LAND in Bangladesh is owned either by private individuals and entities or by the state. The three most common private tenure types are: common law freehold: exclusive ownership of land for an indefinite period, estimated to apply to 69 per cent of agricultural farmland holdings in 2005; ninety nine-year use rights: government land (khas) distributed to landless families; and leaseholds: the right to use land owned by another for a fixed period, including both cash and share-cropping arrangements.
Government-owned land is managed by various bodies, including the land ministry, which oversees land administration, the settlement of khas land and vested and abandoned property. However, endemic corruption and lengthy procedures have limited the effectiveness of land allocation; and, land-grabbing remains a significant issue.
Land-grabbing occurs when encroachers create false documents and obtain court decrees to confirm their ownership. Influential individuals, especially those belonging to the established political establishment, often collude with land administration, eg the Land Deeds and Records Department, and management departments to forge documents. The distribution of khas land to landless households is also plagued by corruption, with ineligible people often in possession of allocated land.
Land disputes are common, fuelled by the scarcity of land and its critical role in rural and urban livelihood. The most common causes of disputes include the distribution of khas land to ineligible households, the possession of government-allocated land by ineligible people and encroachment by politically powerful individuals on public and private land. These disputes can take anywhere from 15 to 60 years to resolve, making it difficult for all but the wealthy to enforce their land rights through the formal system. Unethical and greedy lawyers, magistrates, members of the judiciary and government officials including the police are known to facilitate illegal activities of land-grabbing syndicates.
Land ownership disputes are a pervasive issue, with an estimated 80 per cent of court cases being related to land ownership.
Criminal syndicates, often supported by influential individuals, target private landowners, especially expatriates living overseas. These syndicates employ various means to illegally acquire land, which include falsified documents, corruption, and violence.
In 2005, my parental property in Khulshi, Chattogram was 鈥榯emporarily鈥� grabbed by a very powerful land-grabbing syndicate that enjoyed the blessings of a powerful politician. For weeks, the police did not want to file a general diary, saying that their 鈥榟ands were tied.鈥� Yes, they were threatened by the assistant private secretary of the politician who worked inside the Prime Minister鈥檚 Office. Only after a high-level plea from a foreign embassy, the local police intervened, inquired and restored our ownership by displacing and arresting some of the intruding criminals. My subsequent inquiry revealed that we were not the only expatriate family that had faced such problems. These examples below illustrate the typical pattern followed by land-grabbing syndicates on private lands:
Power of attorney: Syndicate members often buy the so-called 鈥榩ower of attorney鈥� from the family of a deceased zamindar who had settled in India after the partition of India. For the same parcel of land, multiple power of attorney are common practice with falsified information in the documents to target property for any potential land grab.
Partition suits: Syndicates file 鈥榩artition suits鈥� on behalf of the deceased zamindar鈥檚 family in the court of law where the real owner with rights, title and possession is not a party to the litigation. They obtain favourable court rulings without the knowledge of the real owner to prepare the groundwork for the land grab.
Eviction and re-sale: Before the legal owners could realise that they were victims of a land grab, the land-grabbing syndicate forcibly evicted them (and their tenants) using criminal cadre, the police and local politicians and thugs. They then sell the property to multiple buyers at prices significantly lower than the market price and move onto a new target for a land grab.
It then becomes an uphill battle in the courts of law for the dispossessed genuine owner to repossess the lost property, costing crores of takas.
In what follows, I explore the historical and contemporary factors contributing to these disputes, the legal frameworks in place and the ongoing challenges faced by landowners and the judicial system.
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Historical context
THE roots of many land ownership disputes can be traced back to the partition of India in 1947 when many Hindu landowners before migrating to India sold the same parcels of land to multiple Muslim buyers through baiya dalil, or sale deeds, leading to conflicting claims of ownership. These disputes were further compounded by the abolishment of the zamindari system (1950) and the India-Pakistan war of 1965, after which the government of Pakistan (now Bangladesh) acquired abandoned Hindu property under the Enemy Property Act.
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Legal frameworks and reforms
IT IS important to recall that during the British rule, the agrarian law of Bengal, including today鈥檚 Bangladesh, mainly consisted of the Bengal听permanent settlement听regulations of 1793 and the听Bengal Tenancy Act听1885. The Permanent Settlement Act 1793 led to听tenant exploitation, by zamindars who acted as intermediaries collecting a land revenue from cultivators, economic inequality and agricultural stagnation. It created absentee landlordism and fixed high revenue rates, leading to widespread peasant distress. An overwhelming majority of these exploited peasants were Muslims. At places, under oppressive Hindu zamindars, they were forced to pay taxes for keeping beard, keeping Muslims/Arabic/Persian sounding names, upkeeping Hindu temples and penalised heavily for constructing mosques and slaughtering cows. In this regard, Shaheed Titumir鈥檚 movement (1830-31) is a glaring example of Muslim peasant resistance.
