“I was this close to picking up weapons too,” 68-year-old Bihari informed VICE World News. “This is not how I thought my life would turn out.”

In Bihari’s Azamgarh district, the dusty badlands of north India, crime charges are among the many nation’s highest and lawlessness is deeply intertwined with politics and policing. Many right here contemplate Bihari’s actions an inexpensive response to a residing man being declared useless. 

Bihari first “died” in 1976, when his cousins allegedly bribed native land income officers to declare him “dead” with a purpose to seize his land. He is one among hundreds of individuals in India who’ve been declared useless in land information over the a long time, a legal ploy to seize land in a rustic the place land legal guidelines are simple to use, and land is in excessive demand, unequally distributed, and more and more price killing somebody for.

In January, VICE World News travelled to Uttar Pradesh to satisfy 4 victims of this crime, together with Bihari. They have fought years—and in some circumstances a long time—to have the error fastened, to get their land and life again.

India’s colonial-era land legal guidelines give powers to land income officers to declare an individual useless, a declaration that’s practically unattainable to overturn. If you’re useless in Indian authorities information, you may’t purchase a registered cellular, hire a house, begin a enterprise, get married, get divorced—in essence, you’re a useless particular person strolling. 

India’s colonial-era land legal guidelines give powers to land income officers to declare an individual useless, a declaration that’s practically unattainable to overturn.

“I lost my weaving business, my livelihood, my land, everything.” Bihari informed VICE World News. “In this country, land is the most important asset for people—and the reason for everyone’s greed.”

In the 18-year wrestle that ensued after Bihari was declared useless, he dedicated crimes and contested elections to develop a authorities report of his existence. He added “Mritak” to his identify—Hindi for dead_—together with his efforts grabbing worldwide headlines and inspiring a Bollywood film. By the time he was declared alive in 1994, he had met an underground neighborhood of hundreds of different “dead people” who have been, like him, scammed of their land. 

In 1980, he arrange Mritak Sangh, or the Association of the Dead, which is a rising neighborhood of the residing useless reaching into the tens of hundreds, exposing a uniquely South Asian legal pattern. Bihari says his case may be over, however hundreds proceed to endure even now.

“It’s given way to the biggest example of corruption in the country.”

Land is the largest asset in India. With 1.4 billion folks, it’s on its strategy to be essentially the most populated nation on the planet, however it’s riddled with unequal land distribution. India’s final census in 2013 found that 7 % of Indians management over 47 % of the nation’s land. Six in 10 Indians depend on the land they stay on to develop meals and feed their household.

“In this regime of private land ownership, land is increasing in its value and people want to own more and more of it, no matter how,” Shipra Deo, a land and girls skilled from Uttar Pradesh, who works with world land rights advocacy organisation Landesa, informed VICE World News. 

A 2016 report by authorized advocacy group Daksh discovered that two-thirds of all civil circumstances in India are associated to land and property. The majority of the litigants are poor with little schooling, from decrease castes, or each. Bihari is a Dalit, a neighborhood previously referred to as the “untouchables” beneath the traditional and inflexible Hindu caste hierarchy. He grew up as a toddler employee in rural Uttar Pradesh and by no means received an schooling. In India, 70 % of 200 million Dalits are born landless, however Bihari was among the many uncommon ones to inherit over half an acre of land. All he wished was a manner out of generational poverty. 

“In this regime of private land ownership, land is increasing in its value and people want to own more and more of it, no matter how.”

Bihari mentioned his Dalit id performed an important position in delayed justice, however provides that he’s seen folks from all castes, religions, genders or creeds in these circumstances. “The victims are usually the weak links in society,” he mentioned.

Tussles over personal property have led to excessive violence in India. A Dalit man was shot dead final yr in Uttar Pradesh, allegedly by his upper-caste lender who wished his land. In 2018, an aged couple was smothered to dying by their 26-year-old daughter with an alleged land seize motive. That identical yr, a 40-year-old man gouged out his father’s eye over a property dispute. Beyond these on a regular basis circumstances, large-scale land grabs have been carried out by powerful politicians and local mafias too. Exposing or reporting land-related crimes has led to the murder of whistleblowers and journalists. 

Experts trace these tensions again to the British colonisation of South Asia that lasted practically a century, when personal land acquisition legal guidelines have been put in that centered totally on extracting land taxes and put the duty of sustaining correct land information on particular person land holders and never officers. Pranab Ranjan Chaudhury, an skilled on land governance in India, says as we speak’s personal land possession legal guidelines have colonial roots that makes it simpler for authorities to evade accountability in case of error or legal alterations.

