On Earworms, or the things that go Hmmm at night

It has been a long lull here. Not that ideas never came up. They did, and some pretty interesting ones too. However, as any experienced person, who has done a thing or two of his own initiative in life, would tell you, ideas are cheap; it is the execution that takes the real effort. There are many such half germinated ideas, lodged in the magnetic nooks of my hard drive – perhaps they would see this portal someday, perhaps they might comprise a book; or perhaps, most probably, they shall go with me to my pyre. Writing anything is rather hazardous these days; more so in a job where political correctness is of utmost importance. So, like Jim Hacker of “Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister”, whose sole reason for elevation was the fact that no camp hated him, a rather unlikely topic is being presented here, in the hope that, well, it is harmless. We are discussing – earworms.

Wikipedia defines – ‘An earworm, sometimes known as a brainworm, sticky music, or stuck song syndrome, is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person's mind after it is no longer playing. Phrases used to describe an earworm include "musical imagery repetition", "involuntary musical imagery", and "stuck song syndrome".’ Almost all of us have experienced this phenomenon. Some of us have the irritating habit of humming them out, so that the ‘infection’ spreads on. Others, like yours truly, keep this affliction inside for years on, longing for release.

It is not the first writing on the topic of year worms. 200 years ago, none less than William Wordworth had written the Solitary Reaper. The masterpiece is reproduced here – 

“Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.”  

Thus, even Sir Wordsworth was not immune to earworms. More recently, in the Shawshank Redemption, Andrew Dufresne locks up the prison guard as he notches up the volume on the song being played on the record player, and mesmerizes the whole prison yard. He takes the earworm with him to the solitary bin – and speaks of it in an affectionate way.

Growing up, my father’s railway quarters were almost always right next to the Grand Trunk Road. Railways and major roads are aligned – not a surprise. So I had a lot of buses and other means of public transport, blaring the latest music on their sound system, pass my house. I recall as a morning phenomenon. Maybe the traffic jam of the morning ensured the vehicles passed slowly, and I got to hear more of the music. May be the fact that the toilets were at the farther end of the corridor, ensured that one was closer to the source of the music. Anyhow, everyday, I was bombarded with pieces of catchy 90s music, and I could do nothing about it.  I am speaking of the times before I went to the boarding school in Mussoorie – at the age of 8. In those days, salaries used to be in the range of Rs.2000 to Rs.3000. Audio cassettes used to cost Rs. 30 to Rs. 40. One could not expect to ask father to spend on cassettes everyday! Infact, in those times of pre internet middle class upbringing, asking for anything which was not a necessity was a rather unheard thing. So I continued to live with these 90s earworms, for about 10 to 15 years! My boarding school years were rather shielded that way. There were no passing buses to bring in new strains of music. Anything which was played in the campus was played on the school ‘deck’. One knew which song was playing, to which album it belonged to – and if one did not know, one had a large group of peers to ask from. Then, again, those were the days when 2 deck cassette recorders had become available, and it was not really necessary to buy a whole cassette for one song. One’s own customized playlists could be recorded on Rs.25 worth 90-minute ‘blank cassettes’. The fifth pay commission had made that look not so tall an ask, either. However, the earworms picked up before the boarding school, before the fifth pay commission, still existed, lodged deep inside the brain, coming to the fore suddenly, at the time of their choosing, and making one desperate to find the whole songs whose ghosts tormented me.

It finally became possible in the later part of the first decade of this millennium. Fast internet, and Youtube, both came into my life gradually. Google became more and more powerful. Now I could type out the few words into the search box, and get to know the name of the song and the album. Later, even the Youtube links for the same were displayed as the first option. Thus, life became easier. Most of the earworms, I think about 95 %, were slain within a year. They included most of the Kumar Sanu songs of the Kumar Sanu era, and songs from within the serial Chandrakaanta - recall "Oopar Ambar Neeche Dharti"! However, a few of the tenacious earworms persisted.

One kind of persistant worms comprised of songs which were not really the mainstream albums. For example, this song used to play every morning, when Iwas not even going to school yet. I had the lyrics in mind, but the lyrics just did not throw up anything on the internet. Then one day, a blogpost on thetopic came up on the search. So, there were kindred souls, tormented by this same earworm. So our search was crowdsourced. Finally, in March 2015, after 25 years of solitary suffering and 6 years of crowd search, this one was finally found – Bharatiyam, by Vani Jayaram. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the blogmaster has locked his blog from public view now. The comments section would have been a treasure trove of human endeavor.

Even tougher are the earworms with no lyrics. In my very early childhood days, there used to play on Sunday mornings, the mythological serial Mahabharat. Just after that, there used to be a commercial for Dunlop tyres. It featured an airplane landing on its obviously Dunlop landing gear. In the back ground used to play a techno musical piece. That one haunted me till about 2-3 years back. How can you search for music without lyrics. How can you even begin to describe it. Then help arrived in the form of plagiarizing Indian music directors, and I heard this song. I immediately recognized the music to be a clone of my ghost. Rest was easy. There are sites dedicated to tell us from where did the Indian musician plagiarize this or that piece of music. So now, I know the name of that tune – Pulstar by Vangelis. It is now my ringtone on the personal phone.

