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Mendha, the first village in the country to secure community forest rights (CFR), has sent a legal notice to the district collector to empower the village as a panchayat under the Maharashtra Gramdan Act, 1964, saying that the failure to do so would result in initiation of contempt of court proceedings.
The village, deep inside the forests of Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, comprising around 500 Gond Adivasis, was declared a ‘Gramdan’ village officially on February 21, 2024 by the state government, after years of struggle for self-governance for the protection of its natural resources.
The notification had come after the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, where the matter was being heard, directed the state government to issue a notification under the act in September 2023 and had given a month for the state authorities to complete the process.
But even six months since the state government’s notification, the Gadchiroli district collector has still not empowered the village as an independent panchayat.
The district collector has to do this by separating Mendha from the Lekha Panchayat, of which it was a part till 2023, making changes in the village land records and give Mendha all the rights and benefits of a Gram Panchayat.
“That, through the direction issued by the Hon’ble High Court, was required to be complied within a period of four weeks. However, the State Government took its own time and ultimately on 21/02/2024 issued a Notification under Section 39 of the Maharashtra Gramdan Act, 1964,” the legal notice sent in the last week of July said.
Devaji Tofa, former president of the village and petitioner in the court on behalf of the village, said that any failure on part of the collector would lead to initiation of contempt of court proceedings against the collector.
“Perusal of the notification would reveal that pursuant to the notification, the government has declared that Gram Mandal of village Mendha shall exercise all the powers and discharge all the duties and functions of the Panchayat in relation to Village Mendha (Lekha) and any tax, fee or other sum due to the said panchayat shall be payable to the Gram Mandal,” it said.
Gramdan is an expansion of the Bhoodan Movement started in 1951 by the Gandhian Vinoba Bhave. ‘Bhoodan’ meant redistribution of land from bigger landowners to the landless. Under Gramdan, the entire village will put its land under a common trust.
This way, the land will not be sold outside the village or to one who has not joined Gramdan in the village. But the landowners can continue to cultivate it and reap the benefits.
The movement paved the way for the protection of natural resources by giving equal rights and responsibilities to everyone in the community and empowering communities to move towards self-governance.
Under the Act, at least 75 per cent of landowners in the village should surrender land ownership to the village community for it to be declared as ‘Gramdan’.
Mendha is popular as the first village in India to secure CFR, following the passing of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. Some 80 per cent of the area in the village is covered with dense forest.
The development meant the struggle of Mendha’s residents for self-rule and sovereignty over their forests and land seems to be finally coming to an end.
Today, seven states in India have 3,660 Gramdan villages, the highest being in Odisha (1,309). The states are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
In 2023, Down To Earth travelled to 10 Gramdan villages in Maharashtra and Rajasthan to study the relevance of the Act and found several problems. Many villages wanted to exit from the Act, except Mendha which had been fighting for implementing its ‘Gramdan’ status.
It stood out as a unique case as all villagers in Mendha have surrendered their land. In all other villages, only about 75-80 per cent of landowners had agreed to do so.
The village had fulfilled the conditions of the Act in 2013 and notified the district collector about its decision to implement the Act. The next step included declaring it as an independent Panchayat. This was to be done by the state government’s revenue and Panchayat departments. But it did not happen, following which Mendha moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.