bhil tribal mobilisation in alirajpur
DESCRIPTION
The twin organisations Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sanghath, a trade union and Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra, a registered Trust, have together fought for rights and development of the Bhil Tribals of Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh in IndiaTRANSCRIPT
The State Can't See the Tribals for the Land and the Trees – The Bhil Tribals' Search
for Justice in Alirajpur District of Madhya Pradesh
– Rahul Banerjee
Introduction
Tribal Development in India has been problematical from the time of independence. This has
been due to a conflicting situation arising from the opposition between the traditional
community based subsistence economy of the tribals and the modern market based growth
oriented thrust of the mainstream economy. The challenge has been to integrate the tribals
into the modern economy in a manner that was beneficial to them. This has generally not
been possible because the tribals have lacked the requisite skills for this and the government
system for equipping them with these skills has malfunctioned. Moreover, in order to save on
the costs associated with modern development the tribals have often not been recompensed
and rehabilitated properly for the displacement that they have had to face as resources have
been extracted from their traditional habitats.
Not surprisingly this has led to dissatisfaction on the part of the tribals. This in turn has given
rise to outright political revolt, rights based New Social Movements (NSM) of tribals and
also an emergence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) for bringing about better
tribal development. Decentralised and local community controlled development has been
acknowledged as a major desideratum for tackling tribal deprivation (Sharma 142). With the
award of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Elinor Ostrom in 2009, even
mainstream economics has come to acknowledge the importance of collective action for the
management of common pool resources (Ostrom "Governing the Commons" 21). This has
also gained in importance because of the benefits in terms of mitigation of climate change
that such communitarian natural resource management can achieve (International Institute of
Sustainable Development et al. 1). The present paper details the collective action undertaken
by the Bhil and Bhilala tribals in Alirajpur district to secure their rights and entitlements
under various provisions of the Constitution of India and other legal statutes.
2. Traditional Bhil Society
The Bhil tribals in West-Central India have traditionally had a communitarian culture based
on a subsistence livelihood pattern that ensured sustainable use of their natural resource bases
(Deliege 25). The important characteristics of traditional Bhil society are as follows -
1. Habitations of small communities linked together by strong kinship ties
2. Customs of labour pooling in all social and economic activities
3. System of interest free loans in cash and kind
4. Minimal interaction with the external centralised trade based economy
5. High dependence on forests for daily as well as agricultural needs
6. Social customs that ensured the redistribution of the surplus of individual families
among the community
There was thus a minimal role in this society for accumulation, trade and monetary profits
and so it continued for ages at a low level resource use equilibrium.
Rahul Banerjee (www.anar-kali.blogspot.com) 2
3. Colonial Dispossession
The Maratha invasion of the region in the late eighteenth century and later the advent of the
British colonialists in the early eighteenth century the situation changed drastically. The
penetration of the modern market economy and the settling of non-tribal peasant farmers
began in the Bhil areas. This put the Bhils in a precarious situation with the beginning of a
process of alienation from their natural resource bases and their integration as ill paid debt
ridden labourers in the centralised market economy (Hardiman 32).
The British enacted the Indian Forest Act in 1865 and took vast areas of community forests
out of the control of forest dweller communities and handed over their management to the
Forest Department created by it and this was the single most debilitating development for the
tribals in India. Even though this act was implemented only in the provinces directly
controlled by the British it nevertheless provided the new direction of commercial
exploitation of forests to forest management in the Princely States that largely ruled over the
Bhil areas and so they too were adversely affected.
4. Post Colonial Situation
Ironically, the coming of independence aggravated the livelihood situation of the Bhils
instead of improving it. Most of the Bhil areas that were under the governance of Princely
States prior to independence were assimilated into the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Indian Forest Act (1927) (IFA) was implemented.
Vast areas of forests which were earlier still being managed by the Bhils with the Princely
States only nominally in control, were converted into Reserved Forests.
The Bhils mostly were illiterate and so did not understand the legal procedures for conversion
of their habitats into Reserved Forests and so lost most of their lands (Varma 22). Under the
IFA, the government “can constitute any forest land or waste land which is the property of
Government or over which the Government has proprietary rights, a reserved forest, by
issuing a notification of this effect”. Settlement of rights was not carried out and large areas
remain unsurveyed even today. The history of forest management thereafter has been one of
continuous deprivation of the tribals and is briefly described below followed by a description
of the failure of economic and social development schemes in Tribal areas.
