Despite paying lip service to the rights of the forest dwellers which began with Congress President Sonia Gandhi championing their cause, nothing much has really been done to ensure their welfare. The facts clearly point out that the traditional forest dwellers in India have been wrongly looked upon as encroachers and those who were enemies of the forests. Instead of using them to protect forests, they have been treated shabbily and mostly wrongly accused of acts like poaching. Very rarely, any attempts have been made at the state or the national level by the state and the federal governments to reach out to the forests and the forest dwellers.
Even in state like Uttarakhand which is supposed to be having a forest cover of around 63 per cent, rights of the forest dwellers have been largely ignored. Of course, a large number of Van Gujjars were successfully relocated from Rajaji National Park to Pathri (District Haridwar) and elsewhere in state, but that is a different story. They have been looked as threat to the forests, though they could have been better utilised towards the protection of the forests and the wildlife in the state. In fact the forest dwellers and those living on the periphery of forests in Uttarakhand feel so much let down that even in case of fires in the forests, the local people have stopped helping the authorities in dousing it. Laws meant to protect forests and the rights of the inhabitants are often blatantly violated.
With the administration practically non-existent there, it has been easy for the Maoists to strike roots in the forests in several states and recruit poor tribal people to their ranks. A new challenge has now emerged for governments to rethink their policies on forests and the local people. What Jharkhand does with the Saranda forests and the people there could prove to be crucial both for rural development and for the fight against the Maoists. After three decades, the forests have been freed from the rebels. That Jairam Ramesh, the Union rural development minister, and Arjun Munda, Jharkhand’s chief minister, could tour the forests freely was a good measure of the success of the battle against the Maoists.
The new scenario presents both an opportunity and a challenge. What the Jharkhand government does now in order to seize the opportunity will determine whether the Maoists can return to the area with a vengeance. After all, the rebels continue to be active elsewhere in the state, as their killing of nine policemen in an ambush last week proved.
However, most of the governments Jharkhand has had since its birth as a new state have been both unstable and inefficient. Ramesh was absolutely right when he highlighted the state’s poor record in governance in comparison with that of other new states, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. Governments supported by his own party, the Congress, had been no better than others. Munda, the chief minister, belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party. But he should not misinterpret Ramesh’s criticism as partisan rhetoric.
One reason why, large scale migration continues from the hills of Uttarakhand is the fact that the rights of the forest dwellers taken away by a plethora of legislations like the Forests Act deprived the villagers living in the periphery of the forests their traditional rights that they had been making use for past several centuries. Unless, corrective measures are adopted as early as possible, things are not going to change at all. The forest dwellers must be made custodians of the forest wealth and they should be made to work in tandem with the forest officials.
