They account for roughly two-thirds of all civil cases in the country, contributing to a judicial backlog that exceeds 55 million pending cases. Nationwide, millions of people are affected by unresolved land conflicts spanning millions of hectares, much of it classified as forest or common land.

The economic implications are substantial: projects worth an estimated $140 billion to $200 billion have been stalled due to unclear land ownership and protracted disputes. In this context, the uncertainty faced by Indian farmers and Tibetan refugees in Karnataka reflects a broader pattern in which land remains cultivated but legally insecure, limiting access to credit, state support, and long-term investment.

A farmer crosses fields classified as forest. Photo: Robert Bociaga

Recent government efforts have attempted partial resolution. In 2023, Karnataka renewed initiatives to regularize long-standing occupations. Some families received recognition—often limited to small house sites. In one village, three individuals were granted agricultural land. But the broader claims, particularly those involving larger tracts, remain unresolved.

At the same time, a quieter but notable shift is underway: villagers from remote areas—many from historically marginalised lower-caste communities—are increasingly organizing, traveling to administrative centers, and submitting collective petitions rather than relying on isolated appeals. What was once a fragmented, local struggle is becoming more coordinated and visible, signaling a different India than the one often portrayed in growth narratives—one in which those long excluded from formal systems are beginning to assert their claims more openly, even as the structures they confront remain slow to respond.

Yet, the system they confront remains opaque. Responsibility is fragmented across departments: village councils, revenue offices, forest authorities. Each operates within its own mandate, often deferring to the others. In this fragmentation, decisions stall.

Entrenching Inequality

At a national level, this ambiguity intersects with broader economic ambitions. India’s push for growth—through manufacturing, infrastructure, and agricultural modernization—depends on land that can be clearly identified, allocated, and developed. Where ownership remains contested, these processes slow. Disputes delay projects, deter investment, and create layers of risk that are difficult to quantify but widely felt. As Shubham Chaudhuri, former World Bank country director for India, has noted, unclear land rights continue to act as a “binding constraint” on investment, particularly in sectors that rely heavily on land acquisition.

At the same time, the persistence of these disputes raises deeper questions about governance. The issue is not simply that land conflicts exist, but that many remain unresolved for decades without a final decision. This prolonged uncertainty suggests a form of administrative deferral, where the costs of resolution—legal, political, or social—are avoided by postponement. According to Tushaar Shah of the International Water Management Institute, India’s land governance system is often marked less by outright denial than by “non-decision,” where cases are neither resolved nor closed, but allowed to drift indefinitely.

For those living within this uncertainty, the effects are cumulative. Land is inherited, but so is its ambiguity. Children grow up working fields their families cannot formally claim. Education offers limited escape when the underlying asset—land—remains insecure. Over time, the dispute becomes less about a specific plot and more about the absence of closure. Experts argue, insecure land tenure not only limits economic mobility but entrenches inequality by keeping rural households “outside the formal system of rights and opportunities.”

Villager describing his work in a newly built school where the farming land remains disputed. Photo: Robert Bociaga

Recognizing Memory

Recent reforms suggest the Indian state is attempting to modernize land governance, but with a distinctly forward-looking bias. In Karnataka, amendments have simplified land conversion through self-declaration, introduced time-bound approvals, and expanded access for industrial and renewable energy use, while large-scale digitization programs aim to create tamper-proof land records and reduce administrative discretion.

Yet these efforts focus primarily on facilitating new investment and improving record-keeping rather than resolving long-standing disputes. Regularization schemes remain partial and selective, often limited to small residential plots or specific categories of land use. As a result, while the system is becoming more efficient for future transactions, historical claims—such as those of farmers cultivating land for decades without titles—remain largely untouched, suspended between recognition and exclusion.

Laborers harvesting turmeric in a village near Mysore city. Photo: Robert Bociaga

Memory plays a central role in sustaining these claims. In the absence of documents, history is preserved through narrative—who cleared the land, who left, who returned. These accounts are contested, but they endure. They form the basis of belonging in a system that demands paperwork.

The question, then, is not only who owns the land, but whose memory is recognized as valid. The law privileges written records; communities rely on lived experience. Where the two do not align, disputes persist.

As India continues to position itself as a rising economic power, these unresolved questions remain embedded in its rural landscape. They do not dominate headlines or negotiations, but they shape the conditions under which development unfolds. The protests emerging in villages across Karnataka are not new in origin, but they signal a shift in visibility.

They are a reminder that growth, however rapid, does not erase the past. And that the land on which that growth depends is not only an economic resource, but a repository of histories that have yet to be fully acknowledged.

-Asia Media Centre