4.1 History of Forest Management in Post-Independence Period
A brief history of the post independence period detailing the major happenings concerned
with the relationship between forests and tribals is given below (Thayyil 268). The first
independent Indian forest legislation was the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 that provided for
creation of inviolate Protected areas and Wildlife habitats whereby Adivasis and forest
dwelling communities lost access to their lands and livelihoods based on forests. Yet again
settlement of rights not carried out properly in most Protected areas. Forest Conservation Act
(FCA) is passed in 1980 and simultaneously the 42nd
Constitutional Amendment shifts forests
from the “State List” to the “Concurrent List”. The FCA prohibits non-forest use of forest
land without approval of central government. Also advocates “sustainable forest management
through participatory approach”, with “due regard to the traditional rights of the tribal people
on forest land”.
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4.1.1 The Decade of the 1990s - The National Forest Policy of 1988 is formulated and it
recognizes the need for participatory governance of natural resources and forests as against
the earlier model of exclusion of communities. The Ministry of Environment and Forests
issues six sets of guidelines in 1990 in pursuance of the National Forest Policy. These deal
with „encroachment on forest land‟, „disputed claims‟, leases/pattas and conversion of forest
villages and settlement of old habitations. A Committee is constituted in 1991 by the
Supreme Court to investigate claims of adivasis for Regularisation of Encroachments and it
files its report concerning the evidence to be examined and the criteria for regularization. In
its order the court expressly directed that the competent authority, even in cases where claims
are not accompanied by documentary evidence, must inquire into the claim.
State governments thereafter failed to implement the 1990 guidelines. There was a lack of
clarity about the guidelines and verification procedures and the issues of “encroachments”
and disputed claims remain unresolved. The encroachments issue dominates MoEF attention
while the question of disputed claims and related matters are lost sight of. In 1995 T
Godavarman filed a case in Supreme Court (Writ Petition No 202 of 1995) urging the Court
to regulate the forest management.
4.1.2 The First Decade of the 21st Century - In 2001 the Amicus Curiae in this case filed
an interim application no IA 703 which sought to restrain “regularization of any
encroachments” as well as “further encroachments” and asks for “steps to clear the
encroachments in forests which have taken place after 1980”. The Supreme Court registered
IA 703 and stated that “there will be an interim order in terms of the above prayer.” However,
there was no Supreme Court order directing the States or Government of India to evict
“encroachers” from forest land. Nevertheless a letter of the Inspector General of Forests
(IGF) instructed state governments “to evict the ineligible encroachers and all post 1980
encroachers from forest lands in a time bound manner”. This letter referred to the Supreme
Court order of 23rd Nov 2001 in IA 703 and falsely created an impression that the Supreme
Court had ordered the States to evict “encroachers” from forest land. This triggered a wave of
brutal evictions around the country. This was met with widespread resistance from tribal
mass organisations and pressure was built up for a legislative solution to the problem.
This campaign finally resulted in 2004 in a decision by the Prime Minister's Office that the
Ministry of Tribal Affairs with the help of the Technical Support Group of the Ministry of
Environment and Forests would draft a Bill for recognition of Forest Rights. Eventually in
2006 the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act
was passed and the rules framed in 2008. Generally the implementation has been anti-tribal
leading to problems in tribal areas. The specific situation of the Bhils is detailed next.
4.2 Disempowerment and Maldevelopment of Bhil Tribals
The situation of the Bhils was made worse by the fact that government services like
education, development extension and health have not functioned properly and so the tribals
have been deprived of the welfare benefits that they were entitled to under various schemes
(Aurora 206). Finally the patriarchal nature of Bhil society led to the burden of increasing
poverty due to wrong development policies falling disproportionately on the women. The
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necessity of bearing more children to get male progeny has also led to a population explosion,
increasing pressure on the natural resource base.
