Their online revolutionary spirit was infectious for those watching from afar. Nowhere was this clearer than in Egypt, where social media was well embedded in the culture of the country’s overwhelmingly young population – 60% under the age of 30. We haven’t progressed beyond the late 19th century."We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world." #egypt #jan25- Fawaz Rashed March 18, 2011 And the simple point is that the operation of land markets is inefficient. Why can’t this be done throughout India? It is tempting to think of land issues as limited ones of acquisition, compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation. If titles are uncertain, shouldn’t we introduce a system of titling insurance? Some of the traditional Green Revolution areas have undertaken consolidation exercises, to prevent fragmentation. In this era of satellite imagery, is it that difficult to match titling with survey records? If Goa can do it, why can’t other States? Why are cadastral surveys and titling exercises so old? If title records are so old, all computerization of land records is nothing more than garbage in and garbage out.
Nor are they interested in investing in the land. Why is the entire discourse about ownership legislation? Even if that is controversial and contentious, can’t we do something about tenancy legislation? If we ban tenancy, all that happens is that we drive it underground. Why do “mahalwari” areas tend to perform better than “zamindari” or “ryotwari” areas? I am not an economic historian and I have not seen any good research work on this. There are several issues connected with land markets, not only the simple one of bribing revenue officials to declare people dead. But this still leaves a fairly large number of “dead” men walking around. Once Lal Bihari became alive, Mritak Sangh seemed to fade into oblivion, though another 33 members of the association were also proved to be alive. Eventually, Lal Bihari was proved to be alive in 2005, on resurrection day on 30th June. Both Kundan Shah and Satish Shah have been interested in films based on Lal Bihari’s life, except that they haven’t been able to zero in on actors for the role. Therefore, someone else (I think it was Kundan Shah) received the award on his behalf. He couldn’t get a passport, because he wasn’t alive. He couldn’t get a visa, because he didn’t have a passport. Lal Bihari couldn’t receive it in person. This is a genuine prize, though there is an element of spoof in it. Consequently, Lal Bihari was awarded the Ignoble Prize for Peace in 2000. This bizarre story attracted media attention, including global media. He added “Mritak” as his surname and became the founder President of Mritak Sangh. Thus, Lal Bihari decided to synergize their collective efforts. There are several others in Punjab, but presumably, he couldn’t get hold of those. Lal Bihari then decided to do some research and found there were at least 25,000 other such dead people wandering around in UP, especially in Azamgarh district. So he got his wife to go and claim widow’s pension.
He eventually used to work as a government school teacher. He stood in elections against a former Prime Minister. Lal Bihari went and threw stones at police stations, so that cops would arrest him. Once you are declared dead, how do you prove you are alive? It isn’t easy. When he was fairly young (nine years old), his uncle, covetous of ancestral property, bribed local revenue officials to declare him dead. Lal Bihari’s tragic story is symptomatic of many travails of our legal system. Mritak Sangh (Association of Dead People) will observe 30th June as resurrection day. Lal Bihari Mritak has surfaced again, after having disappeared for several years.