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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Expropriation in the name of conservation -Avi Singh & Peeyush Bhatia

Expropriation in the name of conservation -Avi Singh & Peeyush Bhatia

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published Published on Apr 22, 2019   modified Modified on Apr 22, 2019
-The Hindu

It is shocking that a democratic government is seeking to strengthen the colonial-era Indian Forest Act

The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was a remarkable piece of expropriation in the name of conservation. The British government carried out one of the largest land expropriations in history, where the rights to occupy and use forests were transferred from communities with customary and historical property rights to the colonial Central government. The act offered a fig leaf that those who could establish their rights were excepted from this expropriation (of course, few could establish their rights, given that their rights were not property rights as per the British government’s conception of property). These expropriations were ameliorated in some small measure in the Forest Rights Act of 2006, but they have remained the edifice of the relationship between the government and the Adivasis. It is the forest department that Adivasis must deal with as their primary government agency. That a democratic government almost a century later seeks to expand and strengthen the tools of the Indian Forest Act is remarkable and shocking at the same time.

The ostensible inspiration for the amendments proposed by the Central government is the same as that of the colonial regime: the protection of forests. However, the government goes a step further than the colonial government and seeks to criminalise the communities, primarily the Adivasis, who dwell in these forests. Forest rights activists have expressed concern that forests could turn into a ‘police state’. A better description would be that they would become a more draconian police state.

Proposed amendments

According to the draft amendments, the forest department will now be able to enforce the property rights of the government to forests at the exclusion of Adivasis dwelling there, through preventive arrest provisions. Certain offences will be made non-bailable. The presumption of innocence is reversed. Alleged encroachers can be arrested without warrant. Forest officials will be given the authority to use arms against tribals for “violation of laws”.

The draft says the ‘forest’ will not be limited to land owned by the government; it will include any flora considered forest, as a 1996 Supreme Court order had expanded the definition of forest. The Central government will be able to change the classification from ‘unprotected’ to ‘reserved’ or ‘protected’, and the erstwhile land owners will be subjected to penal provisions for customary use of their land.

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The Hindu, 22 April, 2019, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/expropriation-in-the-name-of-conservation/article26905405.ece?homepage=true


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