India's population now tops one billion, and as property has gotten subdivided repeatedly among ever more heirs, some farmers are now left to eke out a living with plots no bigger than a tennis court.

Declaring someone dead to inherit his land may seem a preposterous ruse, especially if the dearly departed is decidedly evident. But slippery deeds often require nothing more than a greased palm. Corruption is rampant in India, and while crooked politicians get most of the attention, the dishonesty at the top is built on a solid foundation of dishonesty at the bottom. Bribes are required to conduct almost any public business, whether it is getting electricity turned on or filing a court case.

Mr. Bihari said he later learned that his phony demise had cost his uncle about $25, not an inconsiderable sum. A hit man could have been hired for half that. ''I contacted lawyers, and they told me that that what had happened was nothing unusual, but that to fight it in court would take a long, long time,'' he said.

Mr. Bihari faced his predicament with a potent combination of outrage and humor. He no longer lived in Khalilabad, his ancestral village, and his income did not depend on the contested plot of land, which was less than an acre. He added the Hindi word ''mritak,'' or dead, to his name. He began his ''association'' and printed up stationery.

But mostly, he schemed. Mr. Bihari believed that artifice could force the government to acknowledge his continuing existence. He tried to get arrested; he ran for office; he sued people -- anything to get his real name on the public record. In a bit of reverse psychology, he had his wife apply for widow's benefits, but the same officials who insisted he was dead refused to allow him to profit from his passing.

Finally, the preservation of his death simply became too much of a nuisance for the powerful to maintain. Mr. Bihari was a prolific pamphleteer. He and his loosely affiliated group even held a mock funeral for themselves in Lucknow, the state capital. By 1994 officialdom took steps to end this ankle-biting. The land revenue records were corrected, and Mr. Bihari's good name was fetched from oblivion.

''In pursuing my battle, I had developed quite an identity,'' he recalls proudly. ''I became the leader of a movement. I knew I had other dead people to save.''