Prevention of Transfer of Certain Land Act has become an important tool for Dalits to retrieve land taken away from them by coercion or deception. A note by Jyothi and Raj.

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Kattanahalli

This is a tiny village in Gubbi Taluk of Tumkur District. This incident of land recovery for
Dalits has many lessons for all those who are involved in the endeavors of emancipation of
the poor. The quantum of land recovered is only five acres but the case history dates back
to 1938 from the time of the British and has many interesting features.

The present hero of the saga is Nagaraj to whose father the British government sanctioned
five acres of land in 1938. He was one among the many Dalits who got land from the
Government. However, the caste people managed to allure Kempaiah (father of Nagaraj) to
part with his land. Such allurements are very attractive in situations of utter of poverty and
unattainable needs. Kempaiah agreed to lease the land to a person from the Vokkaliga
community in the year 1955-56. Without the knowledge of Kempaiah this person sold out
the land to a person from the Lingayat community. Both the leasing and the selling are
illegal in this case. Yet it was possible for the caste people to do this easily with the
government people, after the British left. Caste, corruption and immorality walk hand in
hand.

A Dalit Panchayat was formed in this village in 2005 and as soon as Nagaraj heard of the
land rights of Dalits he did not even wait for anyone to take a formal decision about going
to court. He is one of those rare Dalits who dare to do anything with the blind faith that
everything is possible if we dare. On his own he went to the Assistant Commissioner’s court
and filed a case under the PTCL Act. (Prevention of Transfer of Certain Land). This is a
powerful weapon that the Dalit Panchayats are using to recover land for our people.

Things seemed to stop there as Nagaraj did not know how to proceed further and did not
have the means to carry on his battle. It was then that the Dalit Panchayat urged him to go
to Booshakthi Kendra for Dalit Darshana. Now, Booshakthi Kendra is the Dalit Ashram, which
has become the symbol of Dalit pride in Karnataka. On the second Monday of every month
Jyothi and Raj together with the land experts of REDS spend the whole day listening to the
different problems that people bring to their notice. This is called Dalithathva Darshana.
Literally it means Encounter with Dalitism. Hundreds of people come on their own spending
their money for travel. Lunch is given free. Not all of them come with their problems. Some
of them come simply to say a ‘hello’ to Appaji and Ammaji.

Each case is taken one by one and detailed attention is given. As soon as people come the
experts of REDS go through the cases and prepare a short profile of each case with its
merits and demerits so that Jyothi and Raj do not have to spend too much time on each
case.

Nagaraj came to one of the Dalit Darshana in March 2008 and presented his case. It was
immediately taken up for pushing forward. The legal point that Rangaiah (land expert of
REDS) used was that any case filed under the PTCL should be disposed of within two years.
This case has dragged on for more than two years, which is a clear pointer to the fact that
the caste people could not produce enough grounds to argue their case in their favour. The
court was lethargic as the case is that of a Dalit and generally such cases go into deep
slumber even for decades and vanish without anyone noticing it. But not with Dalit
Panchayat being so alive and kicking.

This time around the officers acted fast as they knew that Booshakthi Kendra had taken up
the case. Judgment has been given in favour of Nagaraj to regain the land. Legally the land
has come back to him. It is a long way from 1955 to 2008. Now it is the task of the local
Dalit Panchayat to take possession of the land. Going by the history of REDS it is not at all a
problem for us to take possession of the land.

DYCHE, The Dalit Psyche asserts that self actualization of Dalits is a much faster and
stronger way for Dalit liberation than reflexive actualization. Caste forces need not be our
reference point. Our own strength should become our reference point to become what we
truly are and want to be. Such a process has been set in motion in a powerful way in
Tumkur District and it is achieving results that Dalits in other places still believe to be
impossible. Two hundred years ago if anybody had said that one day American President
would be a black person he would have been stoned to death. But today it is a reality. The
equality of Dalit people will become a reality much sooner than anticipated. All of us need
to strive towards it together with imagination and creativity.

Thank you for writing to us appreciating the release of DYCHE.

Jyothi, Raj and Team REDS