In a passionate appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tribal rights organisations from states of Gujurat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh have decried the move of the "government and parliamentarians in diluting and the rights of Gram Sabha given in the Forests Rights Act, 2006 in a very cunning manner."
The BJP government may have managed to pass the CAMPA bill but it has earned the wrath of tribal organisations and activists across India for diluting the rights of tribals and forest dwellers by not providing for informed consent of the Gram Sabhas and not taking into account legal rights of STs and OTFDs (Other Traditional Forest Dwellers).
In a passionate appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tribal rights organisations from states of Gujurat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh have decried the move of the "government and parliamentarians in diluting and the rights of Gram Sabha given in the Forests Rights Act, 2006 in a very cunning manner."
Citing various provisions of the FRA, PESA and United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the open letter says that "at the very basis of 'tribal development' is their consent and self-determination of their own development, it is not coherent that the ministers would in the name of 'tribal development' deny the right of tribals to decide on their own tribal development."
The bill, says the letter, effectively hands over the vast CAMPA monies to the forest bureaucracy of India without any safeguards to protect rights and interests of tribals and forest dwellers.
It took strong exception to minister of environment and forests, Anil Madhav Dave, for opposing the efforts of opposition parties to amend the bill to include Gram Sabha (village assembly consent) and claiming that because of the opposition to CAMPA Bill the welfare of some of the poorest people in this country, and the scheduled castes and tribes, is being side-lined.
The deeply alarming mind-set of the government reflects a complete misunderstanding of the threats that the CAMPA Bill poses for tribals and forest dwellers in India and the international obligations that India has signed onto, says the letter adding that "the record of forest bureaucracy in afforestation is terrible, and it has consistently used financial resources for afforestation and plantations to dispossess and marginalise forest dwellers and tribals."
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