"... Man Singh, a tribal leader and activist in Dungarpur, said: "It is difficult and costly for us to go to distant places like Delhi to protest. But if we do not fight for our rights who will?"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35768 ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Forest People Take War on Evictions to the Cities Bharat Dogra* DUNGARPUR, Rajasthan, Dec 8 (IPS/IFEJ) - The dusty road leads to a pond with pleasant greenery surrounding it. Even the nearby village has a remarkably large number of trees that contrast with stark, arid surroundings. This is Naya Talaab - a tribal village in the remote Dungarpur district of India's desert state of Rajasthan. Sharda, a Bhil tribal woman, proudly says that the villagers under the government's rural employment guarantee scheme created the pond and that it now admirably serves to conserve precious water and moisture. But, the mood turns grim as the topic turns to the subject of land ownership. In July, the village was invaded by a group of well-armed forest department officials who destroyed the crops that the villagers had planted with much care. Vasanti, a leader of the village women, said: "We beat our dhols (drums) to get the people to gather and persuade the officials not to destroy our crops. It was with great difficulty that I could save my field." That was not the end of their woes. Durgashankar Nanoma, a socially alert villager who has been involved in mobilising people on land related issues, said: "The next day the police came with a list of villagers to be arrested, including several women. They were taken to the police station and then to jail. To get them out on bail was a real struggle." Social activist Shantilal said, "The only fault of these villagers was that they tried to save their crops from destruction. Now they are implicated in long, drawn-out court proceedings and are forced to take loans at high interest rates for legal expenses.'' The official version is that the tribals were cultivating land which belongs to the forest department and therefore they had to be evicted. Bhanvar Singh, an activist with 'Aasthaa', an organisation fighting for the land rights of tribal peasants in Rajasthan, differs. "The forest department has ignored the rights of many small tribal peasants cultivating this land. For these people this is the main or the only source of livelihood." For many years the issue of tribal rights over forests remained low-key as petty officials collected bribes and chickens from tribals and in return allowed them to cultivate the fields. Now the same officials are busy carrying out evictions across a rapidly industrialising India. According to R.D. Vyas, an Aasthaa activist, with international funding available for forest management and plantations, the forest department is more interested in evicting the tribals to get hold of vacant land. "But equally, a strong struggle by tribals and forest-dwellers has emerged to demand regularisation of their land," he told IPS. India's tribals are increasingly taking their demands to the national capital and other cities. On Nov. 29, thousands of tribals marched through the wide boulevards of New Delhi to press for the quick passage of the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, pending in parliament since 2005. An estimated four million people live in India's national parks and sanctuaries alone. Many more, some say up to 50 million people, inhabit the reserved and protected forests and have been there for generations, eking out livelihoods from forest produce such as honey, herbs and fruit and basic farming. But no forest management plan recognises this and present law deems the tribals to be encroachers and poachers. The result is that forest guards extort bribes from tribals and forest-dwellers with impunity, and when they cannot pay, collaborate with the owners of commercial plantations and land grabbers to take over large chunks of land. Activists see the pending bill as the last hope for both the tribals and the environment since its stated aim is to give tribals the legal right to the land and the resources that they have been using and protecting for generations. "This is a very important bill dealing with the livelihoods of over 2 million households, or over 10 million people that live in forest areas," said Bhanwar Singh, an activist with the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), a national platform for tribals and forest dwellers, which organised the November rally in New Delhi. But there are several catches, Singh pointed out. The bill, as drafted, gives local officials total power over people's rights and insists that any land claimed should have been continuously occupied since 1980. Over the last 26 years, millions of forest-dwellers have been forced to move to new areas through displacement or eviction, precisely because they had no recorded rights. Controversy over this forced the government to send the bill to a joint parliamentary committee, which came to the unanimous conclusion that the best way to ensure justice for tribals and conservation was to bring in transparency, accountability and democracy. The parliamentary committee also recommended that communities should have the legal right to protect forests. In other words, the committee recognised that forest-dwellers are partners in conservation and not poachers or encroachers. According to Shankar Gopalakrishnan, secretary to the CSD, the bill has already been whittled down considerably and is under threat from logging and mining companies. "More protests and rallies are being planned in December and January to ensure passage of the bill in a manner that benefits tribals and forest-dwellers," he said. Man Singh, a tribal leader and activist in Dungarpur, said: "It is difficult and costly for us to go to distant places like Delhi to protest. But if we do not fight for our rights who will?" *This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS (Inter Press Service) and IFEJ (International Federation of Environmental Journalists). (END/2006) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
