The Forest Right Act

Scheduled tribe or what we call Adivasi in Hindi has always been deprived of their rights be it in education or claim on other resources. Tribal peoples constitute 8.6 percent of India’s total population, about 104 million people according to the 2011 census. But the ironical part of the fact is that such a large population of human group is kept isolated.

In order to provide them with their basic right, The Forest Right Act was enacted on 18 December 2006. This law is also called TheScheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

The forest right act 2006 states that the forest dwelling communities be given the right to their traditional land but still there was a misunderstanding related to this act considering it as a land distribution scheme. The law clearly stated to recognize the lands that are already under cultivation as on 13 December 2005, not providing a new title to land.

Supporters of this act say that it will reconcile the “historical injustice” that they suffered. The law had to face a lot of criticism from those who misunderstood this law and majorly from wildlife conservationists fearing lose of land or protection of land from human intervention.

Recently we saw the Supreme Court orders eviction of tribal’s whose claim for forest land has been rejected. On 13 February, the apex court had directed state governments to evict Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, whose claims over forest land were rejected under the 2006 Forest Rights Act. A bench justice Arun Mishra, Navin Sinha and M.R. Shah stayed the eviction proceedings and gave the state governments four months to submit detailed affidavits about procedures followed to assess the claims.

The Supreme Court ordered eviction of around 10 lakh families of forest-dwelling tribal communities in at least 16 states. The order came in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed tochallenge of the Forest

Rights Act of 2006, which empowered traditional forest dwellers to "access, manage, and govern" forests within their villages.

This is not the first time that the forest dwellers has been stripped of their rights. They have to face many problems for gaining their rights. Although we say that reservations are being enacted to reconcile the past but still action needs to be taken. For example: the baiga tribe of Madhya Pradesh were also evicted by Indian authorities in an attempt to protect the tiger population.

The forest officers and the wildlife conservationists say that forest right act would led to human intervention on the land but the ironical part is that the forest dweller consider their place of living auspicious and that led us to the conclusion that it will be protected.

At last concluding by the lines of Baiga community that “we don’t cut any trees, they’re our children.”