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Contributed articles in the Indian context

This article brings out some distinctive features of Indian law and society in the matters of property rights and entitlements over natural resources. Both the colonial and post-colonial states that introduced the modern law in stages had multiple motives. They determined the types of rights assigned and the complex political and bureaucratic processes necessary for their implementations. By using an evolutionary approach to trace these developments, this article helps in comprehension of the modern law and entitlements on natural resources in India. The analytical method is that of institutional studies and law and economics.

The operation of a number of non-contiguous parcels of land as a single farming unit is known as land fragmentation. It is a widespread and persistent phenomenon and, at the same time, widely criticized by development agencies. Available evidence clearly suggests that the unqualified faith in the merit of consolidation is not justified; fragmentation may have some rationale. This paper substantiates the latter position with a case study of an irrigated agricultural system. Thereafter, it locates fragmentation within the broader context and analyses its role within a hierarchy of phenomena in the linked social and ecological local system. For this analysis an evolutionary game model is used. It is shown that fragmentation increases the resilience of the system of cooperation. The study concludes by suggesting an appropriate strategy for resilience management.

Some methodological remarks at the outset should help in the appreciation of the study. Indigenous systems have been presented in simplistic manner, not merely in terms of their differences with Western societal systems but in terms of their internal structures, too. Our use of certain terms like 'community', or the topic itself, may evoke popular images like homogeneity or Asiatic mode. But it should be remembered, that such images were often built upon skeletal knowledge about indigenous societies and are, in effect, deterrant to further development of substantive understanding. A second precaution needed is about concepts of development and evolution. The development theories including the Marxist one, have been accused of West-centricity. It will now be rather easily accepted, that the Western experience of development may not be the universal course of development, even though there may exist some fundamental similarities. We shall be concerned here with environment-specific development possibilities. Undoubtedly, they differ from region to region2 and to that extent at least, developmental alternatives available to different regions are different.