1

Seminar Paper

UNDERSTANDING COMMONS IN
TERMS OF PRIVATIZATION AND
FOOD SECURITY

Submitted by Suchisree Chatterjee

Contents

 Abstract

 Introduction

 Objective

 Research Question

 Literature Review

 Case study and discussion

 Case of Andhra Pradesh Grazing lands: Why institutions fail

 Role of collective-choice based institutions in managing the commons

 Depletion of commons: Tragedy of Commons or Privatization?

 Conclusion
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Abstract
The current report tries to summarize several perspectives on common property resource and its
management, as seen, emerging out of experiences and local narratives in different countries of the
world. The report has attempted to contextualize economic theories related to management of the
commons. Along with discussion on theories arising out of institutional economics, like ‘tragedy of
commons’ by Hardin, or ‘eight design principles’ by Elinor Ostrom, the report has focussed on
looking at the commons, from a sociological perspective. Commons has been seen in terms of their
social locations over contested social spaces, and it is discussed how local level power structures
have intervened and governed the management of the commons. Depletion of the commons has been
seen linked to privatization or nationalization, again much influenced by local and macro level power
structures. Impact of depletion of commons on rural poverty and food security has been examined. It
is seen how depletion of commons and resultant ecological crises, result in food insecurity and rural
poverty, particularly in an Indian context.

Introduction
Study of ‘Common Property Resources’ (CPR) or ‘Commons’, have formed an important part of
research in different disciplines like economics, sociology, anthropology and geography. ‘Common
property resources’ or ‘ commons’ can be broadly defined as ‘those resources in which a group of
people have co-equal use rights. Membership in the group of co-owners is typically conferred by
membership in some other group, whose central purpose is not the use or administration of the
resource (per se), such as a village, a tribe etc.’(Jodha1990)In this sense commons may include
resources like village pastures, forest lands, wastelands, tanks, irrigation canals, rivers , lakes,
common fishing grounds and even ground water. Much debate has been going on about the nature of
the commons for a very long time. Commons have been often confused for open-access resources
and even public property regimes. What actually are the commons? Who can use the commons?
What is the best possible way to manage the commons? Alongside these theoretical debates, it has
also been necessary to look at the practical concerns over depletion of the commons, which is very
evident in most of the developing countries. In India itself, privatization of common property lands
and a rapid depletion in commons all over the country has been taking place at a very fast rate. In a
developing country like India, those who are dependent on the commons come from the very lower
strata of the society, and depletion of commons poses significant threats to these poor families, in
terms of income, employment and food security. In these circumstances one must look at the
implication of depletion of the commons in India. Why do we have such a situation in India? Is it
because of failure of the community institutions? Or is it the intrinsic nature of human rationality,
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that has led to these implications? Or are there some even more grave causes linked to ecology,
history and culture of the community? The current paper tries to look into these attributes of the
‘Commons’ situation in India, touching on the theoretical studies, that has been done on CPR so far
in disciplines like economics and sociology. Since loss of CPR has been linked to encroachment,
nationalization and privatization of common lands in many important studies (Jodha1986,1990,
Pasha1992, Nayak1990), the paper also tries to look at how privatization and government policies
has been responsible for depletion of CPR in India, along with its direct impact on income,
employment and food security of the rural poor.

Objectives:

The primary objective of the report is to look into the institutions governing the commons
particularly with respect to the Indian situation and to understand the functioning of such institutions.
The report tries to assess whether the success or failure of the ‘commons’ depend solely on the
success of the institutions governing them, or, are they linked to external factors like history,
ecology, community culture and social changes. A second objective of the report is to understand,
how government policies and privatization have impacted decline of common property resources and
what has been its implication on the rural poverty.

Research Questions:

 Does ‘robustness’1 or depletion of commons depend solely on the success or failure of the
institutions governing the commons?
 How privatization or nationalization of CPR has impacted of commons in India and what has
been its implication on rural poverty and food security?

