why are the forest dwellers know as adivasis
Answers
Forest dwellers, for several reasons have been called “deemed
homeless.” The Forest Rights Act, 2006 stated that a person
would be covered by the legislation if he/she had been residing
primarily in forests or forest land; and was dependent on forests
or forest lands for livelihood. The lack of a comprehensive
definition of the term ‘forest’1makes the people vulnerable to
the vagaries of semantic juggling so often resorted to by
governments to exclude people from claiming their rights.
Further, in order to prove that a person qualifies as a forest
dweller, in the event of him/her not being a member of a
scheduled tribe, s/he must be able to show continuous residence
in a forest for a period of 75 years. There is high improbability
of any forest dweller having any such record. These along with
many other loopholes disable many forest dwellers from claiming
their rightful benefits, illustrating a case of throwing the baby
out with the bathwater. Though the Forest Rights Act makes
community protection of forests legal, the provision is duly
subverted by the forest bureaucracy. Some of the most backward
regions in India are those enmeshed in the Maoist insurgency
areas which coincidentally provide shelter to many tribes. The
lack of interest shown by the Government in ascertaining the
number of forest dwellers indicates towards its highly dislodged
perspective on the issue. Logically, a good governance policy
highlighting the government’s political ambitions would look
to tap into the benefit that this large number could provide in
terms of a vote bank. Moreover forest dwellers gain importance
as they serve as the key to save forests from deforestation and
prevent illegal timber cutting and mining. Despite the various
advantages that forest dwellers help to reap, they are ignored