“What makes things worse is that our land records are not updated. Often, the information on paper doesn’t match the actual land demarcations,” he informed VICE World News. “This makes it easier for people with vested interest to take advantage.”

These authorized ambiguities have resulted in folks exploiting them. In 2021, fraudsters tried to grab temple land in Uttar Pradesh by claiming its God is useless; In India, deities even have property rights. In 2018, a person from the identical state was declared dead  and was then denied his proper to avail authorities advantages. Early this yr, an aged man in Madhya Pradesh was wrongfully declared useless, allegedly by native thugs, who additionally encroached his land and threatened to kill him. 

Deo, whose work focuses on girls’s land rights, says land possession is essentially the most highly effective asset for marginalised teams—and in addition essentially the most precarious. 

“If people have secure and clear rights over land, it paves way for transformative changes. For women, for instance, a piece of land gives them the power to assert themselves and significantly reduces their desire to live in violent or abusive relationships. It paves way for a life of identity and dignity,” she mentioned. 

Women are among the many most weak teams in terms of land grabs, Deo says. In the western state of Rajasthan, they’re branded witches as a part of a land-grabbing tactic. 

“Violence and land grabbing reflects a form of power play,” mentioned Deo. 

Some 60 miles away from Mubarakpur is the traditional Hindu metropolis of Varanasi, the constituency from the place Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received two consecutive nationwide elections. On a chilly January morning, Santosh Murat Singh stood on the banks of the Ganges river, the place Hindus cremate their useless. Against the backdrop of burning pyres, Singh is draped in white funeral material and a placard round his neck that claims “Main zinda hu”—Hindi for, “I’m alive.” 

Nearly 20 years in the past, Singh was declared useless in land income information. He alleges this was finished by his cousins, who he says bribed native income officers in Varanasi to declare him useless in a 2003 Mumbai prepare explosion with a purpose to seize his 12.5 acres of inherited land. Singh, at the moment, was in actual fact working as a prepare dinner in Mumbai. His mother and father had handed away, whereas his sister received married and moved away. 

He discovered concerning the deceit a couple of months later when he received a name from a buddy who attended his teravih, a 13-day Hindu ritual that follows an individual’s dying, organised by his cousins. In the next years, Singh’s trajectory resembled Bihari’s, though he’s not part of his affiliation and runs his personal casual group of over 500 different “dead” folks. 

“Violence and land grabbing reflects a form of power play.”

After registering a police criticism in opposition to his family, Singh contested native elections, threw himself on politicians’ automobiles and joined an indefinite protest in New Delhi. Unlike Bihari, he’s not been profitable in being declared alive. 

“Local authorities have become Yamraj [the Hindu God of death] for the people they’re supposed to serve. Everyone is complicit,” Singh informed VICE World News. 

Legal recourse is a distant dream for Singh. One can’t simply show their existence by displaying up. The strategy of submitting the case, gathering proof and witness verification is tedious earlier than it even reaches trial, and is susceptible to countless delays, corruption and land income officers who’re stretched too skinny to indicate up at court docket. Singh’s case hasn’t even reached the trial stage but. 

“I wasted so many years chasing lawyers, paying hefty fees and losing my livelihood,” he mentioned. “I’m reduced to a beggar now and at the mercy of people who buy me food and clothes.”

The 2016 Daksh report states that folks combating land and property circumstances are being bled dry by authorized bills. “The total cost of litigation every year is equivalent to about 0.5 percent of India’s annual gross domestic product of $2 trillion,” the report mentioned. About 90 % of litigants surveyed earned about $300 a month, whereas 80 % did not go to highschool. 

Bihari, too, mentioned he resorted to theatrics when he ran out of funds after unending court docket hearings. In 2015, Bihari sued the state authorities for $3 million—an quantity he mentioned he’s exhausted within the 18 years of his trial by promoting property, his spouse’s jewelry and family belongings, in addition to plunging himself into debt by taking huge high-interest loans. That trial, which he says is the primary of its sort on the problem of the living-dead, continues to be ongoing. 

Deo, the skilled, mentioned that always a much bigger punishment than the crime itself is to be left on the mercy of India’s authorized system. “If people want to access justice, the process is extremely complicated,” she mentioned. “The powers that be ensure that victims remain marginalised.”

Krishan Kanhaiya Pal, a lawyer from Lucknow who has handled 50 related circumstances and represents Bihari too, laid out the method: The litigant first appeals to the native administrative court docket, then to sub-divisional officer, then the district Justice of the Peace, adopted by the commissioner’s court docket, the board of income after which the excessive court docket and the Supreme Court. 

