Thousands of tribal families lived in the 56 hamlets within the Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka. Denied access to forest resources, many have moved out without adequate compensation, while the rest continue to battle a State that seems to deny their existence. Will the new Forest Rights Act change anything for them?
We have lived in these forests for generations. We don’t depend on the flora and fauna just for our livelihood; it is a way of life for us. We are now being asked to move out in the name of conservation and development. They (the government) think that we need mainstreaming and are forcing their agenda on us. No one has bothered to ask us what we want. We are not ready to give up the forests entirely. It is true that we need education for our children and access to hospitals, but all this we want here, where we live, not in some alien land,” says J K Kaala of Madarakolli hamlet, located within the Rajiv Gandhi National Park (erstwhile Nagarhole National Park) spread across the Coorg and Mysore districts of Karnataka.
This is the predominant voice of the adivasis living in 56 hamlets within the national park.
The Rajiv Gandhi National Park covers 643.30 sq km and is part of the 5,500 sq km Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. It was first declared a sanctuary in 1955. The Nagarhole National Park was constituted in its present form in 1983. At that point of time, over 9,000 tribal families residing in the forests became inhabitants of the national park. Apart from that, over 23,000 adivasis lived on the fringes of the park and they all depended on the forest for their survival.
The adivasi community here consists primarily of five tribes -- the Betta Kurubas (experts in making bamboo-based utensils and artefacts), the Jenu Kurubas (honey-gatherers), the Soligas (who subsisted on agriculture), the Yeravas (fishing), and the Paniyas who also practised agriculture.
According to the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, when a forest area is declared a reserve (now, a sanctuary or national park) the inhabitants have a right to compensation. But in most cases, indigenous people were asked to move out of the forests without adequate compensation; sometimes they were forcibly moved in the name of ‘wildlife protection’.
Most of the people who were moved out ended up working in estates in and around forest areas. Twenty-six-year-old B K Kaala is one such person. His family was moved from Maranakolli hamlet, along with 19 others, around 20 years ago. Today, his entire family including his aged mother works in the estates for a paltry sum. “We used to do a little bit of farming and that was enough for us. Now we get just Rs 60 a day and that too not throughout the year. So it is a struggle. And one never feels at home in the one-room tenements on the estates. We don’t have our kith to call upon in times of need either,” he says.
Even families that were moved out and were given compensation have, over time, returned to the forests as they found it difficult to sustain themselves. A few years ago, with funding from a forest and ecology development programme, the forest department relocated nearly 280 families outside Nagarhole to a village called Nagapura just outside the national park. Each family was promised compensation worth Rs 600,000. The families were given houses and a monthly ration of rice and ragi. The programme ran smoothly for over a year, but once the funds were over the community was left to fend for itself. The land given to them was not conducive to agriculture and there was no other way of earning a living. Slowly, members of the community moved back into the forests or took up menial jobs in the surrounding estates.
Families that were left behind or refused to move don’t have a comfortable life either. In Kodange, over 36 families live under constant threat of elephant attacks. In the past one year, seven houses have been destroyed. They have built temporary platforms on treetops and have to move there with children and the elderly at dusk. The platform is only big enough to seat a family of four to six. Families often spend the night sitting on these platforms. The inhabitants reject the forest department’s solution of digging a trench around the habitation. J K Radha, a resident of Kodange, says: “We have lived here for generations and have never had such an elephant menace. But now there is so little forest left that elephants raid anything and everything, including rice and salt.”
The forest department has placed restrictions on the tribals’ movements too; they have no rights over the forests. J B Ramesh of Madarakolli says: “We are not allowed to practise agriculture even though we do not use machines or pesticides and do not fell trees randomly. We cannot dig wells for water, or even have festivals with music and dance. We are told all this disturbs the ecology. We can’t even bury the dead without permission from the forest department.”
Adding insult to this injury is the fact that the forest department has itself allowed private parties to set up estates in the middle of the forests. In 1994, the state government made way for the Taj Group to build a three-star resort inside the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, very much in violation of the Forest Conservation Act and the Wild Life Protection Act. The adivasis resisted the move; there were widespread protests and agitations. They then filed a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court, which ruled in favour of the activists and termed the assignment of forest land to the Taj Group illegal. The Taj Group appealed in the Supreme Court but lost the case again and had to withdraw from the forests. This victory gave the adivasis a much-needed morale boost and they have since collectively fought for their rights.
Apart from the threat of displacement, communities here face problems of lack of access to basic services such as health and education. In all, for a population of over 23,000 in the forest areas, there are just four Primary Health Centres (PHCs). And these are at least 6 km from the nearest adivasi settlement. People have to walk around 2 km to take a bus to the nearest PHC. J K Lakshmi of Bommadu hamlet says: “We are not allowed to use traditional medicines that are easily available in the forests. But there are no hospitals close by.”
