ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the strategic alliance between religion and the state with regards to border settlement policies. The Banni grasslands are state-owned and managed today as they were in the past. Under the princely state, they were accorded the status of crown lands whose revenues were paid directly into the state. In a map of Kachchh dated 1844, several of the grazing lands in the Rann are depicted as belonging to the Kachchh bhayyad. Seasonal variations in rainfall have affected the revenues of the pastoralists of Banni fairly regularly. During princely rule, the Jatts recall that they were given open access to the pasture lands in Banni with no restrictions. The search for a definitive solution to the problem of ownership of the Rann in the 1960s led the postcolonial states of India and Pakistan back to all the documentation that existed on the subject.
