"I and my children were beaten and kicked out of our house by the
brothers-in-law. We live by begging, in continual fear"
Widow's Stories
Ramibai’s story
A member of the Association of the Strong Women who live Alone, Rajasthan.
Ramibai was widowed when she was 24 years of age and the mother of 3 children
by her husband Hajari. He had been ill for some time – “this illness
has stuck to you like a leach” Ramibai said to him and his sad reply
was “I think it will accompany me to the day I die”. “That
same night he called his children to his bedside and gave each of them 1 rupee
to spend on sweets of their choice the next day. But they never did spend the
rupee as he died early the next morning.”
“Two years later my son followed his father and my in-laws threw me out of the house.”
I was now alone with 2 young daughters to care for; no place to go to and
no-one to turn to. How are we going to survive?? I decided to go to the village
leaders (Panch) to tell them what had happened. They ordered my in-laws to
take responsibility for my well-being and that of my daughters, and to provide
us with a room to stay in and food grain twice a year. The Panch warned my
in-laws that if they did not heed their advice, my in-laws would be punished.
They obeyed but very unwillingly and made sure that I felt the stings of their
displeasure. What could I do but suffer in silence? I had to shelter and care
for my poor fatherless daughters.
One day in 1980 I heard that there was a Statewide Widows Pension Scheme and as I possessed nothing I was eligible for a pension. It was such a balm to my heart to know I wouldn’t have to depend on my in-laws and more; that I had an better future ahead of me in which I wouldn’t be treated as a slave. My daughters too could start to lead a normal, healthy life free from fear. I completed the pension form and waited impatiently for the pension. But can you imagine my astonishment when they told me I was not eligible because I’m down as owning of 22 bighas of land!! I had no idea that I owned any land far less 22 bighas of land – me a tribal widow!!! My joy knew no bounds.
But when I asked my in-laws about my land, my husband’s brothers told me with a sneer that it had been sold long ago by their father to a man named Kirpal Singh for Rs.25,000. I was stunned. But I did not want to be denied everything, so next day I went to see the Patwari (Land Registry official) and asked him about my land. To my relief he told me that the land is still officially in my name – Ramibai wife of Hajari Meena. He also said that legally no non-tribal can purchase, mortgage or in any way acquire and own land owned by a tribal. Kripal Singh is a Sikh. He said I should file a case against Kripal Singh. But how could I, a penniless widow, do this?
Well I got to hear of an organisation called the Association of Strong Women
who live Alone (ASWA) so I went to one of their meetings and told them my story.
They said they would help me get all the papers I needed and so in 1982 I filed
a case against Kripal Singh for illegally occupying my land. 
Many years later the court gave its decision in my favour but Kripal Singh appealed to the Revenue Court. He knew that I would not be able to stand up against him for long and he was right. At the beginning I went to all the hearings of the Revenue Court but then came the day when I couldn’t afford the bus fares any more so I stopped going.
By 2000 I still hadn’t heard a thing from the Court so ASWA decided to make an in-depth study of my case and to try to understand all the legal intricacies involved. Through ASWA I got an opinion from a Revenue Board lawyer as to my rights. One of the members of ASWA came with me to the Revenue Board hearings. But that just got nowhere. In August 2001 my case went to the State Commission for Women. Someone on the Commission advised us to approach the Chairman of the Revenue Board. Having looked at the case he gave a favourable decision in 2002.
So 20 years after I started fighting for my rights, I got legal possession of my land!! But the story doesn’t end there – legal right to possess and possession as I found to my sorrow aren’t the same..
Immediately after the judgement I went with a member of ASWA to the office
of the District Collector (the relevant bureaucrat) and showed him a copy of
the Chairman’s decision. We asked him to make arrangements for the land
to be handed over to me but Kripal Singh was not about to give up ‘his’ land
so easily. He managed to get a stay order from the Revenue Board. We went back
to the Chairman of the Revenue Board to ask why he had gone back on his original
decision. We threatened that we would come with a large number of ASWA members
to the court to make a hubub until the case was properly dealt with. 
The Chairman
got frightened and referred my case to the Judicial Court. The judge at that
court told me that since the case had been under process since 1982, Section
175 of the Revenue Act had come into force. This Section states that if a tribal
landowner accepts money from a non-tribal in exchange for land, then the tribal
loses ownership of the land. Further, since a non-tribal, according to the
Constitution of India and law of the land, cannot own tribal land, then any
tribal land held by a non-tribal is deemed to have become the property of the
government.
So my land now belongs to the government. Since 2003 Kripal Singh has been paying rent each year for the land to the government – in 2003 he paid 90,000 rupees, and in 2004 he paid 130,000 rupees. How can I a daily agricultural labourer pay this amount of money. My dreams lie in shards around me and my in-laws treat me with even less respect.
Note: Recently (2006) at a convention of ASWA members, a group of lawyers working on tribal land issues said that they would recommend that this case be taken right up to the Supreme Court. Part of the argument would turn on the fact that it is all too easy for non-tribals to entice tribal men into festive drinking with them; once drunk tribals are easily persuaded to hand over their land for a pitifully small amount of cash. But if any man attempts to sell tribal land registered in a woman’s name the sale should not be recognised as a legitimate transaction. Only if the woman herself sells her land should this be recognised as a bona fide transaction.