The Forest Rights Act in Nagarahole
(PAPER – 2 INDIAN & TRIBAL ANTHROPOLOGY)
The varied responses of Adivasis living in and around Nagarahole Tiger Reserve NTR to the prospect of living within the forest as offered under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
The Forest Rights Act: Genesis and Implementation
The FRA, enacted in 2006, is a historic legislation that aims to redress the historical injustices inflicted on forest- dwelling Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other traditional forest dwellers by recognising their rights over forestlands. This injustice stems from exclusionary forest protection policies and laws that have held sway since the colonial period.
The FRA recognises two types of rights to land: individual and community.
According to the act, the occupation of land of up to four acres for the purpose of habitation or cultivation prior to 13 December 2005 can be recognised as the individual rights of a family; meanwhile, the community rights provision recognises collective ownership and the collection, use, and disposal of minor forest produce traditionally collected.
Another important provision, Section 3(2) of the FRA allows certain facilities, which are prohibited under forest and wildlife protection laws, to be established inside the forest for the welfare and development of the inhabitants. These include schools, dispensaries, shops, roads, electric lines, and drinking water. However, such facilities are provided based on the collective recommendations of the gram sabha, and not the requests of individual families.
As is well known, forest policies adopted by the colonial and postcolonial administrations in India dispossessed many Adivasi communities of their lands (Asher and Agarwal 2007).
In many cases, Adivasis resisted such exclusion, leading to the formulation of region-specific policies, especially in areas with large Adivasi populations, to protect their land and provide them a certain level of authority and autonomy over their resources. Examples of such laws include the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act, 1949, the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (Amendment) Act, 1964, and the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (Bijoy 2008; Upadhya 2005). However, while national-level forest protection policies have existed since the colonial period, a centralised, pan-Indian legislation to protect the rights of Adivasis was absent till the FRA was enacted in 2006. The implementation of the
FRA in different parts of India highlights its variable impact. In Chhattisgarh and Gujarat, for example, although not all rights were granted, Bandi (2015) argues that the FRA gave a “psychological boost” to the Adivasis by assuring them that their land would not be taken away.
According to the Community Forest Rights–Learning and Advocacy (CFR–LA) report (2016), in several regions, such as Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, Biligiri Rangaswami Temple Tiger Reserve, Karnataka, and Dindori district, Madhya Pra desh (MP), community rights were successfully established (CFR–LA 2016).The report also claims that local communities stopped commercial forestry in many areas where community forest rights were confirmed (CFR–LA 2016: 13). However, it also notes that, in many areas, forest departments have been more hostile towards granting community rights than individual rights (Agarwal 2018; CFR–LA 2016; Kumar et al 2017).
According to the report, one reason for this is that forest departments believe that recognition of community rights will weaken their control over the forest. Thus, the forest departments have adopted various strategies to retain their control over forests, entangling and derailing the issue in several places in the process (CFR–LA 2016). Another concern raised by scholars about the sustenance of community resources is that the current generation of
Adivasis is more interested in generating an income from the forest than protecting it. Hence, they often indulge in illegal extraction of forest resources, threatening the long- term survival of community forests—an argument put forward by forest department in Uttar Pradesh against the recognition of community rights (Agarwal 2018). Field- level studies on the implementation of the FRA offer important insights into the successes and failures of the act in different regions and point to possible reasons for these varying outcomes.
However, most studies do not provide an in-depth understanding of how local Adivasis, who are the subjects of the FRA, have responded to or engaged with the act.
One exception is Ramanujam’s (2017) study of the Baiga Chak region of MP, which shows that despite the impressive implementation of the FRA on paper, fractures have emerged on the ground. Here, many people are not interested in claiming community rights despite having received titles. He notes the various local conditions contributing to this response, such as degrading forest quality, which made people sceptical about their future inside the forest, and the gradual withdrawal of NGOs, which compromised their readiness for collective action.
Additionally, some people depend on the timber-felling operations of the forest department of MP for their livelihoods, while others resent it since it destroys the place of their gods and ancestors’ spirits and affects their
sources of medicines, food, and fodder. Moreover, the younger generation aspires for an urban lifestyle rather than a life in the forest (Ramanujam 2017).
The range of local responses to the FRA provides insight into the gaps between policy formulation and implementation, suggesting that centralised policies and laws formulated at the national level may be incapable of accommodating local conditions and aspirations. In the next section, I discuss Such specificities for the NTR.
Nagarahole Tiger Reserve: A History of Evictions
NTR is spread across two districts of Karnataka—Kodagu and Mysore—older forests; swampy grasslands, known locally as hadlu; settlements of Jenu Kurubas, Betta Kurubas and Yeravas, the three main Adivasi communities of NTR, all listed as STs in Karnataka Several Adivasi settlements continue to be situated inside NTR, although their presence has reduced drastically since the 1970s, when these forests came under a stricter wildlife conservation regime following the enactment of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Many Adivasis spoke about evictions that continued for more than a decade after 1972, resulting in the complete abandonment of some of their older settlements, such as Halehalli and Ajjapura, which were situated deep inside the forest and away from the main roads. These displaced communities were forced to shift, either to other
settlements within the reserve and closer to the main roads, or to locales in the forest periphery (such as Hosahalli and Maradahalli). Some Adivasis moved to settlements that were entirely outside the forest, such as Kanakapura, or to the line houses maintained inside the coffee plantations for its workers. This coercive action of the forest department officials created a sense of fear among the Adivasis of NTR, and over the next three decades, many families were gradually forced to leave their homes and agricultural lands. Prior to the 1970s, most Adivasis used to cultivate paddy or practice kumri cultivation inside the forests.
After the 1970s, the demand for labour inside NTR reduced severely due to the complete ban on all human activities in the forest. Consequently, Adivasis ventually became heavily dependent on coffee plantations and agricultural labour outside the forest, which significantly modified their earlier, everyday associations with the forest.
NGO Interventions in Nagarahole
During the 1980s, the evictions led to the establishment of several Adivasi rights NGOs in the region. providing educational and nutritional support to Adivasi children; facilitating the establishment of Adivasi-led organizations and collaborating with these organizations in filing court cases against the forest department; organizing protests to demand rights and welfare for Adivasis; and conducting awareness programmer on women empowerment, indigenous knowledge, and traditional Adivasi practices. Many Adivasis are also employed by these NGOs.
The NGOs organise events that celebrate the traditional practices and lives of the Adivasis, In addition, some of these NGOs have aligned themselves with national and global indigenous rights movements, and their members often participate in events organized by these larger rights networks within and outside India. Local Adivasi organizations created by these NGOs are also entrenched in these networks. Since the enactment of the FRA, their advocacy for claims to ancestral lands under the banner of self rule has received a further impetus. Since the 1990s, a few other NGOs that advocate for forests and wildlife conservation—besides those working on Adivasi rights— have emerged. Their agenda of conserving wildlife and forests by creating inviolate forest areas has led them to support and actively participate in shifting Adivasis outside the forest. Hence, Adivasi rights NGOs and conservation NGOs have clashed on many issues.
While Adivasi rights NGOs blame conservation NGOs for forcing people out of the forest, conservation NGOs argue that Adivasi rights NGOs encourage activities prohibited in the forest, such as collecting forest produce and cutting timber, and also inhibit the development of Adivasi communities by keeping them inside the forests. In turn, Adivasi rights NGOs blame conservation NGOs for co- opting a few prominent Adivasi leaders of NTR by offering them cash incentives and jobs on the condition that they subscribe to a government-sponsored compensatory relocation scheme.
The Forest Rights Act in Nagarahole
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