Of forest dwellers, voters and elections

This Piece came in 'Meri News' on 24th April 2009
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15766595

and in Orissa Diary on 20th April 2009
http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowOriyaColumn.asp?id=12215


Of forest dwellers, voters and elections
By Pradeep Baisakh

This time around the forest dwelling communities are keenly watching the performance of ruling and the opposition parties on the Forest Right Act, which aims to recognise tribals' and other forest dwellers' right over forest land and resources..

IN THE midst of the general and Assembly elections, various political parties are busy making tall claims on what they have done and would do in future for the poor. This time around the forest dwelling communities are keenly watching the performance of the ruling and the opposition parties on the Forest Right Act (FRA), the law that aims to recognise tribals’ and other forest dwellers’ right over forest land and resources.

Orissa is among the forerunners along with some other states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal in reaching the full potential of receiving the claims under Forest Rights Law, claims the recent status report provided by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, government of India. Till the period ending February 28, 2009, a total number of claims filed in the state at the Gram Sabha level is 2, 91,524 out of which 2, 71,352 are of individual claims and 20,172 are community claims, states the report on the achievements of BJD government in Orissa led by ‘the most popular CM’ Naveen Patnaik (Courtesy: India Today). Till only recently it was a BJD and BJP coalition government. (BJP withdrew its support from the coalition government on March 7, 2009)

A research angle to the issue suggests that the state government’s score on FRA is not very high. According to the Planning Commission’s statistics, the number of people who are critically dependent on forest in the state is above one crore. Accepting the census standard of the size of a family (five people constitute a family), the number of potential families to reap individual benefits from the law is 20 lakhs. These include both the tribals and the other traditional forest dwellers. So, the submission of 2.71 lakh individual claims against the potential 20 lakh families does not leave much room for celebration, though comparatively Orissa has done better than many other states. Moreover, out of these many claims filed, only about 22,000 individual claims have been finally approved by DLC till the reported period.

Ground realities suggest that the rejection rate of the claims is very high. For example, in Sagada GP under Bhawanipatna block of Kalahandi district, out of 26 villages the verification in nine villages was complete by the Sub Divisional Committee (SDLC) by end of December 2008. Out of 196 claims received, the SDLC has rejected 144 claims. “Basing on the status of the implementation of the law in 2700 villages from 10 districts of the state that we are tracking, the percentage of rejection is as high as 60 percent” informs Tushar Dash, a researcher. If this data is extrapolated to the whole state, the households to be benefited after completion of the process are 1.08 lakh, which is a meagre 5.4 per cent of the total potential beneficiaries!

First big problem with the implementation of the law in the state is non recognition of the rights of the Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) during joint verification done by SDLC. Three generation issue has come up as a major bottleneck at the SDLC and DLC level. So the claims of this category are rejected. In Sagada GP all such claims filed by the OTFD, which were verified by the SDLC, have been rejected.

In some cases, the people have ignorantly filed claims over revenue land assuming them as forest lands, which are being rejected by SDLC as they would not be acceptable under this law. But the officials are responsible for this ignorance of people. Dash says “In 1980s, during ‘hal’ settlement many of the forest areas were transferred to different kisam of revenue and other (non-forest) land. However, revenue and forest officials kept the people ignorant about this and continued to extort them.” The case of Ramesh Maji of Sagada GP is an instance to cite.

According to Forest Survey of India report 1999, out of total 46,989 villages in the state, about 29,300 villages are located adjacent to the recorded forest areas, which include the villages inside the forest. If it is assumed that at least one community claim should comes from these villages, the performance of the government seems to be quite good as such claims filed at Gram Sabha level is more than 20,000. But, the concern remains about the minuscule number of such claims approved by the District Level Committee (DLC) which is only 27 till the reported period.

The government deserves a pat on its back on some of the progressive steps taken by it eg it identified the ‘village’ as the ideal unit for formation of FRCs and holding Gram Sabhas as against the Gram Panchayat approach in many states like Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat; it has empowered the Gram Sabha to issue caste certificates; it has directed the collectors to take special effort to sensitise people to file more community rights claims; and it has specially directed not to neglect the un-surveyed forest villages in the process.

But problem still lies which the government cannot wash away. Most of the forest land in the State is un-surveyed and detailed maps/records are not available.

The claims preferred by the communities living inside the protected areas are not verified by the technical committees appointed by the SDLC. The problem is more acute in tiger reserves of the state like Satkosia, Sunabeda and Simlipal. The government is also criticised by the activists for its lackadaisical approach in the High Court in fighting the case filed by the retired forest officials against FRA, for which the disbursement of the entitlements has been withheld.

The main opposition party in the state, Congress has not done enough toward the cause of the forest dwellers. In the current Assembly, it has not raised this issue with any seriousness inside the Assembly and failed to pressurise the ruling dispensation to deliver on FRA outside the Assembly also.

The election results will show on how far people were satisfied with the performance of these parties toward FRA, namely, BJD, Congress and BJP who are the major three players in the state.