There still remain some still elusive earworms – almost all of them advertisements. The fact is I recall lyrics for most of them, to a great degree of certainty. Yet, my searches come to a naught. One is a very early 90s ad for Ponds’ Dreamflower Talc. It went like – “Har baat tumhari manchaahi…” In fact, last year, another ad for Dreamflower, with the same freaking tune, with a slight modification – “Har baat hogi manchaahi..”, was shown. Unfortunately, both the ads now elude the combined might of Google and Youtube. Another ad, as I recall from mid 90s Sundays, was an ad for Shalimaar coconut oil. It featured a little girl feeling the rains dropping from the eaves on her little palms, and then in minute or two of montage, she grows up and gets married. The mother is also present along with her in the montage – the mother daughter bond was the theme. I recall even more of the lyrics – “Subah subah ki barish, chhuwan mamta bhari.” Yet, there are many ads for Shalimaar coconut oil on Youtube; sadly, none of them is this. Maybe somehow no one has added the said ads on the internet yet. May be Providence would be kind to me, (or some employee of HUL or Shalimaar, for that matter!) and get the ads uploaded. Perhaps the ads are uploaded some where, but the keywords are so different that my searches have not succeeded. Finally, there is the frightening possibility that no copies of these ads survived, and I must live with these traces alone. Then there are songs from within the serials, whose name one has forgotten, and whose lyrics recall is very very patchy. There was this serial from very early 90s, in which I recall Shekhar Suman playing the spoilt offspring of a rich dad, who rags his simpleton college roommate - including feeding him cake and then telling him it contained eggs (the simpleton was a vegetarian). They both liked the same girl, I guess, and in the end, the simpleton shoots Shekhar Suman. There was this song, "Madhur Pralay ke sapne sajaaye" that haunts me with no hope of rescue. (Or was it "Madhur Pranay" - sweet cataclysm versus sweet love - what's the difference anyway!) There was  May be that would not be so sad. Most persons who died before the internet revolution (and those who continue to die without much command over the internet) must have died with their quests unfulfilled, still tormented by the earworms. May be it is not so bad. As is true for most things about love, the quest is usually better than the end. For, in lieu of some forgotten country song, the quest gave us ‘The Solitary Reaper’

Of Bad Songs, and Bad Governance

I spend my morning hours listening to popular music channels. Music has a great capacity to alleviate the suffering of one’s morning walk (or run, for the more capable), or even the general pain of leaving behind that fine nest one’s bed becomes by the time the rooster crows. Music gives a perfect background to shower and the breakfast, and to that dreaded drive to the office – throwing at us God knows what unknowns. (Mercifully, since the time I have demitted the Magistracy of Meerut, unknowns get thrown at me only once the office starts, unlike then, when they could be thrown at one as late at 2 am and as early as 4 am!)

Recently, there has been a song, coming up with a rather alarming frequency – “Pyaar ki Maa ki”, from Housefull. For the non-Hindi people, it really translates as “F**k the mother of love”, but instead of saying “F**k” you say ‘worship’ (in Hindi the words come in the opposite order, and hence the puerile, schoolboy joke is transformed into a ‘song’!)

It feels like crunching on an egg shell while eating omelette, and the frequency of the song is so high that it feels that the whole shells have been deliberately mixed in the egg! Why is such a travesty of anything that is beautiful being polluting our airwaves? Why do such talented persons as Ritesh (watch him in Ek Villain to know what I mean), Akshay Kumar (Airlift recently, and many more), Lisa Haydon (Queen, and her views on rabid feminism), and Abhishek Bachchan (having such a talented father – at least) find themselves on the screen, dancing to this stupidity? Simply – because it sells. They are putting their mouth where the money is. All those mindless movies and songs that these actors and their producers are guilty of, is simply a result of responding to the incentives, and pandering to the masses.

Pandering to the masses. Well, isn't it something the Civil Service community, especially at the field level, can identify a lot with, at the professional level. Similar to our silverscreen stars, most of our officers come from highly educated backgrounds, with the best institutions in India and abroad glittering on our resumes. Our friends, or friendly acquaintances, work in the best organizations, and based on their facebook timelines, they are highly successful at what they do! Most of my service colleagues will acknowledge feeling a little embarrassed when questioned or ribbed about many policies of the organization we work for - the government. Not unlike the way are stars are seen giving dodgy answers to critics and the discerning audience.

Originally it was not this way. The structure of governance in India was majorly administrative at its beginning - in the times of the Raj. Thereafter it gradually started developing a thin political shell, beginning with the Councils Act and the various Government of India Acts. Yet, the core remained administrative. In their infinite wisdom, the Honorable Constituent Assembly not only retained this core, but also enshrined the Services in the Constitution itself (in face of much internal opposition, and based solely on the advocacy by the Ironman of India Sardar Patel himself).

Thus, Constitutionally, the Indian Executive, at all 3 tiers of our federated polity, is classified in two parts - the political executive and the permanent executive. The former was expected to frame the broad policies (with the advice of the latter) and the latter, to get them implemented and enforced. As the years passed, the political body matured and gained confidence. Soon, the aid and advice part of the policy making was dispensed with, as far as the feasibility and reasonability of the policies was concerned. Of course, the "quality" of the policies was the casualty. Policies beyond 5 year gestation period stopped being looked into. Then, as the Assembly and Parliamentary elections started getting out of sync, and elections to various local bodies started filling the voids therein, we started having some or the other election every 3 months. Thus most policies started factoring in just as much. Our social peers may sneer at us for their obvious short sightedness. However, for the purpose they are framed, they are quite logical.

