[Marxistindia] Brinda Karat's Letter to the PM to Issue Ordinance to Prevent Eviction of Adivais

[news from the cpi(m)]

                February 21, 2019

 

Press Release

 

Brinda Karat, member of the Polit Bureau of Communist Party of India
(Marxist), has written the following letter to the Prime Minister of India
on written orders issued by the Supreme Court to evict adivasis and
traditional forest dwellers from forest land and demanding appropriate
action.  We are releasing the text of the letter for publication.

 

 

 

(Hari Singh Kang)

For CPI(M) Central Committee office

_____________________________________________________________

 

Dear Shri Narendra Modi ji,

 

This is to draw your urgent attention to the written orders issued by the
Supreme Court made public on February 20, to evict all adivasis and
traditional forest dwellers from forest land whose claims have not been
accepted. These orders came on the petition Wild Life First vs Ministry of
Forest and Environment, (Writ petition(s) Civil No(s) 109/2008, order dated
13-2-2019) which challenged the Forest Rights Act itself.

 

At present according to the latest figures available (December 2018) of the
42.19 lakh claims made only 18.89 lakh claims have been accepted. This means
that 23.30 lakh adivasis and traditional forest dwellers are vulnerable to
eviction according to the Supreme Court orders. 

 

On behalf of the CPI(M) we demand that your Government urgently issue an
ordinance to protect all adivasis and traditional forest dwellers from
eviction. If this is not done it will be virtual declaration of war against
adivasis.

 

It is highly regrettable that the counsel arguing for the Central Government
was absent from the Court on the crucial date. This betrayal of the rights
of adivasis was the culmination of the connivance of the Ministry concerned
with the petitioners. Many of the petitioners in the case are retired
officers of the Forest department. At no point in these years did the legal
representatives of your Government take a strong position in court in
defence of the rights of adivasis and traditional forest dwellers. 

 

The nodal agency for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act is the
Tribal Affairs Ministry but instead of giving the responsibility of the case
to them, your Government has left it deliberately to the Ministry which has
been totally against the Act from the beginning. 

 

The Forest Rights Act specifies under Sec 4 (5) that no one can be evicted
without proper procedure. However the authorities who are supposed to follow
this procedure are themselves responsible for the violation and arbitrary
rejection of claims even those claims which have been recommended by the
gram sabhas. 

 

Community Forest Rights are not being recognized and land occupied by
adivasis is being handed over to big companies for various projects and also
for mining under the programme of "ease of business." 

 

Therefore it is essential to set up an impartial body to go through the
claims of adivasis which have been rejected and not leave it to the
Ministries.

 

In the last five years your Government has passed several laws which dilute
and eliminate the protections given by the Forest Rights Act. These include
amendments passed to the Mining Act, the Compensatory Afforestation Act and
several notifications from the MOEF which dilute the FRA. State Governments
under the NDA have adopted amendments which dilute the provisions of the
LARR Act 2013. 

 

The earlier NDA Government also had failed to protect the rights of adivasis
in the earlier petitions in Supreme Court. In May 2002 the NDA Government
had given an order for eviction of adivasis following which  lakhs of
adivasis were evicted.

 

After the advent of the UPA Government in 2004, the present Forest Rights
Act was passed in 2005 to right the historical injustices against adivasis.
On behalf of the CPI(M) I had been a member of the Select Committee of
Parliament looking into the Bill and I am personally aware of the strong
lobbies that argued against granting any rights to adivasis. Parliament
overruled such wrong arguments and passed the law. We cannot allow that step
to be reversed.

 

Your Government has adopted ordinances on other issues. It will be highly
unjust to adivasis and traditional forest dwellers if an ordinance is not
passed immediately to protect them from eviction.

 

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely

 

Sd/-

(Brinda Karat)

 

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