When the polling for Lok Sabha starts on April 19, the long-drawn-out land conflicts covering several lakh hectares of forest land — arising out of violations of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 — are expected to become a key electoral issue in as many as 153 parliamentary constituencies across states.
The issue is already being raised by forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes (ST) and other traditional communities in at least five-tribal dominated states with highest core FRA constituencies — Maharashtra (22), Odisha (19), Madhya Pradesh (16), Jharkhand (12) and Rajasthan (11), with some local groups even threatening to boycott the polls.
“A sense of insecurity has been simmering among these marginalised adivasi and forest-dependent communities over losing rights to the land, community forest and habitats which they have inhabited for generations. The lack of recognition of their rights, and the mass rejections, mostly for arbitrary reasons, has made them even more vulnerable to the risk of being forcefully evicted,” said Tushar Dash, an independent researcher.
A team of researchers at the Land Conflict Watch documented as many as 781 such land conflicts raging across states involving the local communities. At least 264 of these cases fall in the 153 constituencies, affect over 18 lakh people and involve nearly five lakh hectares of forest land.
“Most of these conflicts arise from the non-implementation/violation of FRA on the ground. In some cases, the process has been stuck in the verification stage for years, or claims rejected for arbitrary reasons, paving way for other agencies to acquire land without providing rehabilitation/compensation for denying access,” said Anmol Gupta, legal research lead at Land Conflicts Watch, which conducted an independent legal review of these conflicts for their report Ballot and Land.
WHY ARE FOREST RIGHTS IN PERIL?
In continuation of the colonial regime, forest land in India has historically been recorded as government land irrespective of whether community forest rights have been granted. However, in 2006, the government enacted the Forest Rights Act (FRA) “to correct this historical injustice”.
The landmark legislation empowered tribal communities/forest dwellers to claim legal rights of ownership and management over the forest land which has been their home and source of livelihood for generations. But 16 years on, this critical law has been marred by violations and shoddy implementation on the ground, leaving these marginalised communities fighting for their rights and access to community forest resources for livelihood, and to prevent any forceful evictions in future.
RISK OF FORCED EVICTIONS
According to government data, the rejection rate of FRA claims is 34.9 per cent, with a total of 17 lakh claims rejected by the administration till February 2024. Odisha, where polling begins on May 13, has as many as 17 crore FRA constituencies and has recorded the maximum number of such conflicts involving communities — with the maximum cases from Koratpur and Kalahandi region. This is followed by Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.
According to the report, a significant number of such conflicts involves government’s proposals for diverting land for conservation and forestry, infrastructure, roads and power projects, as well as mining projects.
“Forests are no longer an exclusive preserve of the state, but of the Gram Sabhas in over half of India’s forests. In 2009, the environment ministry had stated that FRA assigned rights to protect 40 million hectares of community forest resources to village-level democratic institutions. But it required fine-tuning of other existing forest laws, but sadly none of them were amended and instead they were used to undermine democratic governance of forests. These land conflicts indicate the large-scale violations of FRA happening on the ground. The issue could very well swing votes but we do not know to what extent,” said CR Bijoy, senior researcher who examines resource conflicts and governance issues.
ELECTORAL PROMISES
The 2024 election manifesto of the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has no mention of the FRA or forest rights, but it promises to protect the interests of the forest dwellers, particularly in the tribal communities, and provide basic facilities — roads, telephone connectivity, cooking gas connections, houses and toilets — to people living in remote forest areas.
On the other hand, the Congress has rolled out a ‘Tribal Manifesto’ or ‘Adivasi Sankalp’, which promises speedy settlement of all pending FRA claims within a year and the establishment of a process to review all the rejected FRA claims in six months. The Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) has also included complete FRA implementation as an electoral promise in its manifesto, and emphasised that no forest dweller will be evicted from their habitat.