4.2.1 Decline of Local Self Governance - The most debilitating phenomenon immediately
after independence was the marginalisation of the customary community based local self
governance systems of the Bhils (Banerjee "Decline and Fall" 332). The third tier of
Panchayati Raj was not set up and instead the power in rural areas was transferred to the
bureaucracy and especially the Forest Department and Police. The Forest Department staff
took undue advantage of the restrictive provisions of the Indian Forest Act to demand bribes
from the Bhils to allow them access to the forests without which they could not survive but
which had become legally proscribed. The Police interfered with the traditional
communitarian dispute resolution mechanisms of the Bhils and instead forced them to report
their problems to the Police leading to unnecessary arrests and litigation. Even though the
Bhils elected their own representatives to the state and national legislatures due to the policy
of reservation this did not translate into power for the Bhils at large as the elected
representatives went along with the overall policy of marginalisation of the tribals.
As a result, the general Bhil population was completely disempowered and left at the mercy
of the bureaucracy. This disempowerment is the root cause of the mal-development of the
Bhil areas. The specific micro level needs and aspirations of the Bhils have not been
articulated and so macro level development policies that have been pursued have been
inimical to them.
Thus, the actual state policy that evolved for Bhil tribal areas was as follows - “ top priority
has been given to a programme of rapid industrialisation and extension of means of
communication to the most interior regions. Our firm view is that the development of land
and agriculture alone will not be adequate for the rehabilitation of the tribal communities.
Agricultural land is insufficient and cannot serve the needs of even half the tribal population.
The tribal areas are rich in industrial and power potential. There is no reason why in the wider
interest of the nation and in the long-term interest of the tribals themselves, industries should
not be developed and localised in tribal areas” (National Council of Applied Economic
Research vi).
4.2.2 Industrial Development versus Tribal Development - The assumption that industrial
development in tribal areas is in the long-term beneficial to them has been proved to be
totally fallacious (Mahapatra 56). Invariably tribals are not rehabilitated and compensated
properly for the loss of their traditional livelihoods and neither they are trained to gain
employment in the new industries that are set up. The industrial estate set up on tribal lands in
Pithampur in Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s is an example of this injustice.
The government provided cheap land and other subsidised infrastructure to the industrialists
along with tax-holidays but the displaced tribals were given only pittances as compensation.
Not being educated or skilled they did not get any of the permanent jobs that were created
and are even today working as casual labourers. Pithampur, Indore, Vadodara, Ahmedabad,
Surat and Kota, which are the main industrial centres in West-Central India in fact draw in
Bhils from the whole region as casual labourers.
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The other fallacious assumption in the above NCAER policy statement is that agricultural
land was insufficient to provide suitable livelihoods to the tribals. Inadequate attention was
paid to developing the productivity of dryland agriculture on sub-optimal soils in upper
watersheds on which the Bhils are dependent. Instead stress was put on developing green
revolution agriculture on the plain lands with irrigation and chemical inputs. This was totally
unsuitable to the hilly dry land farms of the Bhils. Today the green revolution technologies
are proving to be unsuitable for the areas where they were started off with in the 1960s in
Punjab and Haryana primarily due to soil quality degradation and lesser and costlier
avialability of water and chemical inputs (Shiva 25).
A resource conservation policy for land, water and forests, a research and development policy
for the traditional organic agriculture of the tribals and appropriate technology for processing
agricultural and forest produce combined with a vibrant local government system with a clear
gender focus to counter the internal patriarchy of Bhil society would have worked wonders if
it had been implemented (Shah et al. 196). Appropriate education and health systems
incorporating tribal knowledge would have been a bonus that would have produced a new
generation of tribals able and ready to take on the development challenges faced by their
community. This was not done and so the human development indices in the Bhil tribal areas
have remained the poorest in the country (Madhya Pradesh Human Development Report
138). It will be relevant to study here the special legal provisions made in favour of the tribals
and their implementation to see how they have impacted on tribal development.
5. Special Legal Provisions for the Tribals
The Constitution has special provisions for the tribals in India. Those in the states of Assam,
Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are covered by the provisions of the Sixth Schedule while
those in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan are covered by the provisions of
the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. The basic philosophy behind these provisions was that
the tribals had a unique communitarian culture based on a subsistence non-accumulative
lifestyle that was at odds with the consumerism spawned by modern industrial development.
