{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2015}} {{Use Indian English|date=February 2015}} The '''comunidades''' of Goa are a form of land association developed in Goa, India, where land-ownership is collectively held, but controlled by the male descendants of those who claimed to be the founders of the village, who in turn mostly belonged to upper caste groups.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Pereira, Rui Gomes|year=1978|title=Goa: Hindu temples and deities|series=Volume 1 of ''Goa''|others=(translated from the original in Portuguese by Antonio Victor Couto)|location=Panaji, Goa, India|publisher=Pereira|page=1|oclc=6862661}}</ref> Documented by the Portuguese as of 1526, it was the predominant form of landholding in Goa prior to 1961.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Vanjari, Shrikrishna|year=1968|title=Feudal Land Tenure System in Goa|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|location=New Delhi|volume=3|issue=22|pages=843–844}}</ref><ref name="Mascarenhas">{{Cite web|author=Mascarenhas, Nascimento|date=25 April 2010|title=Comunidades de Goa|publisher=Saligao Serenade|url=http://saligaoserenade.com/2010/04/comunidades-de-goa/|access-date=17 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190425232544/http://saligaoserenade.com/2010/04/comunidades-de-goa/|archive-date=25 April 2019|url-status=usurped}}</ref> In form, it is similar to many other rural agricultural peoples' form of landholding,<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Agrawal, A.|year=2001|title=Common property institutions and sustainable governance of resources|journal=World Development|volume=29|issue=10|pages=1649–1672|doi=10.1016/s0305-750x(01)00063-8}}</ref> such as that of pre-Spanish Bolivia<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Weeks, David|year=1947|title=Land tenure in Bolivia|journal=The Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics|volume=23|issue=3|pages=321–336|jstor=3158806|doi=10.2307/3158806}}{{Subscription required}}</ref> and the Puebloan peoples now in the Southwestern United States,<ref>{{Cite journal|authorlink=Ernest Beaglehole |last=Beaglehole |first=Ernest|year=1934|title=Ownership and inheritance in an American Indian tribe|journal=Iowa Law Review|volume=20|pages=304–316|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/ilr20&div=31}}{{Subscription required}}</ref> identified by Karl Marx as the dualism of rural communities: the existence of collective land ownership together with private production on the land.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Potekhin, Ivan I.|year=1963|title=Land relations in African countries|journal=The Journal of Modern African Studies|volume=1|issue=1|pages=39–59|jstor=158783|doi=10.1017/s0022278x00000707}}{{Subscription required}}</ref>
==Codified by the Portuguese== Comunidades are a variant of the system of {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkari}} system called {{Transliteration|kok|gramasanstha}} (ग्रामसंस्था)). Some scholars argue that the term {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkari}} is derived from the name for those who compose it, that is the {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkar}}; i.e. those who make (''kar'') the ''gaun'' or village. This institution pre-existed the arrival of the Portuguese, but was codified by them.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Menezes, Maximo|year=1961|title=Breves Notas sobre a Historia das Comunidades de Goa com Diversos Mapas Anexes (A Short Note concerning the History of the Comunidades of Goa with Several Maps Attached|language=Portuguese|location=Goa|publisher=Tipografia Nacional}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author=Pereira, Rui Gomes|year=1978|title=Goa: Gaunkari|series=Volume 2 of ''Goa''|others=(translated from the original in Portuguese by Antonio Victor Couto)|location=Panaji, Goa, India|publisher=Pereira|oclc=6862661|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lwQYAAAAIAAJ}}</ref> The first of these codifications was contained in the Foral of Afonso Mexia in 1526. The term ''gram'' in {{Transliteration|kok|gramasanstha}} refers to the village. ''Comunidades'' is the Portuguese word for "communities". The ''khazan'' system of managed wetlands in Goa is an offshoot of the {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkari}} system, but now quite distinct from the comunidades.<ref>{{Cite book|author1=Sonak, Sangeeta|author2=Kazi, Saltanat|author3=Sonak, Mahesh|author4=Abraham, Mary|year=2006|chapter=Factors affecting land-use and land-cover changes in the coastal wetlands of Goa|editor=Sonak, Sangeeta|title=Multiple dimensions of global environmental change|location=New Delhi|publisher=TERI Press, The Energy and Resources Institute|pages=44–61, [http://www.teriin.org/teri-wr/projects/apnbook_abstracts/section1/GOA-Book.pdf#page=55 page 46]|isbn=978-81-7993-091-5|url=http://www.teriin.org/teri-wr/projects/apnbook_abstracts/section1/GOA-Book.pdf}}{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
==Members and dividends== Members of the comunidades are called ''gaonkars'', or ''zonnkars'' (in Portuguese, ''jonoeiros''). The former are the members of the village, the latter were entitled to ''zonn'', or ''jono'', which is a dividend paid by the comunidade to {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkars}} and ''accionistas'', the holders of ''acções'' (sing. ''acção''), or shares. The system applies equally to agricultural land and to village housing.
