| Subject: | Political Science |
| Title: | Customary Rights, Statutory Laws and the Politics of Land and Forest In Arunachal Pradesh |
| Author(s): | Byabang Agnes |
| Published on: | 30th January 2026 |
| Published by: | Lyceum India |
| Name of the Journal: | Lyceum India Journal of Social Sciences |
| ISSN/E-ISSN: | 3048-6513 |
| Volume & Issue: | Volume: 3, Issue: 1 |
| Pages: | 65-78 |
| Original DOI (if any): | 10.5281/zenodo.18404755 |
| Repository DOI: | |
| Abstract: | This article examines the historical evolution of land and forest governance in Arunachal Pradesh and its implications for customary tenure and indigenous rights. It argues that contemporary legal insecurity is not the result of regulatory absence but of layered statutory interventions that progressively subordinate community-based systems to state control. Tracing trajectories from colonial forestry frameworks to post-independence centralisation under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and the Arunachal Pradesh Land Settlement and Records Act, 2000 (amended in 2018), the study highlights how presumptive state ownership over unrecorded land, limited recognition of customary rights, and long-term leasing mechanisms have reconfigured access to land and resources. The article contends that these overlapping regimes facilitate indirect land alienation and deepen socio-political marginalisation, underscoring the need to re-centre customary institutions within statutory frameworks for equitable and sustainable governance. |
| Keywords: | Customary Rights, Statutory Laws, Land, Forest, Arunachal Pradesh |
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