“Hundreds of thousands of cases are pending in our courts,” he mentioned. “The system is such that justice is delayed and therefore denied.”

Deo mentioned that land associated circumstances can take a long time to resolve. “10-20 years is very common. I’ve seen cases go on for 50 years at the revenue courts, with no end in sight,” she mentioned. 

Bihari mentioned that, in bleak irony, many in his community have truly died mid-trial. In some circumstances, their kids carried on their wrestle. One such case is Dhiraji Devi’s in Mau city, some 60 miles from Varanasi, which has been sitting with the income courts since 2005. She died in 2019. 

“The system is such that justice is delayed and therefore denied.”

In their police criticism, Devi’s eldest daughter Mansha and son-in-law Om Prakash say Devi, a widow, was wrongfully declared useless twice—the primary time in 2005, after which once more in 2010—in official information, whereas one other fraudulent report included a second marriage which by no means occurred. The police criticism blames Dhiraji’s husband’s household for falsifying official information to seize 3.5 acres of land that she inherited, and was imagined to go to Mansha.  

Now, Prakash and Mansha are carrying on the authorized case.

“The disputed property is gone and the court keeps giving us dates after dates. Our expenses are rising,” mentioned Prakash, whereas serving snacks at his avenue meals stall in Mau. “My mother-in-law died suffering over her property. Who knows we will also die fighting this case too.” 

Jagdamba Prasad Singh, the extra district Justice of the Peace and chief income officer of Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, informed VICE World News that circumstances equivalent to Bihari’s have diminished dramatically because of the digitisation course of and public consciousness. 

Last yr, the Anti-Corruption Organisation discovered that the income officers topped the checklist of all authorities servants caught red-handed taking bribes within the final 5 years.

He claimed the documented variety of these crimes within the state is barely 2,000 thus far, and mentioned that the native authorities have at all times taken swift motion in opposition to the accused, together with authorities officers named within the police complaints. 

“Land-related crimes are a distant dream now for culprits,” he mentioned. “Earlier, all land records were manually written, and therefore prone to being falsified. Now these records will be updated online in real time. Anyone can open the website and check from anywhere in India.”

He added that in his district, there aren’t any pending circumstances both. “The police complaints might be getting investigated, but we will solve cases at the courts as soon as I get them,” he mentioned. 

But in rural India, this sort of digitisation is lost to many who don’t have a computer, not to mention an web connection. When VICE World News met with victims of this crime, many didn’t actually have a cellphone. Some are within the casual labour sector. One of them, Umashankar Chaube, a vegetable vendor in Varanasi who has no cellphone or web connection, was declared lacking and presumed useless in 2014, allegedly by native gangs who wished his land. 

Chaube discover out concerning the crime eight months later. When requested if he tried to seek out out the standing of his land by means of a Right to Information petition, which is finished on-line, he mentioned he didn’t know the way to try this. Occasionally, he travels to Varanasi metropolis wrapped in white funeral material to protest in entrance of presidency buildings. 

“It’s not just our lives, but the lives of our next generation too that’s over,” he informed VICE World News. 

The Daksh report says that the digitisation of land information is so sluggish that most individuals proceed to go to courts regardless of the challenges. “They continue to believe the courts are the only way for them to quickly get justice, despite data showing this is not the case,” the report stated. 

Chaube, along with Bihari and Singh, say they’ve also received death threats for fighting their case. Chaube was assigned two police bodyguards, he said, but just for 15 days. Pal, the lawyer, said even he’s received death threats for providing pro bono legal assistance to the living dead people.

“I’ve appealed for provisions of security to the government but no heed has been paid,” he said. 

Back in Mubarakpur, Bihari says he often feels the futility of this struggle. There were moments when Bihari thought he’s going crazy too; he has ailments now and has reduced his activism. Over the years, many he has helped with their cases haven’t lived long enough to see it through.

As he sits near piles of court documents and photos of BR Ambedkar—a Dalit icon who was India’s first Minister of Law and Justice, and led a movement to “educate, agitate and organise” against systemic injustice—Bihari says he’s currently preparing to remarry his wife once the $3 million lawsuit is settled. 

“My wife is in her 60s, and on paper I’m 29,” he laughed, referring to his “re-birth” in 1994. But the wedding is more symbolic than a celebration. 

“It’s to commemorate decades of this people-led struggle,” he said. “I’m not optimistic that we will end corruption. But I want to send a message that as long as we live, we will fight.”

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