We have successfully
completed a march with close to 10,000 people including children, men, women
and even senior citizens of tribal communities from 20 districts of Jharkhand
for their right to the Forests and Land. The march, also called ‘Paidal march’
(Marching on foot) began on 20th February from Columbus ground at Hazaribagh
and concluded at Ranchi on 27th February covering 110 kilometers.
The demands
are simple – full rights of the tribal communities on the land, water and other
resources of the forests from which they are being systematically alienated.
Earlier it was the British who exploited the forest dwellers and after
Independence, the Indian Forest Act ignored their rights depriving them of the
usage of the forest and its resources which they always had access to and which
always belonged to them since time immemorial. However, later the Government of
India recognised the injustice done to the forest dwellers and brought the
“Schedule Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dweller Forest Rights Act, 2006."
This act provides for the strengthening of the local government/Gram Sabha for
the management and governance of forests within the traditional boundaries of a
village and for the protection of forests, forest life, and biodiversity.
Similarly, schedule V of the Indian constitution recognized the need for
protection and special administration of areas predominantly inhabited by
tribal/ Adivasi people due to their cultural uniqueness, vulnerability to
external exploitation. The most important right provided under this schedule is
the prevention of land alienation through land transfer regulation where no
land or immovable property in these areas can be transferred by way of sale or
lease to persons other than the tribals. But no serious efforts were made to
empower the forest dwellers and instead they were displaced and exploited. By
selling major chunks of the land to corporates, the state government violated
the provisions of the Constitution. In Jharkhand, over the years, thousands of
people have been displaced and denied their right to the forest. The government
has sold forest lands to the rich corporates who razed agricultural fields to
start projects of coal mining, stone quarry, dams, factories and other projects
in the name of development. The Government’s initiatives like Tiger Project,
Wildlife corridor have also displaced many people and the others who have not
been displaced are living in constant fear. Various tactics are used time and
again to drive the tribals away from their land and displace them. In
Jharkhand, there are demands for both granting of both IFR (Individual Forest
Rights) and CFR (Community Forest Rights). One of the tribal woman from
Hazaribagh says, ”Our forefathers have struggled to preserve the land and the
forest resources. But now the government refuses to give us that very land
instead they have added that land to the land bank. Our demand is that we are
given rights to the land.” In Jharkhand, there are 16,452 villages with
19,94,387 hectares of their land covered by forests. So the villagers can be
granted forest rights as a community and 14 lakh individuals are eligible for
individual forest rights. We at the National Alliance for peace and justice
(NAPJ) organised an 8 days March to help Adivasis in Jharkhand state reclaim
the forests, the rivers, the creeks, the trees, the sand, and the farms. A day
after the March began, the Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the forest
dwellers so in the charter of demands, we promptly added a demand to the state
to file a petition against the order. The other demands are as follows:
•
Withdrawal of minor civil and criminal cases against the forest dwellers,
• A
dedicated Scheduled Tribe Department to be formed to focus on welfare and
rights of the tribal population;
• Land Acquisition Act, 2006 should be
enforced and Land Acquisition Act, 2013 should be repealed;
• A state-level
Joint committee should be formed for execution of Forest Right Act, 2006. • The
Chotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act, and Santal Pargana Tenancy (SPT) Act should be
strictly implemented.
• The common land, the grazing land, the forests, the
rivers, rivulets, streams, the trees, farming land and everything that has been
added in the Land Bank should be freed and not given to capitalists.
We want our rights to the
forest and the forest produce back such as the fruits, medicines, wood and
other produce. It is 12 years since the Forest Rights Act has
been passed but it is still not being implemented properly. There are more than
32,000 villages in Jharkhand and everyone has their land and their names
recorded. But still what happens is the bullying of the police and the
Government. In one of our villages, the NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation)
has forcefully taken over 25,000 acres of land. And in another village in
Santhal Pargana, where the people were agitating, the police has put them
behind bars under false allegations. It appears like the state and the law are
in favour of the rich and our voices are not heard. The Government is not
concerned about the forests and the forest dwellers.
And now the Supreme
Court has said that those whose claims have been rejected should be evicted
from the forests. Where will they go? There must be lakhs of people in the
entire country whose claims have been rejected.” Now that the Supreme Court has
stayed the order of eviction of forest dwellers, the tribals can heave a sigh
of relief. But the Supreme Court order for eviction came in the wake of some
corporate NGOs and other NGOs funded by corporate, filing a petition. The
corporate sector is anti-ecology and anti-forest dwellers. The state wants to
institutionalise the forests – construct parks and reserves. But we want the
forests to be left as it is – wild and free. The Government does not even have
any record of the people who have been displaced since the last 20 years. And
this is one of our concerns. Ideally, each state government should prepare a
status report on tribals once a year and submit to the central government but
this is not in practice. There is no data with any of the States. On 28th
February, a group of 4 Adivasis leaders accompanied by Ex-MLA Gautam Sagar Rana
and Birendra Kumar met the Governor Draupadi Murmu and submitted their
memorandum of demands. The governor who is a tribal herself assured that she
will take up the matter with the Central Government and at the state level also
she said she will talk to the Forest Minister. She has assured for appropriate action, she also said that government officials are acting on their own behest as government do care about the rights of people living in jungle.