The trouble with public judgement is that while private organizations are expected to work as per incentives, public institutions are expected to work 'for the greater good'. While that may be feasible for the institutions themselves (which are permanent monopolies with no competitors to survive against), the constituents of the same are not so immune. Infact they face the toughest competition in the world. I am not writing about the Civil servants here, who may come in through one of toughest examinations, but are largely not at peril once in the clear. I am speaking about the political persons, who face an unreasonable electorate, whose intellectual capabilities have risen, no doubt, but have not kept pace with their assertiveness. It is one of most stressful performance appraisal, as, with the traditional deference for the powerful vanishing fast, the crowd can be vicious in sarcasm and condemnation. The motivation capability of this pressure is so much that those in power try to manipulate the pens of the officers by covert pressure, and those not in the power, do so overtly on the grand theatre of the Indian Streets. Policies ceased to be guided by mere benevolence long back. Nowadays, even day to day administration is heavily encumbered by politics of a similar length of sight.

In all the preceding paragraphs, I have commented upon the issues with the eye of a critic. However, a very important question remains unanswered here. Can we make a judgement here, without clouding ourselves in our own 'middle class' biases? Are we (the class of persons referred as the peer social group to which most Civil Servants belong) having any legitimacy to decide what is good and what is populist and retrograde?

Democractic form of government, within the confines of Constitutional norms, is essentially a rule by the majority. Whatever else may be wrong in this country, no one can challenge the fairness of elections. (I would differ with the intellectuals on the issue that though intimidation is no more allowed in the elections, enticement still happens, and hence it is not a fair system. In my view, once there is no threat of violence troubling the electorate it is a free system.) Hence, if such policies ensure political survival, they must be democratic.

Politics is more of an art, and is not so apparent in its logic. Hence, it is not very accessible to brains primarily dedicated to simple logic - non veterans in the Services included. We know that of recent, there has been a steep spike in the number of individual beneficiary related government schemes, to the obvious disadvantage of ‘open for all’ infrastructure related expenditure. It may be that the government layout for both forms of expenditure is increasing. Still, whatever is spend on subsidizing individuals could have gone to subsidize the whole community. Now, there is never enough budget to cover all the individuals, even the ‘qualified ones’. Only a handful in a community – the ones who know the rights and rules, and the ones with strong local political connections, would corner them all, the latter more often than the former. It would lead to heartburn among the majority who believe they have been denied the largesse unfairly. This surely could not be beneficial politically. Contrast it with expenditure, say, a bridge, or road, or power station, which could have benefitted the whole community, leading to a general contentment – not generating the levels of joy to a few that a subsidized or free house might bring about, but also not generating the commensurate jealousy and heartburn in all the majority of the neighbours. Surely this should pay a richer dividend politically. If we leave out this logical reasoning, then also we may rely on academic texts, as reproduced in the book on Indian Economy by Uma Kapila, which clearly says (in case of agriculture), that infrastructure expenditure has a multifold better outcome as compared to individual subsidies. Still, despite all these reasons to the contrary, the number and the volume of individual beneficiary schemes keeps on rising every year. Are the politicians acting against better sense? Clearly not. It is told that after analysing the body structure and wing designs of a dragon fly, engineers pronounced that it would be impossible for it to fly! Reality is much larger than the part of it accessible to mathematical analysis. May be it is the fractured nature of the Indian electorate at every level – right to the village level, that permits such tricks to survive. Even by cornering a small but consolidated minority, and peppering them strategically and surgically with individual benefits, can lead to just enough goodwill to survive. For the mass of the electorate places a lot of weightage on individual schemes. Ask it from any Administrator, who has had to peddle much better, livelihood enhancing schemes like the National Livelihood Schemes (Which involves handholding and guidance, but no spoon feeding.) The competition from the free housing and free pension schemes is just too much. Potential beneficiaries are just unwilling to listen to self-help, viability, and scaling up, and want us to talk business – can we get them a house or a pension! No wonder that unofficially the better schemes have had to be implemented in a draft like mode!

Incidentally, this was one of the reasons that a body of professional civil servants was retained and even empowered by the Constitution. To ensure that technical correctness is not totally overlooked in favour of popularity. To ensure that that there remains an advocacy of equity to oppose the untrammeled vote-bank calculations. More than one governments have called names to the civil servants – arguing that they are putting spanners in their ‘plans for development’. The services have been painted by political executive as the ball and chain impeding their initiatives. The services, however, like to think themselves as the heavy flywheel – a stabilizing influence on the engine, whose strokes vary so violently at the slightest hint of an electoral gain!

However, all is not well this way, even in the services camp. The bollywood parallel may be taken further. The biggest stars are not the better actors - of course exceptions may be there. We may have been blessed with Kay Kay Menon, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Irfan, and their likes. Still, none of them matches the stardom and fame of a Salman Khan. There is nothing wrong about Salman, too. Once, in an unguarded moment, he told the press that he had once ventured to make a sensible movie like Khamoshi, and not even a dog came to watch it! The way media carried this story is a lesson in itself on the pernicious effect contemporary media is having on the politics and the very fabric of the nation in this era. In the same mould as the star actors, we have we have started upon a generation of star- officers, who endear themselves to the masses. Since the resources are much the same hence, in addition to hard work, of course, it takes disproportionate allocations, unreplicable pilot projects, or the plain old face time on the media (which incidentally is not much different from the movie stars doing cameos on news channels and comedy shows) They must be doing many things right, but what gets them fame is not what is right, but what is popular – even if the popularity may come at the expense of resources, including time, which could be better allocated. It also signals to the younger officers – that Khamoshi does not sell, and they need to come up with a Kick or Wanted to be appreciated.

