Fields of Change

The unlikely land reform that began with two men, a field diary, and a forgotten village in South Kashmir.

- Mohammad Amin Mir

In the folds of South Kashmir, tucked between apple orchards and old boundaries that exist more in memory than on paper, two revenue officials decided they'd had enough of waiting.

The village they worked in hadn't seen a proper land settlement in years. Not unusual, really. Across India, especially in hilly or rural regions, land records are often a confusing mess — one that fuels family disputes, delays development, and sidelines the poor. But this patwari and girdawar, posted to a sleepy tehsil with no special funds, permissions, or staff, decided to do something rare: they rolled up their sleeves and fixed what they could.

They started small. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they set aside their routine tasks to work exclusively on this trial settlement. They issued informal notices, called in villagers with old documents and older stories, and began matching what the records said with what the ground showed.

There was no vehicle. They used their own motorcycles, carried their own measuring chains and field books, and paid for photocopies out of their own pockets. They asked for help from the local lumberdar and chowkidar, who spread the word that the officials weren't here to penalize, just to correct.