Privatisation of Common Property Resources Lessons f r o m R u r a l K a r n a t a k a G K Karanth This paper examines the experience of privatising the common property resources (CPRs) over a period of 50-100 years in one village. The two main questions addressed here are; How does the process of privatisation of CPRs take place? Who benefits from such a process? The study of a single village provides the opportunity to understand the dynamics involved over a period of time. The village under study here is Rajapura in Magadi 'taluk' of Bangalore (rural) district in Karnataka. THE recent academic and administrative interest in the preservation, development and use of CPRs has come about largely due to the increasing environmcntai concern. CPRs may be broadly and residually treated as that which is not 'private' property. Jodha's definition emphasises the opposition bet- ween private and common property when he considers common property as those to which no individual has exclusive rights of property on certaijn resources [Jodha 1986:1169]. Resources could be owned either privately or commonly (to be precise, com- munally) by a community such as a village 'panchayat' or a local community, on the one hand, and by the state, on the other. The common property resources are those resources accessible to the whole community of a village and to which no individual has exclusive property rights (Jodha 1986 and 1990]. Examples of CPRs in Indian village context are the village pastures, community forests, wastelands, common threshing grounds, waste dumping places, watershed drainages, village ponds, tanks, river beds, rivers and rivulets, etc. A fundamental principle of CPRs is that they form 'non-exclusive.' and individually inalienable resources, for the use of which the people of a community have equal rights. As a concept CPRs require a minimum understanding of the notion of property and further a distinction between 'public' and 'private' property/goods. The Oxford English Dictionary lists as meaning of pro- perty' the "condition of being owned or belonging to some person or persons; hence the fact of owning something"; "that which one owns'', When we speak of private pro- perty or goods it implies that non-owners are excluded from using them. Public or common property are therefore non-exclu- sive and indivisible Non- exclusiveness as a character of a property imply a free and equal access to all the people of a specified community, while indivisibility imply that the benefits are for collective consumption of a community [Chopra et al. 1990], The notion of property in land is said to have evolved through several stages. In the most initial stages it is held by the communi- ty, such as a tribe or clan, and is regarded as the common property of the whole body of people. Borne out of the social organisa- tion of production, such as periodic redistri- bution of land for its cultivation and use, there were no claims for 'private' possession as property. In due course redistribution is abandoned since there would be a desire on the part of each allottee to retain the holding which he or she has improved over a period of time. Yet the families at this stage do not claim 'private' ownership, for an individual cannot sell or will away the land. This is a stage when the property rests with the family as a unit. But gradually the desire to profit by one's own skill and labour begins to in- dividualise the property, thus giving rise to the notion of private property. Thus the final stage in property is the emergence of private property wherein individuals are the lowest unit owning property (Baden-Powell 1974:108-12]. While individualising the property as a process goes on, that which remains outside the process or those which are specifically kept aside as beyond private remains the common property resources. Thus, for in- stance, although certain CPRs are in prin- ciple owned by the state, such property in effect becomes a CPR for the local commu- nity if it traditionally enjoyed the access [Nadkarni 1990:31]. Futhermore, although it is the same government which is its legal owner the right to use a given CPR may ex- clude other communities. For example, the village pasture which is meant to benefit the users in a given village community while the people and cattle of another village may be excluded from using it, Conventions may, however, permit the use by the latter under certain conditions, as for instance, material contribution to the host village's corporate affairs, such as sacrificial animals during a village festival [see Karanth 1991]. With the development of the modern state, its administrative machinery and a legal system there are now much clearer no- tions of rights to property either private or common, and to permit enjoyment of rights or prevent infringement of rights by 'others'. Both during the past and in contemporary societies people have evolved institutions to operationalisc the private and property rights. Some such institutions are the pan- chayats, the local community, the legal and administrative units of the state, etc. Con- ventions too have come to play an impor- tant role in regard to use of resources whether private or public, especially when there is an absence of clearly stated legal framework. Conventions may often go con- tradictory to the legal framework pertaining to the use of common property resources, e g, drawing river water for agricultural pur- poses while the same is meant for urban drinking water schemes; enclosunes of forests by the state thereby depriving the access to people in the region. There is now a growing awareness of the importance of CPRs, for their contributions to the community and to the environment. Jodha [1990:3] lists some the direct and in- direct contributions they make, in terms of physical products, income and employment gains, and the larger social and ecological gains. The present essay concerns common pro- perty in land. They comprise of (a) those officially-classified private lands but allowing partial common access; (b) cultivable wastes and fallows other than wastes; (c) common pastures and grazing land; and (d) protected and unclassed lands [Chopra et al, 1990:30-31]. There is, however, no agreement whether or not to treat government reserved forests as CPRs, although such forests are being used by local people for grazing cattle and foraging. Legally they constitute a 'pro- tected' property for the public good and not exclusively for the benefit of the local people. Nevertheless some such protected forests in practice become a CPR for the local people by default, as we shall see, This is more as a result of inefficient management of the forest by the agency concerned in the present case the forest department. DEPLETION OF CPRS IN LAND It is not easy to estimate the extent of CPRs in land at different points of time in the past. The extent of CPRs depends upon several factors including the changing classi- fication of lands from time to time. How- ever, according to one estimate CPR in land presently is about 21.55 per cent of the total geographical area [Chopra, et al, 1990:3']. Most scholars have noted with regret the depletion of CPRs in land in the region of their studies [e g, Iyengar 1988; Blackie et al, 1985; Brara 1987; Chopra et al, 1990; Jodha 1985; and Nadkarni 1990]. Depletion of CPRs is both in terms of area and their productivity. Tragically enough, in the absence of concerted programmes to pre- serve and develop the CPRs, their depletion becomes a process in vicious circle, Their neglect leads to depletion and depletion leads to further neglect and so on. Some scholarly accounts of the causes of decline in the extent of CPRs attribute it to the implementation of land reforms since 1952-53, on the one hand, and increasing 1680 Economic and Political Weekly August 1-8, 1992