When needled too much about the quality of cinema, the peddlers of mindless popular servings such as Houseful have one final answer - the fact that these movies make money - a lot of it, infact. Check out the box office collections of last decade, or a decade before that – it would be rare to find a cerebral offering among the top grossers. Hence, the question of popular cinema or good cinema is answered quite well by the box office - filmmaking is a private enterprise, and hence, the money flow decides the products. However, whether to have good policies or popular ones? This question may not be so easy to decide. Governance has to be both good and popular. And if push comes to shove, none other than Mahatma Gandhi has said, "Under my proposal, they (the British) have to leave India in God's hands – but in modern parlance to anarchy, and that anarchy may lead to internecine warfare for a time or to unrestrained dacoities. From these, a true India will rise in the place of the false one we see". Another of his quotes makes the meaning clearer – “For me the only training in Swaraj we need is the ability to defend ourselves against the whole world and to live our natural life in perfect freedom, even though it may be full of defects. Good government is no substitute for self-government.” So the political superstructure of the country is clearly cast by the Founding Fathers themselves. Hence the civil service knows quite well the side of the bread which is buttered. The question of good versus popular can only be resolved amicably if the gulf between the two is narrowed. It can be narrowed by better information of the masses by their better off kin. So, instead of simply sneering at the initiatives of the government and the competency of the services, our social peers may be better occupied by raising the general zeitgeist to the levels of their own understanding. Borrowing from Kipling, this is the "better off man's burden" in this age. Plus, who knows, in the bargain, we might even better the quality of movies we get to watch and the songs we get to listen to!

How to avoid burning your hand in Land Deals (Specific Illustrations from UP Revenue Laws)

[DISCLAIMER - Let us have the disclaimer first. The author is not a law graduate – not even a basic LLB. This is not to be construed as legal advice – for that, please consult your family lawyer, or a specialist. I repeat, this is not to be taken as legal advice, and it is being italicized to avoid tortuous liability. That being taken care of, all that can be said that the author has the experience of deciding 2500 plus Revenue Cases in his one and a half year tenure at Court. It was the anguish of seeing well meaning people lose their lands due to legal issues in their deals, that inspired this article. It is also inspired by a quote from one of the instructors in LBSNAA (the IAS Academy) – that the only way to be sure of your land title in India is to get it declared by a Constitution Bench of the Hon. Supreme Court! My effort is to try and see if a sure title is possible without disturbing the Apex Court. Again, this article is meant to be advisory in nature, and it is intended to be edited based on suggested corrections and improvements. So I request persons in the know how of Revenue matters – senior officers of the IAS, and the UP PCS, lawyers, Judicial Officers, and those who have litigated on land matters, to please help improve the article.]

Financial management is one area in which most indian middle class households are a bit unsure. Well, to begin with, most of the 'middle class' used to comprise of pensioned government jobs, and hence, technically, unless one actually had a plan beyond the mundane for the post retirement life, there was no need for financial planning as long as one's expenses were being met by the income. However, with most of the current generation taking up jobs in the private sector, and even the post 2004 entrants to the government services taking up employment under the New Pension System (or as we lovingly call it, the No Pension System!), the need to build a life-scale financial plan is very important now. The markets, and the faith in the markets (both are quite close looped feedback system) are yet to reach a level of reliability. Thus, real estate - primarily, land becomes a preferred avenue of investment. This, as the title suggests, is not an article about investments. It is about a primary introduction to the land laws, and a series of cautionary tales and advice on how not to burn your hard earned money.

Picturizing the Presumptive Title

Imagine a vast, sea like pool, with murky water. Imagine gigantic tables, made of wood, therein. From the surface, you just see the table tops – not the legs thereof. On these tables stand people, going about their business. Unbeknownst to them, some of these tables are standing on other tables, submerged. Some firmly, some precariously so. Some are simply floating adrift. The tables are too huge for the dwellers thereupon to tell which is which, except for those with a very keen vestibular sense, and those who dove under the surface to know the truth. The submerged tables sit atop supporting tables of their own, submerged even deeper – and this goes on till the bed of the pool is there. I know this is a bit odd to imagine, but bear with me.

The current land titling system in most of India is similar. Our sale deeds, our name in the revenue records, our happy existence in our happy homes, is just our act of dwelling on the surface level table tops. As long as the water is there, it really does not matter if it is floating, perched precariously or standing solid. It is presumed that we all are stable. This is the crux of presumptive titling. Presumptive title draws from a chain of transfers and transactions from earlier title holders. This is signified by the submerged tables. The pool bed is the original settlement of land done in the last survey and settlement operations – most probably in the colonial era.

So, imagine there is an even more gigantic suction pump attached to the pool bed, which can, in a trice, suck out all the water from the pool. What happens now? As you guessed it, those tables that stand on a series of firmly placed tables shall remain as they were. Those which were floating, either of their own, or standing on a floater, would go quite crashing down. Those perched precariously, or on weak legged tables anywhere in the series, would teeter, to varying extents. This, in the real world, is the presumption in our presumptive title being tested in a court of law.

