POLICY MATTERS 2014: REMEMBERING ELINOR OSTROM
18
under different
Government of
India and State
policies and
programmes.
Programmes for
decentralization,
based on a
prescriptive top-
down approach
without
understanding
local social-
cultural
dynamics or
the economic
and ecological
conditions, have
failed to meet
expectations.
Although there
has been a
shift in the policy paradigm towards more
participatory forms of development and
natural resource management since the
1990s, as reflected in the 73rd amendment
of Constitution enabling a greater role for
Panchayati Raj
Institutions, JFM arrangements,
and recent Acts such as Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MGNREGA) and Forest Rights Act, several
challenges remain in the institutional arena
level in order to realize the potential of this
shift.
The
Supreme Court of India, in a recent
landmark ruling (Jagpal Singh and Others
vs State of Punjab and Others (Civil Appeal
No. 1132/2011 @ SLP (C) No. 3109/2011),
recognized the importance of the commons,
stating that “Since time immemorial there
have been common lands inhering in the
village communities in India…. These public
utility lands in the villages were for centuries
used for the common benefit of the villagers of
the village such as ponds for various purposes
e.g. for their cattle to drink and bathe, for
storing their harvested grain, as grazing
ground for the cattle, threshing floor, maidan
for playing by children, carnivals, circuses,
ramlila, cart stands, water bodies, passages,
cremation ground or graveyards, etc. These
lands stood vested through local laws in the
State, which handed over their management
to Gram Sabhas/Gram Panchayats. They were
generally treated as inalienable in order that
their status as community land be preserved.”
This ruling clearly recognizes the diversity of
Indian commons, a finding supported by Lin
Ostrom’s deep appreciation of institutional
diversity (Ostrom and Nagendra 2011).
Indeed, at a meeting in Delhi in early January,
India’s then Minister of Environment and
Forests, Jairam Ramesh singled out the
most powerful insight that he thought Lin’s
research had to offer Indian policy—that
institutions are diverse, and that institutional
monocultures are to be avoided (Foundation
for Ecological Security 2011).
India has a rich diversity of traditional
and indigenous institutions for commons
management, including Van Panchayats,
gramya
jungles and community forestry. Van
Panchayats
are long standing village forest
institutions in Uttaranchal, with a documented
history of existence over a century, that have
been very successful in the protection and
sustainable management of village forests in
the Kumaon hills. Gramya jungles are village
forest institutions recognized in the state
of Odisha, consisting of village forest areas
managed for communal and developmental
purposes within the village boundary.
Similarly, there are a variety of long standing
indigenous community institutions that have
evolved locally to manage forests in different
parts of the country, such as the Mundari
Khuntkatti
in Chotanagpur, indigenous
Community Forest Management in Odisha and
Maharashtra, sacred groves (Devara Kaadus
and Gunda Thopus) in Karnataka.
In most instances, these indigenous
institutions have been insufficiently
recognized by formal administrative rights,
with national programs largely focused on
approaches such as JFM. For instance, in
parts of the Aravalli hills in north India, an
important ecoregion which harbours highly
biodiverse forests critical for ground water
recharge, forests have been traditionally
protected by local communities through
Ostrom
believed that
in a country
like India,
with a federal
system of
governance,
polycentricity
was critical
for effective
management
of the
commons...
POLICY MATTERS 2014: REMEMBERING ELINOR OSTROM
19
their belief in sacred spirits and yet are
now threatened by urbanization spreading
outwards from the Indian capital, Delhi.
Ostrom believed that in a country like
India, with a federal system of governance,
polycentricity was critical for effective
management of the commons, combining
the greater fiscal and administrative
capacities of the government with the local
knowledge and monitoring capacity of local
communities (Narayanan 2012).
A major challenge for polycentricity in
India is that effective formal and informal
institutions have not been crafted to protect,
develop and manage common lands. For
instance, Joint Forest Management (JFM)
has largely failed in providing access
to non-timber forest products for local
communities. Panchayati Raj Institutions
have, on the whole, shown limited capacity
to manage and develop common lands
and to prioritize MGNREGA and other
developmental funds for restoration and
protection of the commons. At times,
these have also come into conflict with
community-led initiatives. In Orissa, south
Gujarat and south Rajasthan, for instance,
Foundation for Ecological Security (2012)
found that access to forest lands seems
to have improved as a result of informal
claims and contestations with the forest
department, rather than through formal
institutional recognition.
In the Indian context, differences in policies
at the federal (national), state and local
levels are also critical, with land-related
policies strongly influenced by state
interventions. Further, even when state
policies are in place, bridging the gap
between legal policies and field programmes
is critical to achieve actual impact on the
ground. The key, therefore, is to move
from a piecemeal approach towards the
management of natural resources to long-
term policy and programmatic action.
Progress is slowly being made in a number
of states. A collaborative arrangement
between the Rural Development Department
of Government of Andhra Pradesh and NGO
networks has been established in 2009
for strengthening the efforts to conserve,
develop and protect common lands through
community involvement under the National
Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS). The Government of Rajasthan
was the first to formulate state-specific
commons legislation, ‘The Draft Rajasthan
Common Land Policy (2010)’, which it
followed up by developing ‘Operational
Guidelines on the Implementation of Grazing
Land Development under MGNREGA’, both
with the involvement of the Foundation
for Ecological Security. The Supreme Court
of India, as a result of the Jagpal Singh
and Others vs State of Punjab and Others
decisions mentioned previously, directed the
state governments to
draw up schemes to
evict encroachments
on common lands
and restore them
to Panchayats
and Gram Sabhas
(village institutions).
Following the apex
court’s direction,
there have been five
high court orders
either admitting
cases against the
taking over of
village commons
or rescinding such
takeovers. Twenty-
nine judiciary
pronouncements
and twenty-nine
government orders
on commons have
been issued since
the apex court order
last year (Mahapatra
2012). The 12th
Plan of the Planning
Commission of
India has also
recognized the
importance of the
commons, creating
a working group on
‘Natural Resources
Large scale
changes are
needed, whilst
keeping in
mind the
central pillar
of Ostrom’s
vision— self-
governance of
the commons
at a local level
that permits
flexibility,
adaptation and
innovation,
with the
ultimate goal
of ensuring
equitable and
sustainable
access to the
commons for
all citizens.