Tamil Nadu - Salem   

Activists insist on landholding rights to tribals

Special Correspondent

`Over 35 per cent of them in the State have been deprived of their land'

FOR THEIR PRIVILEGES: A woman voicing her grievances at a seminar in Salem on Saturday. - Photo: P. Goutham

SALEM: Tribal activists in Tamil Nadu insisted on the need to focus on landholding rights to adivasis, which, they said, alone will stop alienating them from their land and forests.

Participating in a seminar on `The rights of tribals on land' here on Saturday, the adivasi leaders and activists claimed that unless the land was restored to them, there would be no significant shift in their livelihood, as the majority of the tribals lived below poverty line.

"Despite a sustained struggle, nearly 35 per cent of them live in poverty and thrown out of their homelands - the forests," said Rev. Jacob Belly, Zonal Co-ordinator for the Church of South India (CSI), Diagonal Ministry, while presiding.

Colonisation of forests

Inaugurating the seminar, State Convener of the Tribal Associations for Fifth Schedule Campaign (TAFSE) A. Renganathan said that the colonisation of forests had facilitated 90 per cent of land in the Western Ghats falling into the hands of aliens while 60 per cent was brought into the Eastern Ghats."

Over 36 per cent of adivasis in Tamil Nadu had been deprived of their land. Barring Tamil Nadu, other states had enacted special legislations banning the purchase of tribal land. Tamil Nadu had not brought the tribal areas under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules.

Centre urged

The speakers urged the Centre to expedite the process of tabling the proposed Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, known as `Tribal Bill-2005', during the winter session of Parliament. It would be the `essential first step in reforming the country's forest management regime.' The Forest Act and the subsequent post-colonial legislations of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and Forest Conservation Act 1980 had thrown the tribals into the abyss of poverty. The tribal groups said that the knowledge on forests and wildlife would make them the best stewards of forests. The activists demanded that the misinformation campaign against the Bill by a few organisations be stopped. The tribal and Dalit leaders who spoke included Sahayaraj (Bangalore), V. P. Gunasekaran (Bhavani), Shanmugam (Chennai) Sathyaraj (Udhagamandalam), Ganesan (Salem), Leelevathy (Kodaikanal), Jyothi Rangan (Dharmapuri), Nagapandian and Suresh Dharma (Chennai).

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