Literature Review:
 Commons in terms of ‘Tragedy of Commons’ and property rights
One of the foremost theories about exploitation of the commons by ‘rational’ human being and its
possible implications on the environment was given in economics by Hardin (1968) in his famous
essay ‘Tragedy of Commons’. The economist’s idea about ‘rational’ human being is that of human
behaviour seeking to maximize gains or profits. When a group of rational herders would get an open
patch of grassland owned by nobody in particular, they would eventually increase the number of

1
The concept of ‘robust’ CPR has been taken from Ostrom (1990). According to Ostrom ‘robustness’ is an attribute of
the commons that has maintained a long during existence and sustainability. Robustness of a CPR implies a successful
institutional management of that CPR. Cox et al (2016), has defined robust institutions, as institutions… ‘that enable
individuals to achieve productive outcomes in situations where the temptations to free ride and shrink are ever present’
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their herd and compete to get the maximum benefit or output from the meadow, and in the process,
would bring about a degradation of the CPR (Hardin1968).In that way, all the resources held in
common can be subjected to degradation. Hardin’s model is perhaps the first model to stress upon
the ecological implications of depletion of CPR, when a common property resource is utilized by
many individual gain-seeking users. But as the later authors have pointed it out, Hardin has made a
major confusion in recognizing different property regimes. 2 (Feeny et al,1990, Ostrom1990,
Ostrom2000). As Ostrom (1990) and other authors have pointed it out, Hardin had confused between
open access and communal property regimes. Unlike open access resources, common property
resources are held by ‘an identifiable community of interdependent users’. (Feeny et al1990). CPR is
characterized by ‘excludability’, i.e., appropriation rights from a CPR is exclusive for a community,
and within the community, no users can be excluded from availing benefits from the CPR.
Ostrom(1990), defines CPR as ‘ a natural or man-made resource system that is sufficiently large to
make it costly to exclude potential beneficiaries from obtaining benefits from its use’. Feeny et al
(1990), has also defined CPR in somewhat similar terms… ‘ a class of resources for which exclusion
is difficult and joint use involves subtractability’. Ostrom (2007) has recognized 5 kinds of rights in
respect to appropriation and management of CPR: access, withdrawal, management, exclusion,
alienation. Out of these, the claimants possess the operational right of access and withdrawal of the
resource and collective choice of managing the resource. The proprietors of the CPR have the right to
determine who else can access the CPR. The owner possesses the right of ‘alienation’, i.e., the right
to sell or transfer their management and exclusion rights. (Ostrom2007). In most of the CPR the right
to alienate is not present, i.e., in most of the cases the CPR users are not owners of the resources.
Even where ownership rights are present, to sell or transfer the ownership rights to someone else, it is
needed to get the consent of the other users. In this way CPR is different from PPR ( private property
resources).

 Management of commons from a perspective of institutional economics

Getting back to the original problem about management of the commons, there are different opinions
about what should be the best way to manage commons. Hardin (1968) had thought privatization of
CPR with legal inheritance or nationalization of CPR would be instrumental in conservation of CPR.
Collective action theory (Olson1965), is also based upon the assumption of individual rationality.

2
There are four property regimes based on excludability (physical exclusion from accessing the resource) and
subtractability ( each user is capable of subtracting from the welfare of other users (Feeny et al1990). These are open
access property, private property, communal property and state property. Whereas open access property are public goods
like roads or street lights, that can be accessed by anybody, communal goods are open to access only for specific groups
and not for the others.
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Olson negates the belief that collective rationality 3stems from individual rationality, and states that
‘… unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small or unless there is coercion or some
other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational self-interested
individuals will not act to achieve their common group interests’. (Olson1965).In such a situation,
tendency to ‘free-ride’ i.e., enjoying benefits of the group labour invested in CPR without
participating in labour is seen along with a high propensity to break the common rules regarding
appropriation of CPR, especially in cases where short term gains can be made. Whether independent
collective action by the communities is the correct way to manage the commons or whether external
intervention is needed has been a matter of debate. Ostrom (1990), in her seminal work ‘Governing
the Commons’ , has stated that the commons can be best managed by collective action, where the
decisions are made and enforced by the appropriators of the resource themselves instead of external
intervention . The major problems faced by appropriators in a CPR situation is that of rent
dissipation, i.e., when cost of extraction of the resource becomes higher than the revenue earned from
the resource. This happens when the number of appropriators become very large. For this, the
number of appropriators in a CPR must be defined clearly. The providers, i.e., those who manage the
commons, are faced with the problem of creation of new institution to manage the CPR in the
interest of the community. According to Ostrom, these institutions are created, where there are
problems of depletion and mismanagement of the resource. Ostrom has studied several existing CPR
institutions, and has tried to understand, why some institutions have emerged as strong and robust,
whereas the others have failed to manage the commons. After extensive case studies she had come
up with eight design principles of managing the commons (Ostrom1990). As per Ostrom, all the
‘successful’ CPRs have followed the eight design principles, whereas the ‘fragile’ commons have
followed few or none of these design principles. The eight design principles as stated by Ostrom
(1990) are: Clearly defined boundaries, Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and
local conditions, Collective choice arrangements, Monitoring, Graduated sanctions, Conflict-
resolution , Minimal recognition of rights to organize and Nested enterprises(Appropriation,
provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in
multiple layers of nested enterprises) (Ostrom1990).