Thus, it was necessary to conserve this culture by secluding it from the aggressive thrust of
modern development. The British administrator, anthropologist and social worker Verrier
Elwin was the foremost proponent of this view and it was he who influenced Nehru in this
matter and was the brain behind his "Panchsheel" for tribal areas which spoke of their
development keeping in mind their uniqueness recommending both a seclusion and a gradual
assimilation (Bose 32). However, given the tremendous powers of the centralised state
system as compared to the tribal communities these noble ideas remained a pipe dream in
reality. The imperatives of resource extraction at a low cost invariably prevailed over the
affirmative sentiments of the Panchsheel and the tribals were summarily displaced. Especially
so in the central Indian region where the level of education and awareness was much less than
in the North East. No attention was paid for the upgradation of the skills of the tribals to help
them to adjust to the new economic and political system. Neither were social development
services like education and health provided extensively. Nevertheless the special legal
provisions remain a strong instrument that can be used to ensure justice for the tribals.
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5.1 Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India - Section 5 of the Fifth Schedule reads -
(1). Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, The Governor may by public notification
direct that any particular Act of Parliament or of the Legislature of the State shall not apply to
a Scheduled Areas or any part thereof in the State or shall apply to a Scheduled Area or any
part thereof in the State subject to such exceptions and modifications as he may specify in the
notification and any direction given under this sub-paragraph may be given so as to have
retrospective effect.
(2).The Governor may make regulations for the peace and good government of any area in a
State which is for the time being a Scheduled Area. In particular and without prejudice to the
generality of the foregoing power, such regulations may –
a) Prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes in
such area;
b) Regulate the allotment of land to members of the Scheduled Tribes in such area;
c) Regulate the carrying on of business as money-lender by persons who lend money to
members of the Scheduled Tribes in such area.
(3). In making any such regulation as is referred to in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, the
Governor may repeal or amend any Act of Parliament or of the Legislature of the State or any
existing law which for the time being applicable to the area in question.”
Thus, theoretically it is possible for the Governor of a state, on the advice of the Tribes
Advisory Council consisting of the tribal MLAs of the state, to prevent the application of or
repeal the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act. The most important aspect of
these provisions is that the Governor may implement them so as to ensure "peace and good
government" in tribal areas as the framers of the Constitution felt that this could be possible
only if the tribals were allowed to develop according to their own laws and customs.
However, this has never happened because it is not a binding provision and only a suggestion
like the Directive Principles of State Policy, which finally has to depend on the executive for
its implementation. So the situation for the tribals has been bad. Only in one instance an NGO
in Andhra Pradesh, Samatha, fought all the way to the Supreme Court and got a mining lease
to a company in a scheduled tribal area cancelled and this has proved to be a landmark
victory in the struggles of the tribals (Supreme Court Cases 191).
5.2 Other Legal Provisions - Over the years there have been some other legal provisions in
favour of the tribals. Section 170 B of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code which
provides for reversion of the land of tribals which was transferred to a non-tribal by fraud.
Section 165 of the same code prevents transfer of the land of a tribal to a non-tribal. The most
powerful legislation is the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996. This provides
for the Tribal Gram Sabha in Fifth Schedule areas, defined as a small hamlet in which the
tribals customarily live, to be the deciding body for all matters concerned with the
development and governance of the hamlet. Especially powerful is the provision that the
consent of the Gram Sabha must be taken for any displacement that is to be caused by a
development project. Finally there is the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional
Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act (FRA).
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Thus, in tandem with the provisions of the Fifth Schedule and the other laws in their favour
this legislation can allow the tribals to decide on their own path of development and methods
of governance. Finally there are various laws for the stringent control of moneylending in
tribal areas which puts the onus on the administration to take pro-active action against
moneylenders practising usury and. However, all these provisions too have not been
implemented leading to the emergence of alternative approaches to development.
6. Mobilisation of Tribals in Alirajpur District
A few tribal and non-tribal social workers began mobilising the Bhil tribals of Alirajpur
district in Madhya Pradesh from 1982 onwards primarily for their basic constitutional rights.