So, what inferences can be drawn upon by these analogies. First, and a very simple, take away is – it is always worth the effort to check under water before getting atop a table. Better avoid the creakers, and the floaters. Second, deeper take away is this. A chain is as strong as its weakest link, and a stack of table is as strong as the weakest table leg. So assume that the probability of a random table having a creaky leg, or perching precariously, is P. So, the probability of it not being creaky or “perchy” is (1-P). Suppose there are two tables. The probability of the whole stack being non-creaky, is the probability of both tables being non creaky – that is, table A being non-creaky, AND table B being non creaky. As students of mathematics would know, “AND” probabilities are multiplicative, and hence, the combined probability is (1-P) x (1-P). If a stack has three tables, the probability of non creaky stack is (1-P)x(1-P)x(1-P). For a stack of n tables, it is (1-P)^n. As can be seen, (1-P) is a quantity less than 1, and hence, as the exponential power increases, the probability figure keeps going down – the chances of the stack being creaky increases. In the real world, the longer is the chain of title holders from the settlement in your presumptive title, the more is the chance that it may be defective. One need not go into the mathematics of it at all – most readers would agree that it is their inherent gut feeling too.

Land Records System

So, now that we agree on the need to check ‘under the hood’, let us get familiar with what we are looking for. This is an introduction to the Land Record system, in Uttar Pradesh. However, most states which were under the Mughal and then the British rule in their history, would have a similar system.

At the topmost present level, there are the record of rights (khatauni), field map (shajra) and field book (khasra girdawari, or khasra). Khatauni is a record of titleholders in alphabetical order. The titleholders are recorded, individually, or in case of shared holdings, jointly. It is prepared for 6 years. Next to the name are recorded the plot numbers under the named ownership, their areas, the year in which the rights were generated. In the last column, the orders which affect the other entries, are recorded temporarily, till the 6 year period elapses and the changes so ordered are effected in the main columns. It is, legally, a fiscal record, which shows who is liable to pay the land revenue on the said land parcels. It is also a tenuous proof of title in the land. The shajra is simply a map, drawn to a scale of 1mm = 4m. It shows all the plots in the area, and other notable installations and features of a village. The plots are numbered. The khasra is simply a record of these numbered plots serially. It includes the names of the person tilling the land (or the tenure holder whose name is in the khatauni), details of the means of irrigation, and the details of the crop sown in the three seasons of kharif, rabi and zaid. It is an annual record. It is also a (very very tenuous) proof of occupation of the land.

The khasra entries change every year based on what is sown or built on the land parcel, and on the basis of the records in khatauni. The shajra is quite stable. It is sometimes altered on court orders in Suits related to map correction. However, the most dynamic record as far as we are concerned, is the khatauni.  The record of ownership is being continually changed based on the orders of various Courts. These orders of the courts, before they effect a change in the main entry, reside as remark entries in the last column of the khatauni, till the 6 year period on that khatauni is exhausted. Before residing in the last column, the order is entered in the Mutation register (R6), on the basis of a Warrant (parwana) of the Court ordering the change in the land record – the warrant itself being pasted in a guard file, forming a permanent archive. The warrant itself is originated from a Court file. Thus, going behind the current instant records, there are these few records that trace the history of owner ship on any land parcel – the series of old khataunis – for every six years. In these khataunis, the khata number would change every time, based on the inclusion and exclusion of khaatedaars (account holders / land holders), since the positioning is purely alphabetical. However, the gata number (plot number ) in front of the account holders name should be invariant in a true case. Whenever there is a change, then the previous khatauni should reflect a court order in its last column. The court order should also exist on the R6 (mutation register), and the corresponding warrant should exist on the warrant guard files. The said warrant should also exist on the concerned court files.

If you think this is getting confusing, you are in for more. For the invariance of the account holder name and the plot number exists only till Chakbandi or Consolidation operations take place. A brief introduction to consolidation is warranted. Consolidation is one of a series of land reforms brought about post independence to improve the agriculture situation in a primarily agrarian state. Succession to lands, along with sales and purchases, lead, over time, to fragmentation of land holdings. The same person can hold a number of small scattered plots. Needless to say, small plots cannot take advantage of modern methods. Plus a lot of land area is lost in the bunds, pathways and similar accoutrements. So fragmentation is definitely bad. Consolidation is an operation in which all the accountholders of the consolidated area (usually a revenue village) pool together their fragmented land, which is then redemarcated into large, viable plots, and distributed among the account holders as per their original share – the share being ‘moderated’ for the change in quality of land. The more discerning of the readers would acknowledge how much bite is there in the ‘moderation’ – there is a famous saying – the villages in which consolidators have gone once, even the dacoits avoid for 20 years! Let us leave aside the various troubles with the consolidation itself, and assume that a very successful consolidation exercise has been completed. What that does to our land records system is that the plots are now totally different, and renumbered. The relationship between the old plots and the new is shown in what is known as CH-41 – which is a khasra with two plot numbers – old and new. The ‘confirm sheet’ is a bi-color map, mapping the old plot boundaries in a color different from the new ones. The relationship between the old rights and the new one is more tenuous, and it goes through a series of entries, for which a good reading of the Consolidation of Holdings Act and Rules is required. In brief, the rights are entered in Form 2A, Form 10A, Form 23, and in the end, in the form CH-45, which is the new khatauni after the consolidation is over. The CH-45 contains the reference of the original 10A entries in its last remarks column, so that can be thought of as a link between old rights and new. Of course, consolidation exercises last a few years, and all the normal revenue transactions like sale and purchases, and their mutations occur in the consolidation records, just the way they do in the normal revenue records.