The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in the region is close to the state average of 195, says a doctor (who did not want to be named) from the local PHC. He says there is a great hesitation among the women to come to the hospital for labour. The women claim it is the apathy of the doctors and lack of medicines that keeps them away from hospitals. The most common problem among children and women is malnutrition, the doctor says.
Access to schools is another huge issue in the region. Though there are five residential (ashram) schools with classes up to the seventh standard, and anganwadis set up in the region, attendance is extremely poor, say the teachers. M K Poovamma, headmistress of the Bommadu ashram school says: “We have great difficulty in maintaining the attendance of these students. We need to constantly monitor them and sometimes have to go to their houses and bring them (to school).” This, the adivasis say, is because the curriculum has very little connection with the world they come from. J T Kalinga, a Jenu Kuruba himself, says: “The children are taught nothing about our culture, language, music or about the flora and fauna of the forests. The schools teach them things that makes little sense to them. Soon children lose interest.” There are also three high schools in the region, but none close to the settlements.
Coordinators of Child Relief and You (CRY) which works with the community in the region say: “The sub-standard quality of care at institutions such as the ashram schools, ST hostels and other residential schools has a long-lasting impact on the children. The dropout rate among children, number of child labourers, and number of children failing in the SSLC exams are alarmingly high among the adivasi communities.”
To address the issue the adivasis have decided to set up schools with curricula that do not exclude their traditional learning systems. They have also opened two tent schools in Madarakolli and Kodange with the help of an NGO and the education department, respectively. These schools have over 25 students each and act as bridge schools for dropouts too.
Indigenous people in the region have realised over a period of time that though there are provisions for them in the law to claim rights and compensation, the main obstacle is lack of records of their existence. They have no records to show that the houses they are living in, whether inside the forests or outside, belong to them.
To remedy this, the tribal communities came together and formed an association called the Adivasi Moolabhuta Hakkugala Sangha (AHMS) in 2005-06 which has been trying to document their lifestyle and proof of residence across the region. Members of the association have, on a number of occasions, fought collectively for their rights. Their biggest agitation was in June 2007, when the forest department confiscated a load of ginger that N Manja had grown and was carrying to market to sell. Manja was detained for taking produce out of the forests illegally. The adivasis picketed the office of the forest department and blocked the entrance to the national park for almost three months until the department relented and the ginger was returned to Manja.
On January 2, 2007, adivasis protested against the forest department’s denial of permission for electric poles to be put up in the settlements. J K Thimma, who was instrumental in ousting the Taj Group, says: “They draw electric lines across the forests for their own quarters, plantations and the bungalows of rich people. But when it comes to our settlements, they cite the law. We are not going to keep quiet about this. We have every right to demand electricity.” The AHMS has decided to intensify its agitation if its demands are not met.
Wildlife ecologist M D Madhusudan justifies this anger. He says: “They (the adivasis) have every right to be angry. We are looking to move them out of what they consider to be their homes without even proper compensation. Conservation does not come cheap. We need to pay the price for it. Conservation effort needs public support; if we alienate the people closest to the forests we can achieve very little.” He also says that the law does have a provision for compensation but that in almost 80% of cases compensation is not given.
In 2005, a Forest Rights Act aimed at giving ownership rights over forest land to tribals was tabled in Parliament. There was a huge uproar against it across the country. Conservationists called it “legalising encroachment” and said the Act would ensure the destruction of what was left of the forests. Corporates interested in acquiring land for large industries were also opposed to it as the legal status of adivasis would make it harder to evict them. As a result, the Act went into cold storage for nearly two years. It was finally passed on January 1, 2008.
Still, there are too many loopholes in the Act. It says that tribal populations and other traditional forest-dwellers living in and depending on forests for their livelihood for three generations -- 75 years prior to December 2005 -- will get rights over forest land for use in a sustainable manner. But there are hardly any records of proof of residence in favour of indigenous communities; this could prove to be the biggest hurdle in realising the actual intent of the Act.
The adivasis too are not very hopeful of reaping the benefits of the new Act. J T Kalinga says: “We have very little hope that any law will make our lives easier. The State has constantly denied our existence and, in the process, denied our right to a life of dignity. All rules have been bent in favour of outsiders. But we are not going to give in easily. We will fight for our rights. We do not want our children to live in misery. We want them to be proud of who they are, and to have a great life ahead of them. We will do all that we can to ensure that.”
Source: http://www.infochangeindia.org/features476.jsp
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