Later this movement spread to include the integration of the Bhils into the modern market
system without exploitation by moneylenders and corrupt government officials. The
movement gained a formal identity by 1987 when it was registered as a trade union named
Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS). After this the organisation took up the promotion
of the Bhils' traditional community development systems and natural resource conservation
techniques. Seeing that agitations alone were not yielding enough results an NGO was also
registered as a public trust named Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra (DGVK) to access grant funds
for initiating development projects. Thus, a mix of rights based mass mobilisation and grant
funded development initiatives were used to improve the situation of the tribals.
The introduction of the special Panchayat Raj for Scheduled Tribal areas under the provisions
of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 (PESA) gave a boost to the work of
the KMCS. This act was enacted keeping in mind the provisions of the Fifth Schedule. The
KMCS was part of the national campaign to get this law enacted. The provision in PESA Act
that the tribal Gram Sabha is to be the final arbiter on all issues of local development and that
this Gram Sabha could be as small as a hamlet of a village made it easier for KMCS to
implement development programmes. Often it is not possible to carry the whole village
together on some development programme because the tribal hamlets of a village are situated
at a distance from each other. Another law that promises to have far reaching consequences is
the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006
(FRA) which gives rights to the land that the tribals have been cultivating and also
community rights to the forests in which they have been residing. The KMCS was part of the
national campaign for the passing of this Act also and has taken active steps in getting it
implemented. Finally there is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme which if properly implemented can in addition to providing employment to the
tribals also improve the natural resource base of their habitats.
The specific mobilisational strategies adopted by the KMCS that have got the people to act
collectively for getting their entitlements and the conservation of natural resources are –
1. Problem analysis workshops in which the people have participated in open
discussions to pinpoint the problems they were facing.
2. Legal and rights training workshops in which the people were taught the basics of the
liberal democratic framework.
3. Collective Action for assertive rights through public demonstrations and sitins.
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4. Revival of traditional labour and resource pooling customs.
5. Special women's meetings to get them involved in resource conservation work and
also public demonstrations.
6. Legal and policy advocacy to change the laws and rules in favour of the tribals.
7. Gaining Access to Forests and then Conserving them
The KMCS organisation began with the problem of ensuring access to the encroached farms
of the tribals in the reserved forest. As a solution to this problem it was decided to protect the
remaining forest area and prevent it from degradation. This was done to counter the claim of
the forest department that the tribals were destroying the forest. Consequently in all the
hamlets of the study watershed social protection of the forests to ensure their regeneration
was undertaken. Small groups patrolled the forests by turns through a labour pooling system.
This protection is taking place in more than fifty villages affiliated to the KMCS covering
more than 10,000 hectares.
The fodder generated from such protection is cut and bought by the members at the end of the
monsoon season and the money thus generated is kept in a fund for carrying out plantation
work. This forest protection has considerably increased the availability of fodder, fireweood
and non-timber forest produce in the study watershed and this has especially benefited the
women and children who are the main collectors of forest products. It may be mentioned here
that tribal children treat the collection of forest produce as a playful activity and it is not
labour for them. This is how they come to know their natural environment. Greater fodder
availability has facilitated goat and buffalo rearing and so increased the supplementary
incomes from animal husbandry which provides an insurance against livelihood shocks to the
tribal households. It is not possible to quantify the increase in forest product availability
because of a lack of records but people say that they now enjoy much greater forest product
availability and have bigger herds of goats and cattle than earlier. Contrastingly the landscape
in villages which are not part of the KMCS is barren and the forest product availability is low
because no cooperative effort has
been made for forest protection.
This indicates the importance of
community forest conservation and
the crucial catalytic influence of a
people's organisation in bringing
this about. The picture of a patch of
regenerated forest in Alirajpur is
shown in Fig 1 alongside.
Fig. 1: Regenerated Forest in
Alirajpur
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8. Soil and Water Conservation
The KMCS organised the villagers in the study watershed into small groups of ten to twelve
farmers each who then pooled their labour and cooperated with each other to perform their
agricultural operations together and also undertake soil and water conservation activities.
This was a revival of the traditional labour pooling custom of the Bhils called Dhas from
which the name of the NGO is derived. In this system people used to work together to do
agricultural operations on each others' fields, build each others' houses, and improve the
quality of the farm fields through soil conservation work. However, this traditional labour
pooling custom is dying out because of their integration into the mainstream money economy
and the exploitation by the forest department staff.