According to Ostrom, all the ‘robust’ commons have followed these design principles. In all the
institutions, the operational rules are made by the appropriators, who know, exactly who the other
appropriators are, and also know what is the potential of the resource. The institutions to manage the

3
Group rationality. It is generally believed that collective rationality is comprised of individual rationalities of the group
members (Olson1965). i.e., what the group perceives to be the best possible option for it, is also the best possible option
for the individuals of the group.
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CPR are built, and often monitored by the appropriators themselves. Monitoring the resources, is
often associated with prestige and some amount of pay- back through fines collected from the
offenders. Mutual monitoring is done by the appropriators in resource scarce areas, where, over-
exploitation of a scarce resource (like irrigation water), by one user, may limit its use by the other
users. In these cases, the appropriators themselves monitors all the other appropriators, without any
incentives. Close knowledge of the commons, often over generations, also enable them to device
suitable rules and institutions. The system of graduate sanction, implies that even in cases of
desperate rule-breaking for the first time, the fines are not very high, but it gradually increases, with
increasing frequency of the act. This on one hand, prevents antagonism, and on the other hand is
effective in controlling large scale rule-breakings. In large and complex commons, rules and
activities are devised for both the micro and the macro levels. (Ostrom1990). Separate micro-level
rules and institutions may exist in different parts of a single large system, whereas there is a
fundamental governing principle for the macro-system, which is followed by these micro institutions.
In none of the successful commons, the local rules and institutions are challenged or replaced by
national or regional level regulations, and this has helped the ‘robust’ self-governed commons to
survive. In several cases, where the local institutions are neglected and disregarded by the national
level regulation, commons have been affected adversely. (Ostrom1990).

Almost all the scholars have accepted Ostrom’s model of collective choice based institutions to
manage the commons especially within the field of institutional economics, a phenomenon termed as
‘Ostrom Halo effect’ by Cox et al (2016). Some criticisms are offered by Cox et al(2016) or Araral
(2014), for the limited sample size of Ostrom, and possible biases within her sample. The theory is
taken forward by Sethi and Somanathan (1996), as they state that collective action through
cooperation is more likely to happen , when communication is cheap, public good provision is
sufficiently productive, effective punishment opportunities are available at sufficiently low cost, and
the group size is large. (Sethi and Somanathan1996). Unlike Olson and many of the other theorists
(including Jodha1990), Sethi and Somanathan have stressed on public provisions and large group
size.

