Since the publication of my article: ‘Have Goans understood the Ganvkari System or the Comunidades in O Heraldo dated November 26, 2023, many readers had requested my opinion mainly on three issues:
1. Can Ganvkari/Comunidade land be sold?
2. How does one understand the Article 30-4f the Code of Comunidades?
3. What is administrative tutelage?
Today as there is a hue and cry in Goa about the sale of Goa’s land, I thought it may be useful for all Goans to know the exact facts about our Goa’s land.
1. The foundation of Goa is on the land of Ganvkari/Private Village Communities or Comunidades. Goa’s land was not given to our ancestors by any ruler at any point of time. It is the first and the most important component of its identity. While the States in India have been carved out on linguistic basis, the State of Goa has its identity linked to its land. This land was inherited from our ancestors by generations of Goans who are successors of original Goans. It is inalienable. It is allodial (inseparable from) to the Ganvkari System. It is private community land which is jointly owned by the Ganvkari.
The Ganvkari land can be allotted for individual family house construction, in the form of aforamento basis on payment of annual foro, or allotted as aforamento for cultivation on hilly and other lands for plantations of fruit bearing trees, etc, on payment of stipulated annual foro and paddy fields auctioned for three or more years according to the rules of each Ganvkari on payment of annual Xidav. Besides there are lands reserved for community needs such as, temple, church cult, grazing grounds, crematoriums, cemeteries, playgrounds, building of primary schools, for trashing of paddy, for drying of clothes after washing in common village well, markets (tinto), etc, according to the needs of each Ganvkari. There cannot be sale of land in Ganvkari System for the simple reason that if the land is sold, the Ganvkari land will disappear and there will be no Ganvkari in the Ganv or village. Moreover, Goa is a small place, with an area of 3,702 sq km where the land is very limited and if Goa’s land is sold at today’s prices, most Goans can hardly afford to buy it for themselves, even for housing, hence the Goans will be totally displaced from Goa. Foundations once destroyed, where will Goans go?
How it is that big chunk of Goa’s land is sold? These big chunks of Ganvkari lands were given on aforamento basis to the so-called Bhattkars on payment of annual foro to the ganvkari. When the Land Revenue Code was fraudulently introduced in Goa, these land aforamento holders entered their names on Form I & XIV and without even paying the foro to the ganvkari nor informing them, sold the lands for a price and that was totally illegal and subsequently most of the land scams and land sales in Goa have taken place on the strength of Form I&XIV, when the Supreme Court has several judgments saying that the revenue documents, do not confer any title. How is that when Goa’s land is governed by the Code of Comunidades, regarding its land, it has come under another Code, i.e. the Land Revenue Code 1968? Can two codes be simultaneously applied to the land of ganvkaris?
The Comunidades govern and plan their villages for particular land usage and are the absolute owners of the land. No authority can convert land in any private ganvkari without the NOC of the ganvkari. The fact that the Comunidades are the absolute owners of the land is also affirmed by the High Court of Bombay at Goa, in its judgment in writ petition No. 347 of 2023, as well as in writ petitions 1104/17 and 1177 of 2018.
The Goa Ganvkari system is unique. It is diversity in the midst of unity of India. The Goa’s Ganvkari System is a multi-millennial heritage system and diversity which all should respect and honour. Every ruler down the ages has respected and upheld it, but our own rulers after 1962 purposely tried to destroy it and that is why Goans are suffering and migrating to other countries.
2. To understand the second issue of this article, one has to accept that every age-old institution and region has its own jargon of definitions and terms, which are proper to it and which cannot be translated in other languages, e.g. foro, aforamento, xidav, arrendamento, etc, in the Code of Comunidades. In the Code, some articles have their own interpretation/governance which has come down the ages based on customs and usage of the people. Therefore, they are to be interpreted in the light of these customs and usage. Now coming to the article 30-4f where the words emphyteusis, sale or exchange of land are used, the correct interpretation would be in the spirit of the law of community/Comunidade to whom the land was allotted on emphyteusis , sale or exchange, after the decision of the Sessao (General Body Meeting). Again, the Comunidade is to be convened in Sessao to deliberate on it. This is precisely what the article deals with. The word sale is to be interpreted in this context. Since we know that the Comunidade land cannot be sold, it is precisely in this context that the Article 647 clearly lays down that it is not lawful to pass deliberation for the dissolution of Comunidade properties. If the Article 647 forbids the dissolution of the community land, it is precisely for the continuation of this spirit of community on which they were founded and grew for millennia of years. Therefore, it becomes clear from the above the interpretation of Article 30-4f of the Code. There is a spirit of the law and the letter of the law. The spirit animates the letter. The ganvkari/village communities were very much alive because of the community spirit of loving, caring and sharing which animated them. Today, we are growing in individualism and the spirit of community is slowly disappearing.
3. Now we will deal with the Article 5 of the Code of Comunidades which confers administrative tutelage in the State.
The Comunidades are autonomous bodies. The Article 5 gives the State supervisory powers in order to protect the village communities. Hence its role amounts to protecting and guiding the communities. Therefore, if comunidade lands are sold illegally, the Government has to intervene to stop such an act.
What we observe today is that the State has forgotten its duty with regard to protecting and guiding the Private Village Communities or Comunidades. Hence the mess we see today.
We hope that all those responsible for the good of Goans will awaken themselves and fulfil their mandatory obligations towards protecting Goa’s Land.
(The author is a well –known columnist and author of the book ‘Goan Village Communities’)