This week the Cabinet will probably consider the tribal bill. A joint parliamentary committee (JPC) has worked on it. Just how hard we know from Brinda Karat. In a two-part article in People’s Democracy, the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP and a member of the JPC on the tribal bill, she says “it was only on the intervention of the CPI(M) that this (Wildlife Act) amendment was postponed in the just concluded session of Parliament to prevent any conflict with the tribal bill”.

For the uninitiated, the Wildlife (Protection) Act Amendment Bill seeks better conservation in the best of India’s forests by giving constitutional authority to Project Tiger. The tribal bill wants to give every forest dwelling family, land and associated rights to exploit forest produce and initiate development schemes like schools, hospitals, roads, inside forests.

In her article, Karat challenges the jurisdiction of the Wildlife Act Amendment Bill and explains how the JPC wanted to strengthen the tribal bill. Wondering if it is “not necessary to have a site by site scientific analysis involving experts — as well as local communities” to redefine core forest areas, she claims that “words like ‘buffer’, ‘core’,‘tiger bearing forests’ were liberally used (in the Wildlife Amendment Bill) not only without any definitions but also to extend the rights of the (environment and forest) ministry over larger areas excluding tribals.”

In most reserve forests, dense old growth areas with no and/or little human habitation are marked as the ‘core’ and the peripheral forests form the ‘buffer’. All conservation models demand the villages in core areas be relocated to make room for inviolate forests. By challenging the definition of core zones, Karat obviously wants to legitimise human habitations even inside national parks and sanctuaries. This is in line with another recommendation that gives villagers the right to return if they are not “satisfied” with rehabilitation. Karat explains: “...give the right of final authority to the gram sabha which also has been redefined to include habitations — there is a greater danger of excluding legitimate beneficiaries if the power of final authority is given to those who are committed to clearing the forests of human habitation...” If the forest-dwellers are often taken for a ride in the rehabilitation drama, the political class must take most of the blame. Time and again this writer has encountered local leaders who have scuttled rehabilitation by misleading villagers — all for a handful of votes.

... contd.