I know it has been very confusing by now – current records, historical records, and now this twisting and turning of consolidation. However, we have dealt only with the complete set of revenue records till now. (Yeah, there are no revenue records left after this coverage – if that is a consolation!) However, as I have told before too, revenue records are accorded just a presumptive status. So they are not the only documents with which titles can be proved. Not all buyers apply for mutation of their names into the khatauni. In fact most small purchasers do not. It has its origins in the rather draconian section 168A of the UPZALR Act – which prohibited the sale of small fragments of lands (aimed at the same good as the consolidation process does), and led to vesting of any such purchases into the State. So small residential size plot purchasers chose not to inform the revenue authorities of such purchases. Many other purchasers did not get their names mutated – for example, if the land was partially constructed upon. In the eyes of law, if the sellers held a valid title, then these deed-holder-not-mutated purchasers are the rightful title owners, their mutation status notwithstanding. Thus, in addition to the revenue records, one needs to study all the registered deeds that have been executed in the said lands.

How to Use these Records

Now that we have become familiar with the records (for those who have not become familiar yet, do revise the above sub part again, for what comes is in fact a travelling review of the same system) we can now address the issue of how to research the land we are about to buy.

First of all, take a copy of the current khatauni. It is available for a fee of Rs.15 at all Tehsil offices, and can be applied for online too. See if it bears the name of your seller – if not in the main column, then in the orders column. If the name is in the main column, make sure no orders overturning that are in the orders column.

Then take out all the khataunis prior to that, till you hit the bed rock of survey and settlement records. In this exercise, you might cross consolidation exercises. In such cases, match the khatauni just next to the consolidation with the consolidation CH-45. From the remarks column of CH-45, trace if it matches with the 10A entry. From the 10A entry, you can easily navigate to the old khasra numbers of the titleholders. (This assumes that the land wasn’t bought or sold in the consolidation pendency – that complicates the process – and has to be dealt with the way sales and purchases are to be dealt in normal course, as will be explained shortly.) So, this way you cross the consolidation and continue to navigate prior khataunis on an older plot number on which the holders’ rights existed. In the said process, you shall definitely cross the process of Zamindari abolition. From there, another land record, named as Khewat would join the party. (The modern khatauni is an amalgamation of the old Khewat and Khatauni. The Khewat used to be record of rights in the Zamindari era – it contained the names of the owners and their sub tenants of various degrees – the details are not important here. What is important to know that it did not contain the plot / khasra numbers on which the khewatdaar had rights! Yes! It just had the Khewat number. The old Khasra had a column for Khewat number, and all the khasra entries (plots) that bore a particular Khewat number were under the title of that khewatdaar. So to prove that you are the title holder of a khasra number, you need an extract of the khewat, which shows your name, and then the khasra entry, which bears the khewat number. That was easy. However, to ascertain the total holding of a khewatdaar, you needed to have the whole khasra book, and pick out all the entries bearing the given khewat number – quite a messy prospective. I had to get it done once, a whole different story!) If you have just been bamboozled by the contents of that bracket, or have simply chosen to skip it, there is some partial respite. At the date UP Zamindari Abolition became operation – the date of vesting, the records of the time became sort of baselines. The khasra and khatauni of the Agricultural Year 1359 are very important. They are used to establish if any modern plot is a part of old ponds or lands of public purpose on which no permanent rights could accrue. They are used to certify caste. They are the baseline documents for most sort of litigations, and if you have researched back till 1359 AY, you are on pretty solid grounds. However, sadly, it is not a very strong baseline, and litigation in titles is still allowed to go behind the Zamindari Abolition, into the Zamindari era. So, it is call one must make – brevity and convenience vs accuracy and being foolproof.

That was about following a strand of ownership to the settlement bedrock. Of course, no strand could be expected to be that long – unless we have a Bicentennial man alive amongst us. For the lands would have been bought and sold in the decades that pass, and of course, land holders would die, leaving the land to their successors – natural or testamentary. Both transfers and successions would lead to a mutation order being recorded in the orders column of the khatauni (or the khewat), which would get transferred in the main column of the khatauni (khewat) when the 6 years (4 Years) period of the said document expires. Of course, since we are looking at it backwards, we would see names of our sellers get out of the main column into the orders column, where it would be mentioned how he happened to get that land by purchase / succession from whom. Then going further back, the eponymous ‘whom’ of the last sentence would get their place in the main column, and so we will continue backwards, till even these names get preceded by their predecessors and so on. Now, for all these mutations, there would be entries in the Mutation register. A copy of the same, brought out by a simple RTI application, would verify the authenticity of the same. Uncontested successions do not need court orders – they may be done by the Supervisor Kanoongo (Revenue Inspector) himself. So, to be double sure, get a copy of the Family Register of the said family in the year prior to the mutation, to check if all the valid successors had been mutated. If any names have been left out unexplicably, it is red flag. For all other types of mutation, the Mutation Register would be preceded by a Warrant in the Warrant Guard file, and before that, in the court file in which the warrant originated. All of these can be had for a fee. Tiresome exercise – yes.

