E-Paper
Letting the jungle crumble
The UPA?s political compulsions to enact the ST Bill, 2005, couldn?t have been more clear.
The UPA’s political compulsions to enact the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005, couldn’t have been more clear. The National Forest Commission is understandably upset with the Centre for ignoring its suggestions while framing the Bill. The latter has little by way of guarantees that forests and wildlife will not be further endangered. While it may be a worthy ideal to give forest-dwellers a greater stake in the land they occupy and thus encourage them to protect our forests, the Bill is surely the weakest link in this effort. Its clauses, framed to score political brownie points, leave it open to manipulation by poachers and encroachers on forest land. And unfortunately, the revised version of the Bill has done much worse.
The revised Bill has enlarged the base of beneficiaries by including all ‘traditional’ forest-dwellers instead of merely those identified as Scheduled Tribes. It also gives anyone who has been living on forest land till 2005 the right to make a claim on it. Earlier, eligibility required people to have occupied the land before October 25, 1980 — when the Forest Conservation Act came into force. There has been no effort to do away with loopholes that allow the land mafia to encroach upon such land. Instead, the extension in the cut-off date makes it more feasible.
What’s worse is that the revised Bill has taken away from the forest-dwellers the onus of protecting and conserving forest land, resources and wildlife. The essence of such a legislation is to make forest-dwellers, who have a right to resources of the land, responsible for its conservation. Unfortunately, the Centre is further diluting an already weak Bill. There’s more than a hint of condescension in the Centre’s approach that seeks to preserve the way of life of ‘simple tribals’. Without adequate safeguards, a Bill that wants to undo ‘historical injustice’ will spell doom for our forests, which is the common heritage of our nation — both tribals and non-tribals.
