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Dear all,

You are cordially invited to the workshop on Right to Homestead Land: Public Action, Issues and Challenges that Deshkal Society (Delhi) in collaboration with Frederick Ebert Foundation (India) is organizing on 24-25 October, 2009 from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm at Conference Room No.3 , India International Centre (Annex), Max Muller Marg, New Delhi. We would be grateful, if you could participate in workshop and enrich the discourse for realizing the objective of the workshop. We believe your presence and words of wisdom would not only deepen the understanding and experiences of the issues and concerns, but it would also enable all the stakeholders in accelerating the processes of realization of right to homestead land. A programme schedule is attached for your kind perusal.

The workshop would cover the following thematic sessions:

•Theme I: Right to Homestead Land in Rural Bihar: Legal Provisions, Policies and Practices
•Theme II: Patterns of habitat displacements: Struggle for Homestead Land, Case Studies and Experiences
•Theme III: Rural Landlessness and Right to Homestead Land
•Theme IV: Learning Together, Moving Ahead: Programme and Strategies for Future

The proposed agenda of the workshop is an outcome of the action research that Dalit Resource Centre, Gaya ,Bihar under the auspices of Deshkal Society and its partners Gram Nirman Kendra and Lok Shakti Shikshan Kendra initiated for realizing the legal entitlement to homestead land in 125 villages in 2006. In the process, we could have critical learnings for providing a meaningful answers as to why there exists such a big gap between the law on the one hand and social reality on the other; what are the numerous obstacles (some purposeful, some due to institutional design and others because of ignorance and neglect ) that undermine the very reach of the law to those it is meant to benefit; and as to the perspective of what the law actually means {or how meaningless it is ) to those who try and claim their rights . From the perspective of critical learning, we would also like to share that the law on homestead land for the land less and the marginalized communities is a powerful instrument that has enabled them to realize their rights and that continues to inspire them to struggle in this regard. In this regard, the participation and leadership of the landless and marginalized for claiming legal entitlement to homestead land was also critical for realizing the right to homestead land. As of result of these processes, 2000 Dalit and labourer households have been able to realize the legal entitlement to homestead land in the villages of Gaya district, Bihar. We know this is very small success. As a matter of fact, according to 11th Five Year Plan, more than 10 million people in India either do not have the legal entitlement to homestead land and they are shelter less.

We believe that Right to Homestead land with secure tenural rights over land is the basic need of any individual. It also provides him/her with an identity and sense of belonging to the place where he/she resides and, therefore, the basis of citizenship. The absence of a secure shelter makes him/her vulnerable to exploitation besides causing anxiety and instability in life. Access to land with secure rights over it is the key to the ownership of a house. A significant proportion of poor households particularly those of Dalits have not been able to avail of government grant and subsidy for housing and habitat development as they have no access to land. They also cannot get credit for housing due to lack of land. Access to land for housing in the rural areas essentially involves granting homestead rights on lands on which they have constructed their houses besides distributing land to those without any shelter. This is not difficult as the existing policy and regulations in states cover these contingencies.

India's Eleventh Five Year plan rightly points out that the right to a roof over one's head needs to be seen as a basic human right, along with the right to freedom from hunger and right to education. The plan mentions that 'all landless families with no homestead land as well as those without regularized homestead should be allotted 10-15 cents of land each. Here the idea is to provide shelter plus some supplementary sources of livelihood such as livestock rearing, fodder development etc. to the poor. Several state governments including West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka and Orissa are already implementing such schemes. Recently, the Central government's rural housing scheme, called 'Indira Awaas Yojana' also has incorporated the livelihood component along with housing. It has also included for a provision of purchase of land, if no government land is available for allotment to landless and shelterless people, especially women. It is however necessary to examine these schemes from the points of view of their feasibility, sustainability and potential impact.

It would be indeed a privilege, if you could accept our humble invitation for participating in the workshop. A line of confirmation would be greatly appreciated.

With warmest regards,

Yours truly,
For Deshkal Society
Sanjay Kumar
Secretary

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Programme Schedule.doc