Asserive Acion and Mobilizaion
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AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP
1972. This would displace tens of thousands of people, mostly indigenous communities, including those that had earlier been displaced by the Kaptai Hydroelectric Dam 1960
and rehabilitated for government-run agro-forestry projects of the Jum Control Division of the Forest Department.
Facilitated by the local NGO, Taungya, many of the community leaders gathered in Rangamati in the early 1990s to deal with the issue from a common platform. They in-
cluded the headmen and communities of the Betbunia-Kashkhali areas and the Chakma Chief, who petitioned the Prime Minister and concerned forest officials, plus the com-
munity leaders of the Rajasthali area, who even went to the High Court to protect their rights. The case is still pending. The meeting resulted in the formation of the Commit-
tee for the Protection of Forest and Land Rights in the CHT, which was later re-named as the Movement for Protection of Forest and Land Rights in the CHT.
Since its inception, the Movement has been raising awareness about the issue among CHT communities. They have mounted peaceful resistance programmes and campaigns,
and even held direct dialogues with Forest Department and senior government officials and leaders.
Although the possession of some of these lands have been taken over, and its in- habitants evicted, in most cases the Forest Department has been unable to take over
possession. It is widely believed that unity among the concerned communities has suc- ceeded in preventing takeovers, even though the formal gazette notifications have not
been removed.
Case study 2. Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan
Jharkhand Save the Forest Movement
Over the past decades, communities all over India have started to protect whatever forests remain to them, and to regenerate denuded forests. In 1996, a report was pub-
lished, saying: An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 villages, primarily in eastern India, have mobilized
to protect one to two million hectares of regenerating forest. The evolution of this approach to resource management draws on both ancient traditions and emerg-
ing strategies. Poffenberger et al. 1996: 2 In Jharkhand, the Jungal Katai Andolan was launched as early as 1978, as a pro-
test movement against the devastation of forests in the Kolhan-Singhbhum area, mostly inhabited by the Hos. The forest rights movement remained particularly strong in re-
gions of Ranchi and West Singhbhum districts that were inhabited by the Munda and the Ho, and protests continued in a sporadic manner until the emergence in 2000 of the
Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan JJBA, the Jharkhand Save the Forest Movement.
The JJBA emerged out of an initiative to launch a campaign for the restoration of the forest rights of the Adivasi in Jhakhand. The forest rights campaign is run as a project by
the Bindrai Institute for Research Study and Action BIRSA with support from the In- ternational Work Group for Indigenous Affairs IWGIA. Under the still ongoing project,
existing Forest Protection Committees have been strengthened, and the formation of new Forest Protection Committees has been promoted. Communities have launched the
JJBA as a grassroots movement for the restoration of indigenous peoples’ forest rights,
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Module-4
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providing themselves with a common platform for experience-sharing, coordination and cooperation.
Over the past eight years, JJBA has witnessed an enormous expansion. It now has about 5,000 registered members in 45 blocks in 12 of 22 districts of the state. An indica-
tor of the scale of mobilization achieved by JJBA is the number of people attending ral- lies in the state capital, Ranchi. In 2000, around 7,000 people gathered for the first rally,
and in 2006, around 20,000.
While the protection of their forests is the concern around which the work of the JJBA revolves, the indigenous peoples of Jharkhand have also become conscious of the
importance of forest conservation. They have started to act and make demands, to con- front and challenge forest officials, contractors and the timber mafia, and they have filed
a case at the High Court of Jharkhand to restore the Mundari Khunkati villages’ rights over their communal forests.
The Adivasi communities gath- ered under the banner of JJBA have
understood that they can protect their forests in the long run only if
their rights over their forests are rec- ognized. Re-establishing control gives
them the confidence that they will be able to reap the fruits of their ef-
forts, and thus the incentive to forego immediate returns in favor of long-
term protection. Thus, the determi- nation of indigenous communities in
Jharkhand to protect and regenerate their forests is inseparably linked to
asserting their customary rights over them. Given the non-cooperative attitude which the Forest Department has so far shown, this simply means: keeping the Forest Depart-
ment out of their forests. It may also imply confrontation with the timber mafia who, of- ten in direct collusion with the Forest Department, continue to illegally fell timber. And
it may even mean that they have to do away with their own leaders, if these have become corrupted by contractors and Forest Department officials.