After that, the things get a little more tiresome still. Now you must go to the local Sub Registrar office, and apply for the ‘Monthly Index’ of the documents registered in the said revenue village, or in the said plot number of the said village – going back to the consolidation! You have to do this under the RTI. As an officer, if I were there receiving such a request, I would reply that the record is too cumbersome to process, and that you are free to inspect the records. Just inspect them. As patient as you can be. Take an Urdu reader with you, for somewhere around 1950s the records shall change into Persian script. What you are looking for is – any occurrence of the plot number (or its pre consolidation “rights equivalent”), and any of the title holders on the said lands that you encountered on your traverse back in the time to the settlement. Some of them would be expected – if the title of your seller has been derived from a previous sale, that sale deed would be found in there. However, you are looking for registered items which are not a part of the mutations in your traverse. If and when such items occur, note the numbers of the registered documents, and take out a copy of the same.

So now that we have seen the whole canvas of how the land ownership is reflected across the ages in the revenue records, as well as the gamut of registered documents that might affect the title, what exactly do we need to look into when purchasing the land.

First of all, as I said earlier, the lower the number of links in the chain, the better it is. Look for a family held land. That too with only natural succession – testamentary successions by wills can be very problematic, and it is better if they are avoided. If resold land has to be bought, the least number of sales links is the better. Even in successions, the least number of successions is the best.

Then there are sale related issues. Till the operation of the UPRC 2006 started on February 11, 2016, the khatauni recorded all the cotenure holders against a plot, without expressing the area share of each of these shareholders. It is inadvisable to buy a cotenancy land. Better to ask your seller to get his land partitioned out under UPRC Section 116 (UPZALR 176), and get your shares and sub plot clearly demarcated out. Ensure that the summons are served on all the recorded tenureholders, so that no one can claim ex-parte judgement later. This has three benefits. Firstly, a suit prior to sale might bring out hidden disputes, before you burn your hands in the deal. Secondly, most land dispute are born out of cotenancy, when some of the parties try to claim meatier part of the undivided land – meatiness depends on productivity, proximity to resources or roads etc. A prepartitioned plot avoids such issues. The third, and the most important thing, however, is the declaration of clear shares and boundaries. This needs to be elaborated in a paragraph of its own.

I, in my capacity as a presiding officer of Revenue Court, have seen unscrupulous people selling unsuspecting buyers more than what their share is in the said cotenancy! Since the khatauni had no shares expressed, and the buyer was gullible, a person with, say, a 2000 square metres right in a plot of one hectare, might straightaway sell a 3000 square metre share to him. Even if the buyer is smart, and insists on researching his seller’s share, he can always sell him 1500 square metres, and then, immediately sell, say, 1200 metres to another buyer. Thus, he has achieved a sale of 2700 square metres on a right of 2000 square metres. This is where the sale deeds – mutated or not, that you have extricated from the Sub Registrar, would come handy. See to it that all the sale deeds record only the shares that were actually available to the sellers, and no ‘over-sales’ of the kind mentioned above have been done. Then again, some sale deeds have special qualifiers that demarcate the direction and location of the land sold from a larger plot. A single tenureholder in possession of the plot has the right to do so. A cotenant holding a plot under cotenancy does not have such a right. Some times the original owner of the large plot sells the buyers small demarcated shares, and leave out pathways between them as unsold commons. Often the unscrupulous out of these buyers try to get hold of these pathways and merge them in their shares. Since such pathways are not public pathways as per definition, no quick remedy is available in such a case. A partition suit would bring out all such private settlements into the public record as well as on the revenue map. Hence, on the pain of repetition, always buy a partitioned out share.

So, to revise, we have traversed the ownership of our seller in the said land, through his own predecessors or previous sellers; we have successfully crossed over areas of consolidation – through the “rights equivalency CH-45 – CH-10A route” (and not the plot equivalency route through CH 41); and in the Zamindari era we have also seen the associated Khewat. For every mutation , we have checked the R6 and the associated warrants and Court files (as applicable). We have noted down all the title holders and their cotenure holders in these records, and we have scoured the Monthly Index of the said Revenue Village from the Registry Office - for the plot number, for its “rights equivalent” pre-consolidation and for the names of the above mentioned title holders and their contenants. Wherever these things occurred in the index, we have taken out the registered documents, and checked them for mischiefs like ‘over-sale’, ‘direction and location demarcated sales’ and ‘sales with paths’. Then we have asked the seller to get his land share partitioned out. So now we are good to buy into the said land. So we buy it.

Possession

Good job. Now we have completed just one of the two major legs on which the presumptive title rests – a solid legal title. However, the second leg is as important, if not more. It is the actual physical possession of the said land. For one thing, mutation requires possession – mutation cases can be dismissed if, in most cases, the non possession is proved. Secondly, in the absence of very clear ground markers, leaving your purchased land undemarcated can keep it vulnerable to even inadvertent ‘honest mistake’ type encroachment, as well as to the mala fide land grabbers. Wait a minute, a part of the occupation goes into the research part too. From an occupation point of view, what land is the best to buy? To answer this, I would let you in on a dirty little secret. Almost none of the current plots are at their exact prescribed locations. Almost everything is shifted a little bit – the fields, their boundary bunds, the pathways between them, the crossroads made by the crossing of these pathway (the last ones are one type of the ‘permanent’ fixed points used to solve measurement disputes). This issue comes to fore more starkly at village boundaries – if the boundaries of the two maps do not coincide. Remember, one milimetre on the map is 4 metres on the ground. Hence, it is always better to buy lands – a) near some permanent markers – like old wells, old roads, any old structure recorded in the survey/consolidation map, b) away from the village boundaries. To do that, you need a copy of the village map. RTI – once again, comes to our rescue.

