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Forest Rights Act poses a challenging task

BHUBANESWAR: The recent communal battle in Orissa’s Kandhamal district was fought chiefly over rights on reservation between tribal and dalits.

But another bomb is ticking over rights to forest resources that could well bring the two communities in the district to the brink of another division if the State government does not carefully execute recently-notified Forest Rights Act.

Under the Act, tribals, who had stayed in forests till December 13, 2005 would get legal status to their existence, but in case of dalits or non-tribals they will have to prove at least 75 years of existence in forestland.

The State government is now facing challenging task to execute the new Act in already communally-divided Kandhamal. Ironically it is one of the most forest-rich districts of Orissa.

Forest records of the State government show the district with total geographical area of 7,650 sq km has 5710 sq km forestland, which is 74.64 per cent. The district has total population of 6,48,201 of which Kui speaking trirbals constitute 51.96 per cent while Schedule Caste comprise sizeable 17 per cent.

Moreover, operational land holdings of Kandhamal’s population also points towards criticality of the situation. Of total 1,21,735 landholders identified in the district, only 6,481 are either large or medium farmers while 95930 are small and marginal farmers. Since almost 80 per cent of the farming community had less than two hectares of land, their dependency on forest can be well imagined. During the execution of the Forest Rights Act, these factors would come into play.

During a number consultation meetings conducted by non-government organisations on forest rights recently, although the simmering differences came to fore, activists handled the situation and managed to take along two communities on the issue of claiming rights over forest resources.

“Not all tribals are adverse to sharing forest resources with their neighbouring pana community but 10 per cent of the population are wicked. If a feeling of hatred was spread among the communities over right to livelihood, then things might turn worse,” says Sudarshan Kanhar, Joint Secretary of Central Kui Samaj.

However, dalit leaders assert that they will make all-out efforts to secure legal status for dalits enjoying forest resources for generations. Onus is now on the State government to carry out the settlement process, if mishandled, the communal violence could be shifted to forests, says an activist.

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