Death blow to Adivasis and forest Dwellers Disguised as Conservation!
Very recently Prime Minister
Modi released the latest tiger
population numbers and stated
that the tigers in tiger reserves are
doing-well. This information has
cheered the ‘experts’ who have
been
demanding
wild-life
conservation and conservation of
India’s biodiversity. But these
‘experts’ and ‘activists’ refuse to
take the human cost and tragedy
involved in this conservation in to
consideration.
In our country there are 655
designated areas as sanctuaries
and national parks covering 160,
276 sq.km. In all these areas much
before these ‘protected areas’ were
created, people originally lived in
these forests or depended on them
directly for their livelihoods. These
people were evicted or declared
“encroachers” on their own lands
and their rights to draw resources
from these forests were summarily
declared illegal. These people were
‘let die’ by the state. The state has
created so-called ‘pristine forests’
to save the tigers at the cost of the
existence of tribals and forest-
dwelling communities.
The creation of artificial
pristine forests and parks across
the world has led to displacement
and alienation of 20-50 million
people according to a research.
In our country, many tribal
communities have been displaced
and their livelihoods destroyed by
declaring their habitat as ‘protected
areas’ and ‘Tiger reserves’. Soligas
is such a tribal community that has
been pushed to ‘let die’ by the
state. The living Soligas are now
forced to live as second-class
citizens disallowing them to enjoy
the rights that other citizens in the
country take for granted.
The natural abode and habitat
of these Soligas is the forest in
Kollegal teshsil of Chamarajnagar
20
of Karnataka state. The ancestors
of the present day Soligas once
inhabited these lands freely. They
did a little shifting agriculture and
‘cultivated the forest’ with their
practice of controlled fires. (a form
of “PODU” agriculture practiced by
tribals in different forest areas
throughout our country). They
hunted small animals for meat and
collected and sold goose-berries,
honey, lichen and other such forest
produce.
But in 1974 the government
identified as rich with tigers,
elephants and Indian bison, and
declared the area a wild-life
sanctuary
called
Biligiri
Ranganatha Swami Temple (BRT)
Tiger Reserve. They were ordered
to stop their small game hunting,
shifting agriculture and using fire
to cultivate the forests. Their
access to forest produce was
restricted. Several were removed
to the periphery or the main roads
with their livelihood and freedom
restricted. Their homesteads
became their enclosures. Now they
are reduced in to lesser citizens to
protect their own forest from them.
In the enclosures basic
services and facilities like water,
electricity, health care, child care,
roads – all require special
permissions and depend on the
authorities’ discretion. They have
to use ‘kucha’ roads to leave their
enclosures to go else-where. But
they are expected to return before
6 p.m.
The authorities push them at
every moment to leave their
enclosures for good. The forest
department officials force them to
agree to leave their enclosures. In
the past the Jenu kurbas to the
nearby Bandipur Tiger reserve
were forced to relocate from their
forests and were given tin sheds
on uncultivable lands. This made
them to become labour and
servants destroying their kind of
forest life style. Keeping this
pathetic experience of Jenukurbas,
Soligas are not willing to leave their
enclosure at any cost. They are
demanding the authorities to be
treated as equal citizens. They are
demanding for roads, electricity, a
School and hospital as well as
community forest rights which
existed to them till the Forest Rights
Act came in 2006.
On the same day when the
P.M. has released the report on
“the latest tiger population
numbers” another report called
“Management
Effectiveness
Evaluation of Tiger Reserves in
India”. In this report it is claimed
that “the demands of Soligas is a
constant head ache for the
authorities of the reserve” and it
terms the hope of the Soligas that
their demands will cause them
economic and physical freedoms is
a “major and permanent threat”.
With such an anti-tribal attitude the
government and some wild life
groups want them out of the
enclosures where they live as
lesser citizens. In the name of
conserving India’s bio-diversity
millions of India’s poorest are being
evicted from their natural abode.
But these very authorities and
conservation groups are not
objecting mining and other
infrastructure projects being
conducted in forest areas on a
gaint scale by commercial
interests. It is an universally
accepted fact that the presence of
400 known indigenous groups
have prevented commercial
interests from over running the
forest lands of Amazon forest in
Brazil. But in our country the
government itself has given
permission to commercial interests
contd. on page 23
Class Struggle