Thus, this was a crucial intervention on the part of the social workers that has over the years
resulted in huge investments being made in the form of labour in natural resource
conservation in the watershed. Apart from this external funding was also sourced on two
occasions for soil and water conservation work through the sister NGO, DGVK .
A major feature of this cooperative soil and water conservation work is the participation of
women in it. As has been well documented the ravages of natural devastation caused by bad
development are mostly borne by women (Shiva 1). Consequently it is not surprising, that
when offered an opportunity to cooperate to reduce their drudgery, women come forward
enthusiastically. The social workers of the KMCS have pro-actively sought the participation
of women to ensure gender justice. This has not only ensured that women have participated in
the community actions and improved their status in society but they have also as a result,
changed the gender relations at home. A picture of women working on a gully plug to create
a new farm out of the deep gully in a village in Alirajpur is shown in Fig 2 below.
Fig 2: Women working on a Gully Plug
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The intensive soil and water conservation work and the forest conservation have together
ensured that both natural and artificial recharge in the watersheds have increased
considerably and as a result the streams are flowing throughout the year. The farmers have
used this enhanced water availability to cultivate dryland varieties of wheat which require
less water. The greater availability of animal manure has resulted in the farmers using treated
organic manure in larger quantities and improving the quality of the soil. The soil and water
conservation work has also ensured the greater availability of soil moisture and so double
cropping has become possible even without irrigation in some of the upper fields where a
crop of gram is taken. In some cases the kharif jowar crop after being harvested, regenerates
to give a small rabi yield from the soil moisture.
9. Implementation of the FRA
The FRA has been plagued with problems right from the beginning. Even though the Act was
passed in 2006 it took another year for the Rules to be framed and passed by parliament.
Even after that the Madhya Pradesh government was very tardy in setting in motion the
process for application and verification of the rights of the tribals. The KMCS has had to
organise many demonstrations to first get the process started and then for it to continue. Even
now the implementation is faulty and tardy and the KMCS has filed a complaint with the
State Level Forest Rights Monitoring Committee regarding the non-implementation of the
Act. The KMCS is also preparing a detailed list of eligible applicants and lease right
awardees as part of a petition to be filed in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. Nevertheless
compared to the rest of Madhya Pradesh, due to the pressure created by KMCS, the
implementation is far better in Alirajpur where over 8000 claims have been accepted and the
rejection percentage is only 5% as compared to 50% for other tribal areas as a whole. As
many as 62 claims of Community Forest Rights have been accepted. What is most heartening
is that the process is still under way. The KMCS has also pro-actively used the MGNREGS
to carry out soil and water conservation works on the lands for which the tribals have gained
lease rights under the FRA.
A recent review report of the implementation of the FRA by a committee appointed by the
Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs of the Government of
India has also severely indicted the state governments and especially the forest department
staff for very poor implementation (Manthan 1). The major criticisms are as follows –
1. Most states have concentrated almost entirely on implementing the provisions for
individual forest rights (IFRs). About 83% of these claims have been disposed of, and
35% claims have been approved, with titles issued for most of them. There are,
however, major errors of omission. Even in states where implementation began more
than two years ago, many pockets have not yet been covered, and many potential
claimants have not managed to submit their claims.
2. The biggest problem is with the many cases of faulty rejections. Rejections are being
done without assigning reasons or simply for lack of evidence or „absence of GPS
survey‟ (lacunae which only require the claim to be referred back to the lower-level
body), or because the land is wrongly considered as „not forest land‟, or because only
forest offence receipts are considered as adequate evidence.
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3. In an overwhelming number of cases, the rejections are not being communicated to
the claimants and their right to appeal is not being explained to them and its exercise
facilitated.
4. Community forest rights have not been recognised in most places and the lack of
awareness about this among the tribals is even higher than for IFRs.
An associated achievement of the KMCS is its success in getting the proposal by the
Government to set up a Wild Life Sanctuary in the Katthivada Forest Range of Alirajpur
cancelled. Under the provisions of the PESA Act and also the Wild Life Protection Act any
displacement of people in a scheduled tribal area has to be sanctioned by the Gram Sabha.
