Abstract
The literature on legal pluralism highlights the presence of multiple legal systems in a social field as a ‘reality’. Works on forum shopping and shopping forums inform us about the choices that disputants and forums have, in choosing forums and disputes respectively, for a favourable outcome. Drawing from my research on land disputes in the northern part of India, I argue that these legal systems are singularly insufficient to resolve contentious land disputes. Therefore, they should be seen as inadequate parts of a larger legal arena where the plurality of legal systems become a ‘necessity’. This plurality provides an answer to the difficulties faced by state and non-state legal systems in resolving land disputes. This necessity of the plurality of the legal arena in cases of land disputes should be grappled with by comprehending how land is positioned in a complex of social, political, and economic relations. Unless this position of land is grasped and addressed, a solution to land disputes seems difficult to reach. Through an ethnographic study of the accounts of a dispute between two neighbours — Ramvilas Yadav and Sanjay Sav — I show the insufficiency of both the formal legal system of the state and the non-state adjudicating mechanism of the village.
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Notes
For instance, the state becomes a necessary party in all cases of land disputes of a civil nature under the Bihar Land Disputes Resolution Act, 2009; also see Zeya 2016.
A glance at the Land Conflict Watch portal provides a glimpse of the situation. See https://www.landconflictwatch.org/
Land that emerges out of the river when it changes its course comprise a large share of land in Bihar, since a number of rivers and their tributaries flow through the state.
CPI (ML) Liberation has been demanding the redistribution of the diara land among the landless and the poor of the lower castes. They have also been forcibly seizing the land, redistributing among the people and forcing the state to formally recognise their tenancy through tenancy deeds.
Sav is a caste surname referring to a middle caste, also known as Baniya, traditionally small businessmen.
Yadavs are a backward caste, traditionally they have been milkmen.
By panchayati, I mean the meeting of the village council called to resolve the local issues. Since the members of the village council were not fixed in the village, I was conducting my field work, it would not be apt to call the people heading the panchayati as village council. Therefore, throughout the document, I use panchayat to refer to the temporary council that is made for deliberating a particular issue. It should not be confused with the word Panchayat (non-italicised) when it is followed by the word village. Village Panchayat is an administrative unit of the three-tier system of Panchayati Raj where it usually denotes a group of villages headed by Mukhiya who is elected through the Panchayat elections. Sarpanch, apart from other posts, also gets elected through these elections at the Panchayat level.
Agrarian caste, historically landholders who claim to be Brahmins.
Person (officer) who draws a land map after survey and measurement
Directional position of the land, it mentions all the other plots of lands that share the boundaries in all directions.
There was a larger presence of the Party in the village and had significant hold on everyday life and politics of the gram panchayat.
Dictionary translation of the Hindi word samaj is society.
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Zeya, S. Legal Pluralism as a Necessity: The Difficulty of Adjudicating Land Disputes in India. Soc 61, 83–94 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00922-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00922-0