FEW today would seriously contest that India’s scheduled tribes, despite their immense diversity and contextual realities, are amongst the country’s most marginalized groups. Notwithstanding constitutional provisions of reservation and affirmative action, and a plethora of schemes designed to enhance their economic and social status, the results on the ground continue to be disappointing. A combination of historical injustice, cultural exclusion and insensitivity, and an inadequate as also depleting resource base – both material and human – seems to have mitigated against India’s tribal peoples from taking advantage of whatever avenues of advancement our system makes available.
As with all rural communities, a central factor affecting tribal livelihood possibilities is access to and control over natural resources, in this case both land and forests. A major problem is that traditional homelands of tribal communities have been classified as forest lands vested with the state. In the absence of clearly defined property rights, millions of tribal families living in or around forest land can be deemed encroachers and thereby illegal occupants, continually living under the shadow of eviction. It is a matter of historical record that all such areas have witnessed serious conflicts over land rights – agitations, dharnas and rasta rokos, often resulting in loss of life.
Alongside concern about survival and livelihood of tribal peoples by securing for them firm entitlements and property rights is the equally pressing concern about India’s declining and degrading forest cover and consequent threat to wildlife and environment. Possibly this is why the proposed Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, likely to be introduced in Parliament in the monsoon session, has become embroiled in an unseemly controversy.
Why should a ‘progressive’ legislation, ostensibly designed to ‘correct historical wrongs’ and secure firm entitlements to some of our most marginalized communities, generate such vociferous opposition? Is this only, as some proponents of the bill seem to argue, a conspiracy of ‘elite conservationists and wildlifers’ to once again deprive a deprived people of their just due? Or is it that, as is more likely, the manner in which the bill was drafted, the secrecy with which it was sought to be introduced in Parliament, and the lack of consultation with a wide cross-section of involved groups, generates suspicion about both the real intention of the bill and its likely impact if it does become law?
Part of the problem with public debate in the country, and this proposed legislation offers an excellent example, is that the discourse rarely distinguishes between matters of principle and those of policy. Once it is asserted that what is being proposed is the only (or at least the best) way to subserve a set of commonly accepted objectives, then the debate takes on an ‘either you are for it or against it’ form. Much less attention is given to not only the specific details of the proposed legislation (including its wording) – the facts – or to the assumptions underlying the various presuppositions. There is for instance immense variation in the claims about number of families or the amount of land likely to be affected. And if the debate is cast in emotional and evocative terms – through use of phrases such as correcting historical wrong, and appeals to equity and justice – those seeking to critically interrogate the proposal can be classified as obstructionists if not villains.
Proponents of the bill argue that the legislation only seeks to recognize and regularize ground reality by granting legal entitlement to those millions of families who are today seen as encroachers and thus empower and improve livelihood chances of a historically marginalized people. They point out that all that is being proposed is already part of existing government orders and that bringing them under a central legislation will ensure that these orders will be implemented. Further, it is claimed that the bill will reduce social conflict and if the tribal people are meaningfully involved in the protection and management of forests and wildlife, our natural resources and habitats too will experience substantial improvement. Finally, since the proposed bill also envisages a regulated use of resources, with clearly defined do’s and don’ts, there is minimal likelihood of escalated pressure on fragile habitats. In short, the likely benefits far outweigh the potential costs.
Those in opposition, and it bears mention that they are rarely from the political class, question both the presuppositions and details of the proposed legislation. For one, the forest resources of the country – home to not only wildlife and plant species but also water resources – are already under immense pressure from development projects, mining, farming and settlements. The need thus is to more rigorously conserve, if possible, expand the resource base, not open it out to further human intervention. Wildlife scientists, for instance, point to the negative implication of a fragmentation of forests, a process which can only deepen once settlements in and around forests are regularized.
While agreeing on the need to improve the incomes and livelihoods of our forest-dwelling tribal communities, they question whether the proposed remedy is in fact the best way to meet the desired objectives. They also point out that in a situation where land ownership is far from settled, between even the forest and revenue departments, and there is no accepted census of who has been occupying what land since when, the process of granting land rights to specified families will only escalate social conflict. More so, since the bill talks of entitlements only for scheduled tribes and not all communities currently in occupation of the land in question.
Equally that, while today the talk is only of regularizing those in occupation of forest lands prior to October 1980, there is little guarantee that as with slum regularization in the cities, the cut-off dates will once again not be revised under political pressure. Thus the proposal works as only the thin edge of the wedge. Above all, given the quality of land resources in contention, they question whether this move represents any durable/sustainable solution to the livelihood and survival needs of marginalized peoples. In short, the bill is seen as emblematic of ill-thought through and hazardous vote-bank politics.
It is also a matter of substantial concern whether once this bill becomes an Act, it may override not only previous legislation like the Forest Conservation Act or a wide range of state-specific legislations, but also affect the status of national parks, protected areas and biodiversity zones that were earlier carved out on ecological considerations. This is only likely to drag matters into the courts, thereby further complicating matters on the ground.
There are, of course, those who argue that the seemingly irreconcilable objectives of tribal welfare and protection of forest cover and wildlife can in fact be simultaneously satisfied by ensuring transparency and participation of all legitimate stakeholders. This, however, would demand that all necessary information and research be available in the public domain and that differing views not immediately be categorized as illegitimate. If, for instance, the country’s best regarded wildlife scientists are barred from entering forests to carry out their research, and have cases filed against them by the forest department, is it possible to engage in an informed debate?
Equally, it is difficult to visualize how a relatively discredited government machinery, whether belonging to the forest or revenue departments, which has so far shown little sensitivity to the concerns of marginalized and disempowered people and has arguably failed to protect either wildlife or forests can, once the bill is enacted, ensure a just and fair process of land entitlements and not compromise with land and timber mafias. Often in the past, worthwhile legislations have been rendered infructuous during the process of implementation. And finally, in the desire to correct historical injustice, are we rushing through a radical legislation which may create more difficulties and make an intractable situation even more so?
More than ever before, there is need to think through both the specific proposals of the proposed legislation as also the process by which we seek to make decisions. Without eschewing the need for urgency, it is equally imperative that decisions be taken on basis of reasoned arguments rather than emotional assertions. Hopefully, this issue of Seminar is a small contribution to that process.