 ‘Contesting’ the institutions: viewing through sociologist’s lenses

Here I can dare to bring in some valid and extremely relevant observations made by the
anthropologists and the sociologists in the field of the common property resources, where they have
put forward alternative explanations to the institutional economics model of Ostrom, Sethi and
Somanathan and others. The main criticism that can be made of the model of institutional economics
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is that of its extreme simplicity. Sociological and anthropological explanations make a departure
from the micro-economic models in their understanding of the commons (Bardhan and Ray2008).
Especially in the Indian context, the communities of the appropriators are not the ‘romanticized’
homogenous groups of institutional economics, who share equal interests and have come together out
of collective rationality. The dynamics of power, shared norms and embeddedness within the
community has shaped community management of the commons up to a large extent. (Bardhan and
Ray2008, Rao and Appadurai2008, Wright2008, Mosse1997). According the sociologists and the
anthropologists, shared management of commons have evolved in the pre-capitalist society out of
shared understanding and not only economic rationality. (Bardhan and Ray2008). Conditions when
cooperation will occur depends on a lot more things than balances and pay-offs. To the sociologists,
cooperation among people is common and it depends on moral commitments, and habits embedded
in them. The situations where commons have declined due to decline in collective action, indicates at
a greater breakdown of the‘… collective commitment, and social mechanism of inculcation and
reproduction of norms and values, rather than failure of immediate incentive structures of rewards
and punishments confronted by the individuals’ (Wright2008). As Wright (2008), puts it, collective
action to manage the commons in the communities appears as their moral and habitual actions and
not only rational actions. The moral and habitual action can break down, with advance of market in
the previously pre-capitalist societies or with intervention by the state policies, which somehow
breaks the ‘commons protecting norms and commitments’. Economists have also not concerned with
defining a ‘community’, and addressing the heterogeneity and stratifications within the community,
which are often reflected in the indigenous collective action systems. In case of commons in India,
often it is the lower caste groups, who traditionally enjoy rights over commons (sub-marginal,
grazing lands, often granted to Dalit families by local landlords for community use). Demarcation of
landholding boundaries by the government, privatization and encroachment by the powerful groups
can erode the communal systems, even when the institutions are robust. (Rao and Appadurai2008,
Mosse1997, Jodha1990). The error of the economists is to consider the village community as an
isolated whole, without impacts of the local and regional caste, class and kinship structures. Through
his study of the tank irrigation system of Tamil Nadu ,Mosse (1997), has shown, how local power
and community culture has together created the tanks commons as a ‘social space 4’ constructed on
the basis of diversities within the community. of the community. Mosse (1997), has used Bourdieu’s

4
Mosse (1997) has borrowed from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of social space and symbolic capital. Bourdieu
contests the economist’s concept of homogeneity within space and their simplistic model of group economic interest.
According to Bourdieu, social space is constructed on the basis of the principles of ‘differentiation and distribution’,
which refers to differential availability of economic, social, cultural or symbolic capital with different groups
(Bourdieu1977, as cited in Jenkins1992).
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(1989) concept of social space and symbolic capital5 in explaining the dynamics of accessibility of
common property resources.

The higher institutional posts in this case are managed by the dominant Maravar caste groups, and
the lower institutional posts are managed by the Dalit Pallar caste groups 6. Even within the
community the interests of women and lower caste groups are side-lined by the politically more
powerful groups. Local authority and power structure has shaped the management of the tanks up to
a large extent. Mosse(1997) has shown how the ‘protection, construction, or repair of irrigation
tanks, long involved investments, which generated ‘symbolic capital’… in the form of honour or
authority and created domains of influence for individual leaders. On the other hand, tanks
themselves provide resources which generate economic capital which is invested in symbolic capital,
through other public institutions, especially temples’. The existing power structures have been so
powerful, that even where older institutions have been modified or decayed due to migration,
integration of market and shifting interests of the people, and new institutions have been initiated by
the government, perhaps for a more equitable distribution of resources, it is seen, that the older
power structures have been recreated and reincarnated within the new institutions, or the new
institutions are dismantled and neglected by the local and regional dynamics of power. (Mosse1997).

 The problem of planning: Loss of CPR and impacts on rural poverty

These diversities in resource managements are often not compatible with centralized planning. In
fact due to centralized planning and development initiatives, in many places, existing institutions
have decayed. Transfer and movement of resources to the cities, conversion of existing common
lands to other uses have created problems at many levels, leading to widespread decline in the
institutions of the commons, poverty and also resistance to the state development initiatives. (Rao
and Appadurai2008). Introduction of centralized planning, redistribution of land by government
policies, privatization and encroachment, diversion of CPR lands for other uses have alienated people
from their traditional community rights over CPR lands, forest and other resources. (Rao and
Appadurai2008, Jodha1986,1990, Pasha1991,1992, Nayak2002, Gadgil and Guha1994 ). This have
led to migration of people from the common lands, drastic impacts on food security, employment and

5
‘Symbolic capital’ is another concept of Bourdieu, basically used to describe the power with the recognized authority.
Any other form of capital (economic, social or cultural) can be converted to symbolic capital. Symbolic capital can be
seen as any capital, recognized by a legitimate authority, which draws power from that capital (Bourdieu1977 in Jenkins
1992). In Mosse (1977), the temples act as a ‘symbolic capital’ with the dominant caste groups, and a lot of show of their
power revolve around the protection and maintenance of these temples.
6
Maravar is the local land-owning dominant caste of Tamil Nadu. They are the traditional warrior- administrative castes
of the region. Pallar is the Dalit group, with minimum ownership of land. Being related to the local kings, and enjoying
dominant position in the society, even to these days, the Maravar groups enjoy greater control over regulation and
management of the tanks, except in places, where they are replaced by other dominant cultivating castes (Mosse1997).
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income. Depletion of commons is an imposing issue in India. Both government and private forces
have played their parts in it, ultimate result being pauperization of numerous people.

