Land and forests remain a contentious issue in India. The colonial history of land title distribution made the land governance regime in the nation extremely complex.
Despite India's independence, many land systems did not change since colonial rule. When the British surveyed lands to categorize them, common land was recorded as government land. Similarly, communities lost control over forest lands that they had protected, preserved, and made fertile with their labor.
The already complex governance of land systems is now threatened by digitalization and the use of data to determine welfare for farmers, crop insurance, and disaster relief, among other issues.
The introduction of artificial intelligence in systems that will determine some of these issues, without having addressed ongoing land conflicts, can be disastrous for communities, many of whom are losing access to their traditional and ancestral lands. Land remains a key parameter to determine welfare measures and disaster relief in India, and requires multiple algorithms for beneficiary selection.
This reporting project will shed a spotlight on how the digitalization of land is impacting communities and what happens when incomplete or faulty registries are linked to decision-making algorithms.