Hard mobilisation by KMCS forced the Government to implement this provision and the
Gram Sabhas unanimously rejected the proposal because of its many infirmities and it had to
be shelved. This is the first time that a proposal for a Wild Life Sanctuary in this country has
had to be shelved due to strong legal and mass action by the tribals.
10. Conclusions
The KMCS and DGVK have together used the favourable legal provisions to ensure that the
Bhils of Alirajpur are able to secure their rights and entitlements and gain justice from the
modern economic and political systems that govern this country. In conclusion a critical
assessment of this process of community mobilisation will be undertaken within the
evaluation framework for institution building for successful common pool resource
management proposed by Ostrom ("Governing the Commons" 90) as follows -
1. Group boundaries are clearly defined.
2. Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and
conditions.
3. Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules.
4. The rights of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external
authorities.
5. A system for monitoring member's behavior exists; the community members
themselves undertake this monitoring.
6. A graduated system of sanctions is used.
7. Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
8. For CPRs that are parts of larger systems: appropriation, provision, monitoring,
enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple
layers of nested enterprises.
The first principle is very important and the KMCS was able to inspire the tribals to assert
their identity and clearly demarcate their sovereignty over their habitats. The laws and rules
for utilisation of the forests were that laid down by the government and administered by the
Forest Department and were not matched to the local needs and conditions in violation of the
second principle above. The KMCS succeeded in mobilising the people through regular
meetings and trainings to stand up for their rights against the forest department staff and
Rahul Banerjee (www.anar-kali.blogspot.com) 12
design their own rules for governing the use of the collective natural resources. A section of
the people initially braved the opposition of the traditional Patels who were agents of the
Forest Department and even went to jail fighting for their rights and established the
organisation. Once the organisation was established and natural resource conservation work
began, the benefits began to flow and this acted as a reinforcing factor in the continuation of
the process and so later even the Patels, who were initially opposed to the process, later
became a part of it.
The mobilisation process resulted in a fairly strong people's organisation spread over a large
area of fifty villages and hence the KMCS members were able to ensure that the Forest
Department was forced to allow the villagers to manage their common resources according to
their own rules. The monitoring of the forests as well as the soil and water conservation work
is done by the members themselves and that is why the system has worked very well for over
two decades. The members of the KMCS have developed a system of sanctions beginning
with fines for small infringements of the rules and going upto ostracism for more serious
violations and this is administered by the people themselves. The traditional community
conflict resolution mechanisms of the Bhil tribals have also been revived and these are also
working very well.
The final principle is the most important as far as community mobilisation on a large scale is
concerned. Unless the government ensures a participatory framework of rule making and
monitoring at several levels it is difficult for a small organisation to build up a larger
movement of conservation. Since the government through the forest department and police
has actively opposed the people's mobilisation it has taken place only in about fifty villages in
Alirajpur district and it is difficult to expand its reach. The laws and policies that favour
tribals discussed in detail in the beginning are not implemented primarily because they are
not aware of these provisions and the Government is not serious about them. The KMCS and
the DGVK by raising the awareness of the tribals in this regard have brought about a positive
transformation in Alirajpur. This unique combination of an NGO and Trade Union, by
synthesising social activism and development intervention, has improved the situation of the
Bhil tribals by creatively using the favourable legal provisions for tribals.
The PESA Act was a first step in the direction of preserving and promoting tribal culture and
thus ensuring a saner world involving more sustainable resource use and equitable inter-
personal relations than the one we are living in (Rahul 87). The KMCS has relied on the
inherent tribal culture and synergised it with developmental efforts to improve the lives of the
tribals who are its members. The passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act and
the Right to Information Act in 2006 has considerably enhanced the effectiveness of the
PESA Act. Many tribal mass organisations have conducted long drawn campaigns which
have resulted in the enactment of the FRA which complements the Fifth Schedule and
nullifies the historical injustice done to the tribals through the implementation of the Indian
Forest Act. The KMCS has leveraged the provisions of this Act too. Thus, despite its
limitations, the mobilisation process described above has ensured justice for the Bhil tribals
of Alirajpur and provided them with a better livelihood situation.
Rahul Banerjee (www.anar-kali.blogspot.com) 13
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