As Jodha (1990) has pointed out, ‘Tragedy of commons’ did not happen in India, but what happened
is ‘Tragedy of open access’. CPR becomes open access, when the traditional institute collapses,
either due to encroachment by the big landlords and privatization of CPR land through land
redistribution programme. Decline in CPR land and forests in India has started since 1950-51, the
first large scale land reforms undertaken by the Indian government. From 1950-51 to 1980-81 there
has been a decline of about 31 to 55 % CPR land area in different villages, where a study had been
conducted by Jodha. (Jodha1986,1990). These declines are supposed to have huge economic
implications on the rural poor. Studies undertaken on common property resources have shown that a
substantial part of income and complementary goods like fuel woods and forest foods, for the rural
poor households come from the common property resources. Common property resources have
historically played very important roles in sustaining village communities. First, in traditional dry
areas, the CPRs have provided both fodder to the cattle and forest foods to the people, even in times
of droughts, thus acting like buffers. Secondly, as CPR like common grazing grounds help in
providing fodder to the cattle, the agricultural lands do not need to be sacrificed for this purpose.
Thirdly, CPR products like fuel woods and non-timber forest products like dry tendu leaves, honey,
mahua etc., form a very important source of income for the rural poor especially in the forested areas
(Jodha1986, Gadgil and Guha1994). The rural poor, especially in the dry regions are more dependent
on the CPR than the rural non-poor. It has been seen that the rural non-poor households appropriate
the CPR products like fuel, biomass, wood etc., to a much larger amount in absolute terms than the
rural poor households. But CPR products consist a greater proportion of food , fodder, fuel,
medicines and biomass for the rural poor households, than the rural non-poor households. It is
evident that rural poor are far more dependent than rural non-poor on the CPR, and a decline in CPR,
can bring about pauperization for many. (Jodha1986,1990, Pasha1992). In this situation it is more
important to understand how privatization of CPR land and government policies are leading to decay
of the traditional institutions governing the commons. Mostly this privatization takes place under the
land redistribution drives of the state governments. However due to poor quality of distributed land,
and lack of resources with the to maintain it, often the poor leave the land or sell it to the non-poor
households, increasing the risk of unemployment. In most of the cases after privatization, the better
parts of the land go to non-poor households, who reap more benefits from the land than poor
households. (Jodha1986). Not only this, declaration of forests as reserved or protected forests, as a
part of the National Forest policies since the British periods, have completely uprooted the local
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community institutions. Looking at land and forests from a revenue perspective, has led to
plantations, and changes in the forest ecology in forms of new species introduced. (Nayak2002,
Jodha1990, Pasha1992, Gadgil and Guha1994). Forests of sal, teak and other useful local varieties
have been replaced by economically ‘useful’ species like eucalyptus, which generate revenue for the
forest departments and the private paper companies. A direct result has been the loss of biomass
collected from the forests and depletion of the trees and products, collected by the dependent
communities traditionally. (Jodha1990). Conflicts over resources, has taken a form of violation of
prior claims of another set of resource users, often with active aid from the state (Gadgil and
Guha1994). Despite a renewed community activism, for protection of forests, the Joint Forest
Management policies could not be successful, because of tenurial insecurity and intervention by the
government. The Van- Panchayat institutions existing for years were dismantled and replaced by
JFM. At least the former autonomy of these institutions was curbed, and they were made to include
forest officials as stake holders. (Gadgil and Guha1994, Nayak2002). Revenue rights of the forests
till recently was given to the non-local contractors, whereas the local communities were prohibited to
collect non-timber forest products from the reserved forests. CPR decline has been a result of
encroachment of good land by the powerful groups, initiated by structural changes induced by
market- interventions in the community structure. Land redistribution initiatives has been undertaken
much in response to this land grab. Jodha (1990) has shown, that decline of CPR has been less in
smaller and isolated villages, which are at greater distance from the market, and where there is
stronger ecological compulsion to retain and protect the CPR. There has been less decline in CPR
where initial CPR has been smaller and the community has fuller knowledge of the situation.
Characteristically, these are the areas having relatively homogeneous groups, with equal interests and
aspirations. (Jodha1990). Market and state interventions in the local structures have produced diverse
impacts on the Commons and institutions managing the commons throughout the world. More
detailed nuances of management of CPR institutions in India, and its impacts on rural poverty are
attempted to be explained with the help of specific case studies from India, in the following sections.

