Rajasthan: Evicted Tribal Family in Jaipur Alleges Illegal Seizure of Land They Lived on for over 30 Years

In May of 2024, Norti Devi was cooking when men claiming to be her home’s original owners barged inside along with uniformed policemen. The place in Jaipur in Rajasthan is what she and family have called their home for over three decades. She alleged that the men tried to intimidate her to voluntarily leave. According to her, they told her that she could simply come to the police station, accept a paltry compensation for signatures on some paperwork, and the matter would be closed. Norti Devi refused. A month later, bulldozers accompanied by the Jaipur police tore down the home where the Gadia Lohar family lived.

Norti Devi’s family consists of five brothers, their wives, children, and an ageing mother. They belong to the Gadia Lohar nomadic tribal community. When this writer was interviewing them, some relatives were visiting them to offer support. One of them said, “Gareeb ki koi nahi sunta.” (“No one listens to the [problems of] the poor.”)

Court records going back to 2011 show that the family are involved in an ongoing legal battle for their land. They have also got a land patta issued in their name. However, no court order or notice signalling that there had been a decision against them was shown when the police arrived at approximately 10 a.m on June 7 to carry out the eviction, the woman alleged.

One of the brothers, Tola Ram, said their lawyer did not pick up his urgent calls and suspected that he had been “bribed or pressured” by the private entity claiming ownership of the plot. This is not new for them. The family said they have had to change legal advisors several times over the years because of corruption.

The family and witnesses allege that authorities from the Malviya Nagar police station first dragged out and beat the tribal residents, including children as young as 8 years old and even a pregnant woman. Many of them were then detained at a different police station more than 6 km away, for the entire day so that they could not return to the contested site and resist their eviction.

Dapu Devi, the most elderly figure of the family, alleged she was beaten at the Jawahar Nagar Police Station. Members of the family also accused officials, who were all men, of physically assaulting girls and women members of the family. Injuries were visible on Dapu Devi, most of her sons and even on her teenage granddaughter who, the family alleged, was dropped off on a random road by the police without any money or guidance as to how to reach home.

Purported video evidence seen by this writer shows the men in Jaipur police attire setting fire to homes and temples of the Gadia Lohar family before bulldozers landed up to raze the last built structure. The family said it was unaware of where their belongings were and feared that those were either burnt or “stolen by the police themselves”. Women also alleged that officials seized their jewellery and kitchen utensils. 

Multiple official drives in the past have displaced poorer residents either from their homes or their places of work, like street vendors of Jaipur. About a month after the incident, on June 26, 2024, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) announced an eviction drive in a different neighbourhood and called it, rather proudly, “the biggest eviction drive in the city yet”.

Approximately, 650 structures, including homes, were demolished. The JDA says it was unable to raze 41 homes as the owners had stay orders from the court. While the Gadia Lohar family did not have stay orders, their case is still pending at the court and claimed they were shown no paperwork and given no notice of the demolition order.

The question, then, is how did a piece of land that is still under litigation, get razed with the full backing of the local police force without any demolition orders?

A recent report points to the heatwave that struck India as the underlying cause of death for over 190 homeless people in Delhi. And yet, Jaipur’s police, allegedly led by private interests, rendered a tribal family homeless amid the heatwave. Right after their eviction, the temperature in Jaipur soared to more than 45 degrees Celsius.

The family, which is primarily engaged in daily wage work of iron repairs and waste collection, has been left with no means of income, as most of their assets and tools are lost. Today, they subsist on packaged food, plain rice cooked by neighbours sheltering them, and bottled water borrowed from a petrol pump on the other side of the road. Their children not only suffer from weakness and dizziness caused by hunger and heat, but are also allegedly regularly beaten by hired goons and police authorities if they wander too close to what they used to call home. The evicted family alleges that the police and an independent family with a long history of targeting them, are also intimidating their neighbours on the footpaths to not give shelter to them.

The now razed site is enclosed with a ‘JDA AT WORK’ sign posted on the side facing Jagatpura Road. JDA, or the Jaipur Development Authority, is supposed to be a government agency. But the men camping inside belong to a Shekhawat family, allegedly on whose behest the tribal family was evicted. They reportedly have a Rottweiler dog kept on a short leash. Sitting under a tent in the sweltering daytime, the men could be seen playing cards with alcohol bottles strewn around, as daily wagers brought in from elsewhere were busy building a new structure, the legality and permission for which remain unclear. 

A supervisor at the construction site told this writer that the land was currently under dispute, and the men were sitting there to ensure the disputers don’t “reoccupy the land”. When asked if he was affiliated to JDA, he replied in the affirmative but was unable to name which official he reported to and if the workers under him were also contracted by the same agency.

As this writer was talking to the ‘supervisor’, a man emerged from the tent to ask what the interview was about. He identified himself as Ranveer Singh Shekhawat and claimed that the property was his family’s and had been “taken over” by the Gadia Lohar community half a century ago. He had no clear answer on why a JDA sign had been put up, or what exactly would be built on the now largely empty plot. However, he gave vague assurances that the “matter will be resolved in ten days”.

He said how the resolution would be arrived at and through which legal mechanisms were not his concern. His brother joined in and said that the court has ruled in their favour which is why they had “reclaimed” the piece of land. They were unable to show any papers reflecting this claim.

The ward councillor for Jagatpura, Om Prakash Ranwa, whose signboard stands only a few metres from the contested land, said that the eviction was not carried out under JDA orders. He told this writer that he had received no paperwork related to that parcel of land, leading him to believe this was not a government eviction.

Norti Devi reacted when told about all this “Unse jaake poocho ki unke area mein ye kaise ho gaya aur woh kuch nahi kar rahe,” [“Go ask him how such a thing has happened in his ward and he is not doing anything about it,”]

When asked, all Ranwa had to say was, “What should I tell you, ma’am? This could be politically supported.”

During the day, four-five policemen sit on plastic chairs outside the site. A police van remains posted throughout the night. The evicted family, which now shelters with their neighbours living in informal tenements on a nearby footpath, alleged they had seen police vans bringing the men “who harassed them” having lavish dinners at night. All this while the evicted family members are barred from even walking on the road adjoining the fenced off land.

“Chalo agar zameen unki hai toh unki, lekin road toh sabka haq hai na? Road pe chalne se kaise rok sakte hain?” [Even if the property is theirs, the road is still public property is it not? How can they stop us from walking on the road?”] Norti Devi said.

The election fever has begun to dwindle in Malviya Nagar, which is on average, one of the wealthier neighbourhoods in Jaipur, and which overwhelmingly voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Assembly elections. The constituency’s elected MLA Kalicharan Saraf of BJP, could not be reached for comments.

The Shekhawat family and a man named Om Godara were named in the local newspapers over a decade ago for arriving at the same land to threaten the same family with guns. The difference is that then they did not seem to have police backing. So, what has changed?

Many questions abound. Is there an official-private nexus that is gripping Norti Devi and her family? Who is supporting the powerful Shekhawat family, and protecting Godara? If the plot does indeed have ongoing JDA work, why are private citizens allowed to camp inside with a dog? Where is the paperwork detailing how the land was acquired, and how it will be used, and why is it not with the ward councillor? If the land is in fact privately owned now, why then, is the police not only safeguarding it?

Nihira is a freelance writer based in Bangalore. She focuses on gender, labour, caste, and beyond. She did her Masters in sound histories of colonial India.