Government Lands

Once the steps regarding research and possession enumerated above are complied with, you have managed to avoid the repercussions of the shenanigans of the private parties. You, however, still need to be aware of the shenanigans of the state! There are just a few now. One you have already been exposed to – the draconian 168 A ZALR – which prohibited sales of fragments. In case, along your traverse, you find sales of fragments, which have not been subsequently regularized, avoid it. Or ask the seller to get it regularized – it is allowed now, after repeal of the section. Next is the fallout of Hinchlal Tiwari Judgement – any traditional pond has to remain a pond. It has to be redug if it has been built upon. That is what the law says. How to find if your prospective land is infact a hidden pond (or any other land of public purpose)? Just check out the khasra of the 1359 AY, referred to earlier. Another set of laws prohibited unregulated sale of land by the weaker sections of the society. These are section 157A and 157AA of the UPZALR Act and the Section 99 of the UPRC. So if the land in question has ever been in the possession of SC / ST landholders, it needs to be checked if the proper permissions were taken when these lands were sold. How to spot such tenureholders? Firstly, the records of 1359 AY and before contain the caste of the landholders. Thereafter, any landholder who has been let on the gram sabha land on the basis of lease by the Panchayat Land Management Committee or the SDO usually falls under such category. Finally there is the issue of lands in which the government has been a litigant. This includes a) lands with contested rights accrued by unauthorized occupation by a member of the vulnerable section, b) lands which have been exchanged with the gram sabha, c) lands in which government had gained rights by vesting, sealing etc, which was later taken away by a court judgement. In almost all such cases, somewhere somehow, government keeps contesting for its rights, and occasionally wins, leaving a bona fide purchaser high and dry for no fault of his. Activists (blackmailers) of all stripes keep sniffing out for such lands, and then proceed to blackmail the purchasers of such lands. In case the purchaser does not comply, they complain to the authorities, quite self-righteously, and the authorities often err on the side of caution with a huge margin, just to avoid blame.

To Conclude

I guess that to many of my readers, this reads less like a DIY article and more like a satire. Well, to be honest, it is partly that. It is very difficult for a small lower middle class land buyer to do so much research. The article just specifies how much research needs to be done. The purchaser may very well follow it to the extent he is willing, trading off between surety and convenience. Almost all the current purchasers of the land are doing so without even doing the first step, and are, for the most part, doing well. Maybe my view is jaundiced by the extreme cases of human crookedness and tragedy that come to the Court of a Sub Divisional Officer. The satire lies in the fact that such a cumbersome process needs to be resorted to be sure of one’s title in the land. Should that not be our right – to be sure that the land we are buying would not one day be snatched from us, just the way we are when we buy a vehicle or a consumer durable. Conclusive Titling is the only way to get there. It shall come in its own time. First of all, there is the need to raise the status of the revenue records from mere fiscal entries to record of titles in the real sense. It can go further and record the appurtenant buildings, and the owners thereof. Then the process of registry needs to be linked electronically to the revenue records. If the name of the seller is not there in the revenue records, the registry computer should not register a sale by him. It shall force all such floating title holders to get themselves mutated in the records – thus creating a true record of ownership. Secondly, it helps avoid sales by non owners. Thus limiting disputes. That is the only way to circumvent this 5000 words article. That is the only way to peace and progress.

PS –

1.       One issue that the original article missed was the issue of forced dispossession. Middle class bona fide land owners are much troubled by muscled parties forcibly occupying their property. Civil Courts have their own pendency issues to deal with, and justice is time taking. Most go to the Police – who are almost as clueless as what exactly to do in such cases. The speedy remedy is available only under Section 145 CrPC – under which the police can help you. The section allows an Executive Magistrate to deliver possession to the rightful possession holder (which need not be the rightful title owner – the magistrate cannot decide the title – only a civil / revenue court can do so). It even allows him to deliver possession to the displaced party in case a forcible dispossession in the last 2 months is proved.

Now question comes how to prove your possession. For the magistrate has two options – to give possession to some party, or to attach the property to a receiver under Section 146. Attachment can be resorted to in cases of – a)imminent threat of breach of peace if the land is left in either party’s possession, b) it becomes clear that none of the party was originally in possession, c) it does not become clear which party was in possession. Usually, it is the third case. There is no CCTV camera hovering over all properties that can record possession. It is usually the word of one party against other. So most cases lead to attachment until a competent civil court decided on the issue. That leads back to the square one. I, in my tenure as a Magistrate, gave out only one possession. The evidence was quite rock solid. The awarded party had names in the consecutive voter lists (a public document) between the names of parties which dwelt in the adjacent homes – both ECI and SEC lists. They had a number of registered letters delivered to them at the said address – utility bills and the like. The other party had plain words. The weight of clear cut evidence was much appreciated. So if my readers want to ensure that their possession creates a trail of reliable records, keep collecting and archiving all the official papers you receive at your address, and ensure your names in the electoral rolls occur at the correct house number. Another way is to take photographs or videos of your ‘possession’ – say you tilling your fields, or sitting on your front porch, with a copy of the day’s newspaper in your hands, and mailing the photographs and videos to some official email id – the photograph of the day’s newspaper proves that the photo / video cannot be older than the date the paper was published – and the time stamp on your email proves it is not later than the dispatch of the mail. This is the way I suggested my litigants to prove their possession! It is fool proof. It does sound paranoid. Better be paranoid rather than dispossessed.