Categorizing land: an account of leftover land in Patna

Abstract

This paper is an account of Bihar State Housing Board (BSHB) and its role in allocating housing and land from the 1970s onwards in Patna. The housing board typifies the bureaucratic practices of property-making at its best and demonstrates how the bureaucracy strategically aligned itself with caste-driven state politics. The unstable nature of forward–backward caste-based partisan politics meant politicians made unceasing efforts to garner support to stay in power including that of the bureaucrats who had far more control and knowledge about administration rules. By creating the discretionary category of chit-put land, loosely translated as leftover or not useful for anyone, an elaborate rationale was created for land allocation. This flexibility was used for carving out new land parcels for the high-income and middle-income category in Patna. The board dexterously encroached on the land allocated for the urban poor in whose name the land acquisition was undertaken at the outset. Using minutes of the meetings of BSHB, the paper also argues for alternative approaches for drafting and mapping the spatial history of a non-metropolitan city without a master plan and maps.

Keywords:

• housing
• land acquisition
• bureaucracy
• caste politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The caste system refers to a hierarchical system of birth-based social organization inscribed in ancient Hindu scriptures that distributes status, labor, occupation, and resources (Ranganathan, Pike, and Doshi 2023). Writing on Jha and Pushpendra (2016) use the term ‘caste social’ to signify the reinforced caste-based exclusion in the social and political sphere of the state.

2 Encroachment drives are eviction exercises taken up by urban authorities for clearing slum pockets or any form of squatting done along roadsides, drains, footpaths, parks, and government land. For more on the implication of encroachment drives on the cities of India (see Bhan 2009; Benjamin 2008; Ghertner 2008).

3 Land reforms aimed at land redistribution from upper-caste-dominated big landlords to the lower caste groups. Bihar being a traditional agriculture-based economy, land had an important role in bringing social justice and equity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sheema Fatima

Sheema Fatima is at the Balwant Seth School of Architecture, NMIMS, Mumbai. Email: [email protected]