When the separate State of Telangana was formed in 2014, progressive sections of society believed that one of the region’s most enduring injustices—the alienation of tribal land—would finally be addressed. There was widespread expectation that a State born out of a powerful movement against historical neglect would correct the wrongs committed during the era of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Yet, more than a decade later, that hope has largely turned into disillusionment. Tribal land alienation has not only continued in Telangana but has taken on newer, more sophisticated forms under the new State’s governance.
Historically, the roots of tribal dispossession in Telangana can be traced to the Nizam’s rule, when land and forest resources were viewed primarily as sources of revenue rather than the basis of livelihood. Tribal communities were reduced to subjects, severing their organic relationship with land and forests, until they gradually became strangers on their own land.
Resistance to this exploitation surfaced most prominently in struggles such as the Komaram Bheem movement, part of the larger anti-Nizam resistance. These movements compelled administrators to introduce reforms in the governance of Agency areas. Consequently, in 1949, restrictions were imposed on the transfer of tribal land to non-tribals.
After Independence, further legal protections were enacted. The Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulations, 1959—initially applicable to Andhra—were extended to Telangana in 1963. The amended Regulation 1 of 1970 imposed a complete prohibition on land transfers in Scheduled Areas to non-tribals. In 1978, criminal penalties were introduced to strengthen enforcement. On paper, the legal architecture for protecting tribal land appeared robust and comprehensive.
Yet the reality on the ground tells a different story.
The Telangana movement, which mobilised society against the perceived domination of coastal Andhra elites, promised to correct regional and social inequalities. But once political power was achieved, the tribal land question was quietly sidelined. This outcome reflects the class character of ruling political formations that have aligned themselves with dominant landowning and commercial interests, including those operating in Scheduled Areas.
Far from acting as a neutral arbiter, the State has functioned as an instrument safeguarding dominant-class interests. Even after the formation of Telangana, tribal lands have continued to pass into non-tribal hands, while earlier illegal occupations have been regularised rather than reversed. The combined effects of colonial administrative legacies, vote-bank politics, and the consolidation of non-tribal control in Agency regions have pushed tribal communities further to the margins.
The much-touted Regulation 1/70, widely celebrated as a protective shield for tribal land rights, has been systematically undermined in implementation. The problem is not the absence of law but the refusal to enforce it—an outcome of deliberate political choice rather than administrative lapse. Government land policies have compounded this problem, transforming land governance into a threat rather than a guarantee for tribal livelihoods.
Recent digital land governance initiatives, such as Dharani and later Bhu Bharati, have further deepened the crisis. Instead of safeguarding tribal rights, these platforms have legitimised non-tribal encroachments. Tribal names in old pahani records, assignment pattas, and even Gram Sabha resolutions under the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act have been ignored. In many cases, digital land records have been updated in favour of non-tribals, enabling a new form of land alienation under the guise of technological reform.
A closer look at Agency mandals such as Dammapeta reveals the extent of dispossession. In Vadlagudem, hundreds of acres of government land with no recorded private ownership in the pahani records of 1974–75 and 1990–91 are now under non-tribal occupation. Survey numbers 68/1, 88/1, 90/1, and 59/1 alone account for several hundred acres. In Mushtibanda, nearly 600 out of 1,903 acres of government land are under illegal non-tribal cultivation. Similar conditions prevail in Pedagollagudem, Amudalapadu in Dammapeta mandal, and Achyutapuram in Aswapuram mandal. The Telangana Adivasi Welfare Association has been demanding the restoration of such alienated lands.
Despite clear provisions in the Land Encroachment Act, 1905, and Scheduled Area land transfer regulations, enforcement remains negligible. The issue is not legal ambiguity but lack of political will. Across Telangana’s Scheduled Areas, land alienation has reached alarming proportions, acknowledged even in official reports.
The Girglani Committee Report (2006) provides extensive documentation:
• In Kothagudem alone, over 21,000 acres of unsurveyed land were found occupied by non-tribals.
• Another 1,000 acres of ceiling surplus land was in the names of unidentified persons.
• In Mulugu, around 1,200 acres of government land were under non-tribal control.
• Nearly 6,000 acres were illegally held through “Muktadar pattas.”
• In Illendu, about 12,000 acres under old pattas were with non-tribals.
• In the Bhadrachalam Agency region alone, some 15,000 acres of government land had been encroached upon.
Based on the Girglani findings, government orders issued in 2007–08 directed authorities not to recognise transactions under sada bainama (unregistered agreements), to cancel illegal pattas, and to restore pre-1950 lands in Adilabad district to tribals. However, most orders remained trapped in files rather than executed on the ground.
The continuing tribal land crisis in Telangana reinforces a fundamental political truth: laws are implemented according to prevailing power relations. Laws that challenge dominant-class interests are diluted or rendered ineffective. The superficial “compromise approach” adopted by ruling parties in disputes between tribals and non-tribals has only prolonged the crisis.
Today, tribal land alienation is not merely a legal dispute; it is a political, economic, and class question. What began as colonial-era dispossession continues in independent Telangana as a struggle between dominant non-tribal land interests and tribal survival.
The solution does not lie in the goodwill of ruling elites. It depends on collective democratic mobilisation—tribal communities, allied political forces, and civil society—demanding land rights, self-governance, and constitutional protections. Whether the present government will finally implement long-pending orders or perpetuate colonial land relations in a new form will ultimately determine the democratic future of Telangana.
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