The听Bengal Tenancy Act 1885 recognised rights over land held by various interests, such as landholders, tenure holders and听raiyats (or peasants).听And yet, the exploitation of Muslim peasants continued almost unabated. Sarat Chandra Chatterji鈥檚 鈥楳ahesh鈥� represents a vivid picture of rural Bengal under the colonial set-up as to how the main characters of the story 鈥� a poor Muslim peasant Gafur and his daughter Amina and their only bull Mahesh 貦 were treated by a Hindu zamindar and his bigoted Hindu subjects.
The Muslim League promised to abolish the zamindari system in the 1946 elections.听So, important was the land issue that in that seminal election, the League won all but five seats of the 119 Muslim seats in Bengal, making the emergence of an independent Pakistan a distinct possibility. After Pakistan had become independent in 1947, there was pressure on the Muslim League government to abolish the zamindari system.听
The East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950, which abolished the zamindari system, was passed by the democratic government of East Bengal in the dominion of Pakistan. It was a landmark law that restructured land ownership in East Bengal, now Bangladesh.
The act of 1950 made the government the sole landlord, acquiring all rent-receiving interests and making landholders direct tenants of the government. Under this law,听khatiyan,听or land record receipt, is prepared in the names of respective tenants or raiyats directly under the government and the law provides for a process of updating khatiyan in the names of the persons by transfer, inheritance, and settlement from government.听 It also granted the government control over subsoil rights, forests, fisheries, ferries, bazars and hats, or markets. This law aimed to eliminate intermediary interests and relieve cultivators from the negative effects of subinfeudation (the practice of dividing land among vassals, who then further divide the land among their own tenants). While zamindari families were fully or partially reimbursed for their losses, the act of 1950 fundamentally changed the land ownership landscape in Bangladesh by making the raiyats the owners of their land. It was seen as a democratic move to a听people鈥檚 state听rather than a听feudal class system.听
However, in an effort that is seen by most Bangladeshis to appease the Hindu community and to be in the good book of the government of India, the Awami League government, led by Sheikh Hasina, implemented the 2001 Vested Property Return Act. This law aimed to provide restitution to individuals, mostly Hindus, whose property were seized after the 1965 war.
More recently, the Land Crimes Prevention and Remedies Bill 2023 was introduced in the Bangladesh parliament, which stipulates that only the deed holder is recognised as the owner of the land and possession holders must have the necessary documents, including deeds, to prove their ownership. The bill also requires individuals to have valid certificates and the proof of land development tax payments to transfer or register deeds.
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Challenges and implications
THE implementation of the latest law under the ousted government of Sheikh Hasina has led to a surge in new court cases, mostly filed by Hindus living in Bangladesh and India. Many new claimants, lacking proper documentation such as the Pakistan Survey and Bangladesh Survey khatiyans, are disputing ownership of plots dating back to the partition of India and the subsequent abolition of the zamindari system. These claimants do not have title, possession and any record of paying land revenues since the emergence of Pakistan.
This has resulted in significant financial burdens for legitimate landowners, who must now prove their ownership in court, often at great expense. The influx of cases has also slowed down judicial proceedings, benefited greedy lawyers and corrupt officials while providing very little relief to genuine landowners.
Some of the worst victims of land-grabbing in the last two decades have been Bangladeshi expatriates or non-resident Bangladeshis. As a victim myself to such criminal ploys, I can testify to the pains and sufferings, physical, financial and mental, of such a victimisation.
The hated regime of Sheikh Hasina is gone and yet her hated laws/acts, aimed at depriving and/or weakening Muslim ownership of land, legally owned and possessed by them, exist, which are wreaking havoc. Nothing can be better than giving a final burial now to such acts and laws that penalise genuine landowners.
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Conclusion
LAND ownership disputes are a complex and enduring challenge, rooted in greed and corruption and exacerbated by contemporary legal and administrative issues. While legal reforms like those of 1950 have made significant strides in addressing these disputes, the implementation of these laws remains fraught with challenges.
The fight against land-grabbing is not just about protecting property; it is also about upholding justice, ensuring economic stability, and fostering a society where the rule of law prevails. To ensure justice and stability, it is crucial for the government to continue its efforts to reform land administration, combat corruption and provide effective legal remedies for landowners. The government, the judiciary and civil society must work together to eradicate this menace and restore confidence among citizens and expatriates alike. Only then can Bangladesh hope to resolve its land ownership disputes and create a more equitable and just society
Anyone with Pakistan Survey and Bangladesh Survey khatiyans, title, possession and deeds with paid land revenues should not be allowed to be a victim of land grab. Harsh punishment for false claimants and corrupt government officials and greedy lawyers would also go a long way to discourage land-grabbing crimes. The ministries of law, land and home affairs should address this issue with urgency.
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Dr Habib Siddiqui is a peace and human rights activist who lives in the United States.