Case study and discussion

 Case of Andhra Pradesh Grazing lands: Why institutions fail?

Vaijayanthi Rao (2002)7, made a study on the contestation over common lands that followed
acquisition of land for Srisailam reservoir in Andhra Pradesh in 1981. Several villages had to be

7
This case study is taken from Rao, v. (2002), ‘ Ruins and recollections: On the subject of displacement’ dissertation
cited in Rao and Appadurai (2008)
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evacuated for construction of Srisailam reservoir over Krishna river. Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh
was important for religious tourism, and contained several ancient Hindu temples, which were
popular pilgrimage and tourist sites. About hundred villages were displaced in Kurnool and
Mahboobnagar districts, and more than one million people had lost homes and farmlands. The
Andhra Pradesh State department of archaeology and museums, undertook a project of restoration of
all the submerged temples in new temple complexes constructed at the bank of the Krishna river
(Rao and Appadurai2008). Rao and Appadurai (2008), had highlighted on the case of one particular
village, where, the villagers did not want to be displaced entirely from the vicinities of their former
village. So, they bought lands from the neighbouring villages and settled at a site very near the
former site of the village. The department of archaeology and museums also constructed a temple
compound at the edge of the newly constructed village, by relocating about 40 temples dismantled
from their earlier sites. A 16th century Vaishnava temple existed at the centre of the former village,
and formed a very strong symbol of the village ancestry and history. When the village was
reconstructed, this temple was relocated by the state archaeological and museum department, at a
rocky stretch of land in the heart of the new settlement, which actually formed the periphery of the
former village, and the only area that had survived inundation. This temple formed a part of what can
be called, the ‘symbolic capital’ of the village and was of great importance for the village economy
and culture. Family of the former zamindars of the village, wanted the temple to be a part of the
original village lands. To appease these demands, the site for this temple was fixed in the rocky patch
of land. The land was taken for construction of temple by the Andhra Pradesh State Religious
Endowments Department. But these lands were cultivated by some Dalit families for years with
permission from the zamindars, although in papers, they were designated as ‘charai’ or grazing lands.
These lands were taken up on the basis of their designation as ‘common lands’ of the village,
although in reality they were cultivated by Dalit families, who have obtained almost exclusive rights
on cultivating that patch of land, through years of serving the zamindar family in near- bondage
conditions. In fact, the commons sustained these families, and enabled them to perform their
‘services’ to the dominant castes. With the land taken up by the State Religious Endowments
Authority, these families now found themselves as ‘illegal occupants’ of the common lands (Rao and
Appadurai2008).

Let us now, analyse this incident:

Here is a common patch of land, which has been cultivated by well-defined groups, in accordance
with the local rules. The land is governed by the community, having their own values and culture
regarding managing the resource. Despite having well-defined boundaries, self-governance,
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mechanisms of conflict resolutions, and established sets of norms governing the common lands, i.e.,
after meeting Ostrom’s conditions of being ‘robust’ common, the entire institution was dismantled,
when it was a conflict of interest between Andhra Pradesh State Religious Endowments Department,
the family of the local zamindars versus the Dalit families cultivating that land for generations. The
conflict here arises from mainly from heterogeneity of the village group, and conflicting interests of
the weaker and the stronger sections of the society. The land originally belonged to the zamindar
family since Mughal times. Although it is a fact that the Dalit families had gained user rights over the
commons, when it is a matter of conflict of interest, between the two social groups, the stronger one
prevails. In this case, the temple acts almost as the ‘symbolic capital’ of the village dominant caste
group, and as Mosse (1997) points out, it enhances the prestige of the village and that of the major
land-owning family. In this case, the interest of few Dalit families who had enjoyed collective rights
over that land, becomes secondary to that of the dominant groups. This case only strengthens my
argument, that there are heterogeneities even within the common users, and these heterogeneities
often create separate power dynamics within the commons users. Loss of commons has also affected
the different groups separately. Both the land-owning, upper caste families and the Dalit families
have lost land in the given instance. The land-owning and upper caste families had the adequate
resources to buy new plots, to settle down near their ancestral village and even to have the village
temple restored in the common lands of the village. But the entire livelihood of the Dalit families
depended on that particular stretch of land. Forceful occupancy and particularly, ‘official recognition
of that land as village ‘commons’ by the state’(Rao and Appadurai2008), entirely dispossessed the
Dalit families from using that stretch of land, and they were affected much more by the loss of the
commons than the land-owning caste groups. Loss of the common lands in this case affected
employment, income and food security of these families to huge extent. Who are the ‘commons’
become a major question here, which cannot be solved by the simple profit-loss-cooperation
dynamics of institutional economics.

