Commoning, conservation and mapping in Garo Hills, Northeast India

Abstract

Land arrangements in Garo Hills are rooted in shifting cultivation, historically the dominant mode of farming in the region. Established at a time when land was available in abundance, and political organisation fragmented, practicing shifting cultivation did not favour the permanent occupation of land. Rather, it translated in complex religio-political arrangements, premised on the conditions created by the requirement of humans to cohabit with a broad variety of non-humans. The absorption of these arrangements, the land claims these entailed, and the associated socio-political notions of communal sharing into a colonial era system of land management fundamentally transformed land relationships. Restraining the fluidity that had earlier prevailed, land relationships now gained a permanency that had earlier not existed. This approach to land management included the creation of restricted areas, harbouring valuable hardwood, to which claims were laid by the forest department. In Garo Hills, and to a lesser degree in surrounding Garo inhabited areas, fixing land relationships ‘in place’ resulted in communal land titles to be upheld, but has at the same time enabled the privatisation of land occupation. A shift towards permanent usage, combined with a growing population, has translated in a sharp reduction of premeal forest. Currently, climate change, manifest in a rise of average temperatures as well as draughts and flooding, is creating an incentive for the expansion of forest conservation areas, pitting farmers and conservationists against each other. This results in societal tensions that increasingly find expression in culturalized and politicised contestations over land and forest.