==Changes over time==
Over time and subject to conflicting land ownership and administration systems, the old institutions lost their original characteristics and comunidades are now mere societies of rights-holders who are members by birth.
After Portuguese rule ended in Goa in 1961, the village development activities, which were once the preserve of the comunidades or more specifically the {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkaris}}, became entrusted to the gram panchayat, rendering the {{Transliteration|kok|gaunkaris}} non-functional.
''The emergence of private property in land created a new set of socio-economic relationships at the village level, especially the comunidades and the ghar-bhaatt, the two principal forms of land tenure that came to characterise Portuguese Goa.''<ref>{{Citation|author=Kamat, Pratima|year=2000|chapter=Peasantry and the Colonial State in Goa 1946-1961|editor1=Borges, Charles J. |editor2=Pereira, Oscar Guilherme |editor3=Stubbe, Hannes |title=Goa and Portugal: History and Development|location=New Delhi|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|pages=133–159|isbn=978-81-7022-867-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=diISslZgIAkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA133}}</ref>
The working of the comunidades is now tightly controlled by the Goa state government, which supporters of the comunidade movement say leaves little scope for them to act as self-governing units.<ref>''today the 223 comunidades of Goa are moribund at best'' {{Cite journal|author=Goswami, Rahul|year=2008|title=The Konkan Packaging Company of Goa|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|volume=43|issue=6|pages=10–12, page 11|jstor=40277093}}{{Subscription required}}</ref>
==Limited role== The sole official function of the comunidades, currently, is to parcel out their land at government-approved rates. However, supporters of the comunidade movement, have been waging a determined, if small, campaign to safeguard what they see as their rights, and continue to fight against the erosion of the comunidade system in Goa, by, for example, bringing land ownership lawsuits.<ref name="Agonda">{{Cite news |title=In Agonda, rain makes life a nightmare |date=31 July 2001 |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1019754581.cms |newspaper=The Times of India |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060315072549/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1019754581.cms |archivedate=15 March 2006 |url-status=dead |df=dmy |access-date=9 November 2005 }}</ref> In 2004, the Goa Su-Ray Party issued a polemic supporting the comunidades.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Comunidades of Goa|date=12 November 2004|publisher=Goa Su-Ray Party|url=http://www.goasu-raj.org/gen/articles/19.asp|access-date=4 March 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090409213709/http://www.goasu-raj.org/gen/articles/19.asp|archive-date=9 April 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref>
The Goa Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964, passed in the 1964 by the then Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party government, extended the tenancy rights of the tenants to lands from the comunidade, for the payment of a quit-rent called the comunidade foro. This has resulted in most field property of the comunidades passing into private hands, and erosion of the comunidades as a whole.
Thus at present most of comunidade land is in the hills, which is either uncultivated or given over to cashew plantations, to tenants. Uncultivated comunidade land draws squatters who develop shanty towns.<ref name="Agonda" />
In the populous and well-developed central coastal parts of the state, almost all the land that once belonged to the comunidades has been allotted to tenants or taken over for industrial purpose by the government.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
There are provisions under the Code of Comunidade (a Legislative Enactment No. 2070 dated 15 April 1961) to take action against illegal encroachments; however, action is usually not taken.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== *{{Cite book|year=1964|title=Report of the Goa Land Reforms Commission|location=Panaji|publisher=Government of Goa, Daman & Diu|oclc=5535970}} *{{Cite book|author=Mazarelo, S.|year=1966|title=Report of the Committee of the Problems of Mundkars in the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu|location=Panaji, Goa|publisher=Government Printing Press|oclc=7903841}} Note: a ''mundkar'' is a tenant or landbound peon. *{{Cite book|year=1969|chapter=III Comunidades|title=Annual administration report [Goa, Daman and Diu (India)]|location=Panaji|publisher=Government of Goa, Daman & Diu|pages=56–57|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RJIaAAAAIAAJ|oclc=2335071}}
==Further reading== * {{Cite web|author=Mukhopadhyay. Pranab|year=2002|title=Now that Your Land is My Land …. Does it matter? : A case study in Western India|url=http://www.beijer.kva.se/teaching/pranab.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070726123515/http://www.beijer.kva.se/teaching/pranab.pdf|archivedate=26 July 2007|url-status=dead}}
==External links== * A non-neutral statement of position: {{Cite web|author=Association of Componentes of Comunidades|title=The Comunidades of Goa|url=http://www.goa-world.com/goa/comunidades/|publisher=Goa-World.com|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120719060326/http://www.goa-world.com/goa/comunidades/|archivedate=19 July 2012|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}
{{Clear}}
{{Goa topics}}
Category:Comunidades of Goa Category:Colonial Goa Category:Economy of Goa Category:Social history of Goa Category:1520s establishments in Portuguese India