The National Forum
of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) welcomes the report
submitted by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the draft
Forest Rights Bill and is hopeful that the Central Cabinet will
approve it and will send it to the Parliament. NFFPFW further acknowledges
the role played by the Chairman and members of the JPC, and contribution
of all other social movements, struggle groups of forest people
and movements in shaping this Bill through their suggestions, and
submissions before the JPC.
The present United
Progressive Alliance government led by the Congress Party
introduced “The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition
of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005” in the Parliament on 13 December 2005
promising to correct the injustice meted out to the tribals in the
past. Though most of the civil society groups and struggle groups
and movements welcomed the move by the Government, it was pointed
out by many that the draft Bill was limited in scope and restricted
rights over forest land to the scheduled tribes only thereby depriving
and violating the rights of non-scheduled tribe forest dwellers.
The draft Bill was also criticised for undermining the role of the
gram sabha [village council], bringing in a spectra of large scale
eviction in having 1980 as the cut of date and keeping the option
open for displacement of thousands from the National Park and Sanctuaries.
NFFPFW, fighting for
rights of forest-dependent people since its inception in 1998 while
welcoming the draft Bill, raised the demand for a more comprehensive
legislation on forests, and was perhaps, one of the
first groups in the country to publicly voice its concern on the
limited scope of the Bill and demanded that non-scheduled tribe
forest dwellers should be brought in to the ambit of the draft Bill.
The NFFPFW, along with
its constituent groups and the North Eastern groups, also voiced
the complex nature of the forests, its laws and relationship between
the forest dependent and forests in the north eastern states that
was not reflected in the draft. Since then, NFFPFW along with other
struggle groups and movements, consistently echoed its concerns
to policymakers, interacted with political parties and members of
Parliament, and legislators. NFFPFW made a detailed presentation
of its suggested amendments to the draft Bill before the Joint Parliamentary
Committee.
This is certainly a
moment of victory and reaffirms our faith on peoples’ power. However,
we at NFFPFW are aware about the new challenges it throws open now.
The biggest challenge will be to force both the Houses of the Parliament
to pass the Bill, and in the time of implementation of the Act at
the ground level as there is bound to be conflicts and enough preparations
need to be done to deal with such situations.
NFFPFW believes that
this is a part of the larger issue of livelihood and ownership of
forest resources and there are much larger challenges hovering around
implications of climate change, usurping of common property rights,
destruction of natural forests in favour of plantations, and commodification
of forest for global trade. Increased interventions by International
Financial Institutions in environment sector in the country is taking
away the space of communities and facilitating a process of commodifying
these sectors.
There is a need to
strengthen the collective struggle and defeat all those efforts
which are in conflict with the lives and livelihoods and dignity
of the forest dwelling communities. NFFPFW pledges to carry forward
that struggle for the rights of forest communities.
By Ashok Chowdhury,
sent by Mamata Dash, National Forum of Forest People and Forest
Workers (NFFPFW), e-mail: mamata_dash@yahoo.com
