JANUARY 1-15, 2003 | FOREST RIGHTS - DEEP IN THE WOODS

A murky battle rages inside India’s forests and court rooms. Are the recent eviction drives misdirected at forest dwellers?

- NAVA THAKURIA, SOPAN JOSHI, SATYASUNDAR BARIK

WRIT PETITION number 202 of 1995; Godavarman v the Union of India and others. This is the “forest case” being heard in Supreme Court for the past seven years. With more than 800 interlocutory applications (IAs) filed, the case will dictate the fate of India’s forests and an estimated 10 million indigenous tribal people who live in and off the forest. It has already produced several dramatic interim orders, the latest being in May 2002, when some state governments—Assam and Maharashtra, in particular—launched eviction drives against encroachers on forestland. The eviction drive was in response to a circular sent by the Union ministry of environment and forests (moef), dated May 3, 2002, to all states and Union Territories (forest is on the concurrent list, and hence both the Centre and the state governments have a say). The five-member Central Empowered Committee (cec) set up by the court recommended measures several times stronger than those in the moef circular. The response was quixotic. Assam went on an eviction drive in the first week of May. The state’s forest department used elephants to raze down hutments and homesteads on land recorded as forest. The second wave began in Maharashtra, where tribal families faced evictions from farms with standing crops. Scores of houses were destroyed, hundreds rendered homeless.