Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Outsider in own home, Maharashtra village wrests control of forest produce sale by Jaideep Hardikar

Outsider in own home, Maharashtra village wrests control of forest produce sale by Jaideep Hardikar

Share this article Share this article
published Published on May 19, 2011   modified Modified on May 19, 2011
If the problems are macro, think micro.

That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in.

“There is no point in looking out and blaming others for all our ills. We look within for solutions,” said Devaji Tofa, the village head.

Far from the fast-paced urban trappings, Mendha, a forested village 40km from Gadchiroli town and home to about 500 Gond tribals, is economically poor but rich in culture and traditions. It nurtures nature and biodiversity as a way of life and living.

In December 2009, it became the first village in India to win community rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006. On April 29, it legally sold the first bamboo, bringing to fruition its three-decade democratic struggle to manage its jungles.

Mendha — whose 1,800 hectares of community forests abound with a variety of bamboo, teak, herbs, mahua flowers and at least twenty different minor-forest-produce items — has paved the way for hundreds of tribal villages to get the right to use, harvest and sell bamboo under the FRA.

The Maharashtra government on April 27 transferred the powers to sell bamboo vested so far in the forest department to the gram sabha by handing over permits to Tofa.

Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and several other state ministers attended the event.

The once nondescript village, located in the Naxalite-infested Gadchiroli district, is now a model for its experiment with consensual and participatory democracy. The village is now toying with the idea of creating self-help groups to harvest, process and sell bamboo and other minor forest produce (MFP) — such as honey and wax — to manage its natural resources and create a sustainable wealth-generating model.

The gram sabha has already prescribed a limit for cutting bamboo and passed a resolution for selling the produce to a contractor at Rs 23 per piece. Each villager will be able to cut 50-60 bamboos a day, earning a wage of Rs 9. The gram sabha will get a royalty of Rs 14, to be spent on building infrastructure and marketing facilities.

The villagers have chosen to give priority to two things: set up a training centre to process bamboo and other forest produce and repair water tanks. “This is the beginning of development according to their own vision,” said Mohan Hirabai Hiralal, an environment and social activist closely associated with Mendha’s struggle. It was in the early 80s that he first discovered Mendha and its collective wisdom while on a research tour.

“I noticed that the village functioned differently from most others. It took decisions collectively in its gram sabha and stood by it,” Hiralal said. Be it prohibition on tree felling or commercial exploitation of forest produce, it would be a collective call.

Around that time, as Naxalism was taking root in Gadchiroli and India was overcoming the shocks of the Emergency, Mendha had begun to reinforce its community bonds by creating a strong gram sabha that later became an engine for change.

“Our awakening came with the realisation that while we traditionally managed everything around us, we are outsiders in our own home,” Tofa said, trudging along the clean village alleys dotted with beautifully decorated thatched huts fenced with bamboo poles. But unlike the Naxalites, they did not believe the answers to their problems were rooted in armed struggle.

Looking back at the conflict in most of India’s tribal areas that many believe has fuelled the Maoist uprising, Tofa said: “Today’s problems emerge from a lack of understanding of the tribal way of life and their idea of development.” For the tribals, Tofa said, negotiations don’t work, consensus does. The top-down idea of progress is anathema to many tribal communities. “Give us our resources, and you’ll see the results.”

Mendha first questioned the government logic back in the late seventies. “Villagers asked why we have no right to our own forest which we managed and conserved for generations,” Tofa said.

This was the beginning of their first spontaneous movement.

The villagers decided they would challenge the government logic and demand self-rule. That sowed the seeds for their slogan that rent the air on April 27 when the bamboo permits were formally handed over: “Mawa nate mate sarkar (In our village, we ourselves are the government).”

The gram sabha emerged as the authority, and a signboard declaring that old slogan in the bold still hangs on the wall of its office. Nothing could be implemented without the consensual stamp of the village body, which practically works without any hierarchical structure.

So powerful is the gram sabha that when then governor P.C. Alexander wanted to visit the village in 2000, the collector personally came to seek permission from the gram sabha. “The sabha accorded its permission and welcomed the governor.”

But think of it now, Tofa said, this is the same village that 40 years ago feared well-dressed urban people. “As a child, I would escape into forests with friends if we saw a pant-shirt-clad man coming to our village,” said Tofa, dressed in crisp white dhoti-kurta.

“The world over,” Hiralal said, “there is a growing acknowledgement that the communities closest to the resources can manage them more effectively.” Mendha’s model, he said, is in line with a central idea voiced at the December 2009 World Environment Summit in Copenhagen — the only way to conserve forests is to give its management to local communities. It’s not an example in isolation: Mendha has inspired more than a hundred villages in the district to follow its ideas.

“We don’t believe in individual rights, but community rights. We decide what is in our best interest, and stick to it,” Tofa said as he walked across three wards that the village has been divided into for better upkeep.

Each ward has a separate working group that reports back to the gram sabha after consulting people from the area and reaching a consensus on any issue. “The process is time-consuming but it brings in the participation of all villagers, including women,” Tofa said.

When it coined the “our villlage-our government” slogan, the gram sabha also framed certain rules, keeping nature sacrosanct, and religiously stood by them. First, it said all domestic requirements would be met from the surrounding forests without paying any fee to the government. But it also said that no outsider, whether from the government or outside it, would be allowed to carry out any forest activity without the permission of its gram sabha — which includes a member from every household.

The village put an embargo on commercial exploitation of forests, except minor forest produce. Villagers began patrolling forests, regulated extraction of such produce, checked soil erosion, and banned encroachments.

A decade ago, the villagers revived the Kathari river, which runs by Mendha, after it had run dry. When the Biodiversity Act came into existence, it was first to prepare its bio-diversity register (record of bio-diversity in its forests).

Tofa and his generation inspired their progeny to study and work in their villages. Manda, Tofa’s elder daughter, and her husband Nitin Barsinge, have similarly transformed Nitin’s paternal village Marda, which got community rights over 800 hectares of forests soon after Mendha did.

Mendha became a magnet for scholars and researchers, who helped the people understanding tedious government procedures and law, something that helped them win the community rights under the forest act.

Media, government officials, social workers and environmentalists, everybody pitched in with help, Tofa said. “Answer to paper work could only be paper work,” he chuckled. “But when it comes to taking decisions, it is always our call. No outsider can influence us in that — it’s the nature that guides us,” he added.

The Telegraph, 19 May, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110519/jsp/frontpage/story_14001584.jsp

Tagged with: Tribal Rights



Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

"Session 1: Scope of IDEA and AgriStack" in Exploring...

"Session 2: Farmer Centric Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

"Session 3: Future of Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

Objectives | About Us | Workshops | Disclaimer
share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close