Keep the tribals happy: Forest-dwellers hold the key in Jharkhand elections

The FRA, which came into effect in 2006, is critical to the livelihoods of at least 3.8 mn SC/ST voters in Jharkhand, 52% of 7.3 mn voters

Tribals’ dissatisfaction with the slow implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), which offers formal recognition of forest-dwellers’ land rights, could be a deciding factor in more than 62 of the 81 Assembly constituencies in the Jharkhand state elections, an independent research group said.

The analysis is based on the fact that the number of SC/ST voters eligible for land rights under the FRA was more than the margin of victory in the last election in 58 of the 62 seats considered FRA-sensitive. Nearly 70% of the population in constituencies spread across Jharkhand —Chakradharpur, Gumla, Latehar and Simdega, for example — belong to the SC/ST category.

Analysing the results of the 2014 Assembly elections in these 62 constituencies, researchers concluded that any political party that promised effective implementation of the FRA and other laws protecting land rights of tribals could defeat the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party. The FRA, which came into effect in 2006, is critical to the livelihoods of at least 3.8 million SC/ST voters in Jharkhand, 52% of 7.3 million voters, according to the 2014 voting statistics.

Of the SC/ST voters, 75% (2.9 million) belong to STs, found analysts Tushar Shah and Archana Soreng, both members of the NGO network Community Forest Resource-Learning and Advocacy (CFR-LA), who conducted this analysis independent of CFR-LA…Keep Reading

These tribals were displaced from C’garh. Can they get land rights in AP?

At least 190,000 Adivasis have been forcefully evicted or displaced since 2005 without compensation or rehabilitation, according to six cases documented so far by Land Conflict Watch

“I will never go back,” said Madakam Adama, referring to his home in Chhattisgarh’s Gedampal village, which he last saw 13 years ago, in 2006. Adama, who looks about 60 but says he is 45, now lives in Kota Namilipeta, a settlement of 27 mud-walled houses in the middle of a forest in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district.

Adama is among the thousands of Adivasis (tribal, indigeneous people) displaced from their homes and villages in southern Chhattisgarh. The Adivasis were fleeing violence allegedly inflicted by a state-sponsored militia, the Salwa Judum, soon after it was formed in mid-2005. The Supreme Court banned the Salwa Judum in 2011, calling it unconstitutional and the state support to it “a matter of gravest constitutional concerns and deserving of the severest constitutional opprobrium”.

The displaced Adivasis, who had found refuge in the forests of Andhra Pradesh, feared retribution if they returned home. They eventually settled on land that they had cleared in Andhra forests. At least 500 of these families have now applied for land titles for their new houses and small farms under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). They are relying on a special provision meant to rehabilitate displaced Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers, which has never been used before.

Adivasis have never before sought relief under Section 3(1)(m) of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, or FRA. There is a hurdle that the families will have to overcome, though. According to FRA, claims for forest rights can only be made on land that the claimants occupied before December 13, 2005, the day on which the Forest Rights Act was placed before the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament. The majority of the Adivasis fled Chhattisgarh in 2006…