Droupadi Murmu for President maybe, but new forest rules hurt tribal communities

On June 28, the Union government notified the Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022. In response to the promulgation, there was a heated Twitter debate between Bhupender Yadav and Jairam Ramesh, the current and former Union ministers of environment, respectively.

One of the critical aspects of the debate is that new rules have been notified to bring in reforms to approve projects in forest areas and to fasten the ease of doing business as the claim was made by the Union government; on the other hand, the new rules were criticised on the grounds of not following established democratic norms, more so with the dilution of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. Another crucial aspect is the side-lining or nullifying the gramsabha role in project approval.

Contradictions exist with the government claim and its actual implication, especially Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFD). It would be instructive to discern the new rules and its implications on Adivasis and forest rights of OTFDs.

Firstly, the local representation of the Adivasis and OTFDs has been completely ignored in the Advisory Committee (Section 3) and Regional Empowered Committee (Section 6). Under the new rules, these committees act as a connecting link between the state and Union government in the decision-making process. The non-representation of the Adivasis and OTFDs effectively captures the inclusive aspects of the decision-making process. The formation of these committees stands in contradiction to the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution wherein the Tribes Advisory Council (TAC) is the consultative forum, as referred by the Governor of the state, in the matters of tribal administration and development.

Secondly, in the new rules, prior approval of the gram sabha is not mentioned signifying the nullification of its role. This not only negates the provisions of the FRA, but also the Supreme Court’s historic judgements of Samatha vs State Of Andhra Pradesh and Ors (1997) and Orissa Mining Corporation v Ministry of Environment & Forest & Others (2013). In both these cases, the top court has upheld the consent of the gram sabha as the supreme authority to decide whether to allow bauxite mining by Vedanta.

Bringing such an exhaustive set of rules when Parliament is not in session clearly casts doubt on the government’s claim, and it can only indicate the abdication of the parliamentary responsibilities by the MoEFCC and the Union government.

Why was the same not put forward in the budget sessions of Parliament or sent to the parliamentary standing committee? Some plausible answers can be found to these questions by looking at the events that took place after the Supreme Court’s directive in 2019 and its subsequent stay.

The new rules’ promulgation needs to be seen as a follow up to SC’s order on February 13, 2019, asking for evicting more than 10 lakh people from forests. Under pressure from state governments, Adivasi associations and the civil society, the court has stayed its order and interim stoppage of the eviction of those whose claims were rejected under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

The new rules along with the amendments to the Indian Forest Act, 1927 erode the essence of the rights-based legislations such as Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) and the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

The term “survey” mentioned in the Section 2 of the new rules fails to take into account the gram sabha or panchayat consent in the approval of the project. The Advisory Committee, Regional Empowered Committee and the Project Screening Committees, as envisaged in the newly notified rules, violate the PESA provisions by giving primacy to these committees in place of local communities and gram sabha.

What is more shocking is that there is no representation from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Social Justice in these committees. Another big omission in the new rules is the neglect of the “community ownership” of natural resources including the forest. PESA and FRA legislations acknowledge and recognise the same. The new forest conservatory rules effectively take away community ownership and shifts the power to the State, more so to the Union government in this case.

The power shift from ‘community’ to the ‘State’ runs against the Directive Principles of State Policy and the federal scheme of governance of the Constitution. This is because the newly promulgated rules have effectively reduced the forest land governance from community-democratic to elite-bureaucratic one, only to strengthen the control of the State.

It seems that the forces of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) are considerably exerting pressure on state governments to ease the process of forest clearance, where rights-based legislations hinder the effective diversion of the forest land to linear projects and other activities such as mining and natural gas exploration. All this has to be understood as capitalisation of forestry and extending the monopoly of power over the forest and other natural resources, especially mining, in the Indian context.

The new rules are grossly inadequate and undemocratic to take into cognisance these constitutional mandates. They appear to be inclined towards facilitating forest commercialisation and capitalisation rather than serve the purpose of forest conservation and sustainable development.

(The author is a PhD Fellow, Centre for Political Institutions, Governance and Development, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru)