New Delhi: To protest against the Uttarakhand government’s decisions to extend the area of municipalities by issuing a series of notifications for dissolving the gram panchayats in their immediate vicinity, a delegation of residents of the state approached the Union panchayati raj ministry on Saturday. The delegation stated that the move would not only deprive many villages their common gram sabha land but also lead to the exploitation of their resources and turn many of them into solid waste disposal site.
The residents, who had earlier held protests in Uttarakhand under the banner of Gaon Bachao Andolan, also delivered a copy of the letter to Amit Shah, president of BJP, which had formed a government in Uttarakhand in March 2017. They said they had been forced to come to Delhi as their representation to chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat in January – highlighting the problems that would be faced by the villages due to the notifications – did not yield any result.
In their letter to panchayati raj minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the group has stated that the Uttarakhand government had taken to issuing notifications for extensions of the municipal or ‘nagar palika’ areas to increase urbanisation. They said that as it is, most municipalities in the hilly state of Uttarakhand, where about 70% of all land is mountainous, face problems due to high human presence as well as natural calamities as they are mostly located along the rivers.
Over 200 villages brought under municipalities in Uttarakhand
Despite this, they said more than 200 villages in the state have been brought under the municipalities through these notifications.
One of the activists, Mallika, told The Wire that a direct fallout of such change in nomenclature is that use of village land also changes. The residents of the villages lose their control over the common areas or gram panchayat land where they hold various social, religious and cultural events and which are also utilised for the common good of the population. “In Rishikesh, we held a protest earlier as land with a village was marked to be used for garbage disposal,” she said.
But despite protests and demonstrations being organised in large parts of the state, the BJP government has shown no signs of relenting.
Government claimed panchayat land was “transitional area”
Though a large number of petitions were also filed in the Uttarakhand high court by those residents of the gram panchayats who were affected by the government’s decision, the protesters said state government surprisingly submitted before the court its interpretation of Article 243-Q of the constitution declaring that the panchayat land covered under its notifications was “transitional area”.
The protesters said the Uttarakhand government has been using this argument to justify its decision. They charged that the decision to convert panchayat land into transitional area was arbitrary and had been taken without any consultations with the resident. “Due to this, both the culture of the villages and the panchayati raj system has been endangered,” they said.
‘A violation of the constitutional protection to panchayats’
The petition to the Union minister also claimed that no state has a right to declare panchayat land as a transitional area because the 73rd amendment to the constitution had provided a special status to panchayats.
The protesters also stated that the notifications were an attempt by the state government to develop cities at the expense of villages. “If a gram panchayat of its own volition decides to merge its land with a municipal area, only then can a merger be termed just and constitutional,” they said, adding that what has happened in Uttarakhand is that a dictatorial order has been issued under which not only has village land adjacent to urban areas been targeted, but land which is several kilometres away is also sought to be brought under the municipal jurisdiction.
‘An attempt to destroy ‘Dev-sanskriti’ of the Himalayan state’
Referring to how Uttarakhand is not only an environmentally sensitive area but also one which due to its people migrating to other states is struggling to keep its culture intact, the protesters also mentioned in their note that if the government would only treat their villages as resources to bolster its coffers, it would not only destroy the ‘Dev-sanskriti’ but may also lead to more ecological disasters like the flood of June 2013 as most of the new urbanisation would take place close to the rivers and national and state highways.
Unfortunately, they said, lessons have not been learnt from the calamity which had struck the state in 2013 when uncontrolled and unplanned urbanisation had added to the human toll in the floods.
‘Urbanisation move puts a question mark on slogan of gram swaraj or self-rule by villages’
The decision of the Uttarakhand government has also been contested by the protesters on the ground that it defeats the concept of ‘gram swaraj’ or local self-rule by the villages since conversion of panchayat land into “transitional area” would end the existence of panchayats.
Also, they said the thinking that as soon as a village gets some facilities like roads, bank, schools or health facilities, it should be brought under a municipality, would be self-defeating since it would prevent modern development in the rural areas. “It not only goes against the basic values enshrined in our constitution, it also discriminates against the pride of place accorded to the panchayats under it.”
As such, the protesters demanded that the notifications be rescinded immediately to protect the culture, traditions and lifestyle of the people residing in the rural parts of Uttarakhand.
Bench headed by then chief justice K.M. Joseph had set aside single judge ruling to quash notifications
Apart from urging the Centre and the ruling BJP to take back the notifications, the protesters are also planning to move the Supreme Court against a decision of the Uttarakhand high court which had upheld the state government’s decision to expand the municipal areas through the series of notifications. That order of May 22 was passed by a bench of then chief justice K.M. Joseph, who has since been elevated to the apex court, and Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma.
The bench had in its ruling set aside an earlier order of Single Judge Sudhanshu Dhulia, who had in March this year quashed all the notifications stating that “Advocate General S.N. Babulkar has very fairly and generously given a statement before this court that in order to bring the controversy to an end, the state government is prepared to give a “reasonable hearing”, to all the petitioners and in fact to every affected person.”
He had also directed that the state government “give an advertisement in two daily newspapers which have wide circulation in the state of Uttarakhand so that every other affected person may also file objections.” However, the two-judge bench had overturned the quashing of the notification.
Mallika said since the ruling of the bench had restored the notifications, the protesting group would now also move the Supreme Court against it.