 Role of collective choice based institutions in managing the commons

A major objective of the report is to understand the role of the collective choice based ‘institutions’
in managing the commons. Elinor Ostrom (1990) has done monumental works in respect of
explaining the role played by the collective-choice based institutions in managing the commons. In
the present time, no work can be done in the field of ‘commons’, without referring to this canonical
work in institutional economics. The eight design principles of Ostrom (1990), are so far, the most
successful logic in explaining the working of the collective choice based institutions managing the
commons. The report is nowhere in a position to refute or challenge Ostrom’s interpretations. But
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what I have tried here, is to bring in some studies and perspectives by some anthropologists and
sociologists, to focus on a field, more or less neglected so far in institutional economics: the
dynamics of power within the group, and embeddedness of these institutions in local culture, local
symbols and local institutions, borrowed much from Bourdieu’s idea of ‘social space’ and ‘symbolic
capital’, as used in Mosse (1997). Ostrom has mostly worked with largely homogenous groups,
having similar economic and social interests. But when dynamics of caste, class, gender or race gets
involved, this ‘homogenous’ group interest is automatically challenged. Mosse (1997) has shown in
his study of the Tamil Nadu irrigation system, that even in the meetings or decisions regarding the
commons, the opinions of women are very rarely brought forward, although women are much more
depended on the commons than the men are. Similarly, the opinions of the Dalit Pallar castes in case
of Mosse’s study or the opinions of the Dalit families in the given case study, regarding the
management or ownership of the commons are largely side lined by the interests of the dominant
land-owning castes, who are also dependent on the commons, but to a lesser extent, and in a different
manner. In both the cases, the resources from the commons, are used to enrich the ‘symbolic capital’
of the dominant groups, i.e., the temples which enhance the prestige of the dominant caste groups in
the village, almost at the expanse of the lower caste groups or women dependent on the commons.
For an institution to be ‘robust’ it needs homogeneity within the group of the users. But such an ideal
‘social space’, without any equation of power ensuring dominance of one group of users over the
others, can hardly be found. Here the institutions are governed by caste rules, clan rules and rules of
patriarchy, which decide, who will do what kind of work, and what is going to be their pay-offs.
Individual economic interest is hardly a major force in management of these institutions.

 Depletion of commons: Tragedy of commons or privatization?

Hardin’s argument of ‘Tragedy of Commons’ despite all its flaws touches upon the issues of
depletion and conservation. The report here tries to see why are the commons depleting, and what is
the impact of such depletion on rural poverty. The given case study has cited a case of depletion of
commons, by construction of reservoirs. This in fact is a major factor leading to depletion of natural
forest lands and displacement of millions of indigenous communities (Gadgil and Guha1994). In all
these cases, the forest land that is submerged are actually common lands, and home to thousands of
indigenous communities in India. The indigenous communities are dependent on the natural forests
for their livelihood, supply of biomass and food. In case of India, extensive case studies are done by
Jodha (1986, 1990), Gadgil and Guha (1994) and Nayak (2002), about the patterns of depletion of
the commons. It has been shown, that since the British periods, a major part of depletion of the forest
commons has been undertaken, since the establishment of the Forest Department, when forests were
 15

started to be used for extraction of revenue. In most of the cases, forests are marked as ‘protected’ or
‘reserved’ forests: where the earlier existing rights of the indigenous communities are denied and
portions are forests are leased out to private companies for extraction of revenues. Leasing out of
parts of forest has led to destruction of indigenous vegetation, and planting of economically viable
species like eucalyptus and other trees, useful for paper factories along with large scale felling of
timber woods, without replantation of trees (Gadgil and Guha1994). The worst impacts are faced by
the rural poor families including the tribes, whose main source of livelihood: the non-timber forest
products are denied to them. The indigenous artisans are affected even worse, since most of their raw
materials used to come from the forest commons. Leasing out of common forest lands to private
mining companies has already led to widespread displacement of tribes in the forested tracts of
mineral rich central India. Despite the Forest Rights Act (2005), the common forest lands are
privatized or leased out to private companies mainly under government initiative, without proper
rehabilitation of the people, and often leading to largescale destruction of the forest commons
(Gadgil and Guha1994). In non-forest areas also, the commons lands are targeted first for
encroachment by the rural rich. Privatization of the commons by encroachment or land redistribution
programs, has eroded the local institutions governing the commons, rooted in local culture, and has
led to widespread depletion of the commons lands (Jodha1986). The impact on rural poverty has
been quite evident. Jodha (1990), has shown, how the number of CPR products collected by the
villagers have reduced to ( 8 to 20), from a range of ( 27 to 46), in the dry regions of India, in a
course of about 30 years. Degradation of CPR has resulted in aggravated poverty in rural areas.
Without any alternative, the poor has continued to depend increasingly in the already degraded
commons, leading to further degradation. After a stage, rural poverty and the ‘tragedy of commons’
take over one another in an almost cyclical fashion(Jodha1980), although of course, this depletion
of commons, cannot be solely attributed to institutional failure, but also to external factors like
privatization, leasing out of commons land to private actors, and alienation of the communities from
the commons, mainly by external agencies like the government or the other local authorities.

 Conclusion

The report, within its constraints of space and time, has very randomly tried to touch upon a few
basic concepts to understand the commons from various fields : problems related to definition of a
common, management of commons, the nature of its embeddedness in local culture and local power
structure, mechanisms leading to depletion of the commons and finally its impacts on rural poverty.
The report has tried to discuss management of the commons from perspectives of institutional
economics and also from perspectives of sociology. It can be said that a major problem is devising a
 16

definition for the commons, mainly on the basis of, who are going to use the commons. Confusion
between commons and open access resources has led toconclusions like the ‘Tragedy of Commons’
in the past. The next problem is related to management of the commons: what can be the best
possible way to govern a CPR? Nationalization? Privatization? or collective choice based action?
Evidences has shown that government intervention or privatization has often led to depletion of the
commons, which were so far managed efficiently by the local communities. In this situation, it has to
be acknowledged that collective choice based institution is an efficient method of managing the
commons.

Theoretical understanding of the management of commons is based largely on Elinor Ostrom’s ‘eight
design principles’ and its criticisms put forward by David Mosse, based on Bourdieu’s ideas of
‘social space’ and ‘symbolic capital’. Whereas it is can be said that collective choice based
institutions are effective mechanisms to govern the commons, the simplified and idealistic notions of
these institutions are also questioned, since all social institutions are located in very heterogeneous
and differentiated social spaces. The commons are viewed as ‘symbolic capital’ of the community,
from which the dominant users draw their power and legitimacy. Access to the commons is limited
for the weaker social groups like women, Dalits and Adivasis by mechanisms of the dominant social
groups, who draw more utility from the commons than the formers, although the weaker groups are
more dependent on the commons for their livelihood than the dominant groups. Local culture, history
and power dynamics, determine the management of the commons to a larger extent, than more
simple ‘collective rationality’ of the group.

Mainly based on Jodha’s works, the paper has tried to see, the impacts of depletion of CPR on rural
poverty. As argued before, the rural non-poor obtains more benefit from the CPR than the rural poor
does, but the extent to which the rural poor are dependent on the commons, is far more than the
extent of dependence of the rural non-poor on the commons. Depletion of the commons will have
more adverse impacts on the rural poor, than it will have on rural non-poor. Encroachment and
privatization of the common lands, has resulted in loss of biomass, leading to crisis of employment
and income. Depletion of the commons: rural pasture and the forests can lead to huge crisis for the
rural poor households, eventually leading to a situation of food insecurity.

A study undertaken on the common property resources, will have to account for issues like local
level power structures and how accessibility of the commons is dominated by such structures for the
weaker sections of the society. Unless such studies are undertaken, simplistic top-down approaches
 17

for governing the CPR can lead to disastrous impacts on the already depleting commons and
collapsing institutions, aggravating the rural crisis.

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