The village in
Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli today became the first in India to win the
right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo, a key goal of a five-year-old
central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some
resources of the jungles they live in.
“This is a
historic day. Bamboo has been liberated (from government control),” said
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh as the forest department
handed over the powers to issue permits over bamboo to the headman of
the village, dominated by the Gondi tribals.
Chief minister
Prithviraj Chavan, also present with several of his cabinet colleagues,
echoed Ramesh. “This one’s not a small event. Your voice is bound to
reach other forest villages in the country.” Old-timers in the area,
which borders the Maoist-infested Bastar in Chhattisgarh, could not
recall the last time a chief minister arrived with a VIP retinue as big.
“It took over
three decades to get what is ours,” said Lekha-Mendha’s sexagenarian
chief Devaji Tofa before he received the permits at the event. Then, the
bespectacled leader rent the air with a slogan coined years ago:
“Delhi-Mumbai mawa sarkar, mawa nate mate sarkar (We’ve
our government in Delhi and Mumbai, but here in our village, we
ourselves are the government).” The crowd of tribals chorused.
Mendha was being
seen as a test case for tribals to get control of minor forest produce —
the main aim of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest
Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, in short the forests
rights act (FRA).
Earnings from
minor forest produce — which includes bamboo and could later cover other
items such as herbs and leaves — could top Rs 50,000 crore, says the
Planning Commission.
The forest
department had opposed the move. “Our main concern was that such
sweeping powers could be misused by villagers leading to the degradation
and overexploitation of bamboo forests,” said an official.
The first
breakthrough came this January, when the Centre recognised bamboo as
grass, not timber, something taxonomists and biologists have been saying
for ages. Till then, the forest departments across the country had used
the old classification to deny communities control over bamboo, arguing
that the Indian Forest Act, 1927, treated bamboo as a tree and, hence,
it was not a minor forest produce.
Even last week,
the principal chief conservator of forests (Maharashtra), Alok Joshi,
said in a letter to the additional chief secretary (forests) that it
would be illegal if village communities cut and sell bamboo from forests
under the FRA without the prior permission. Joshi cited a provision in
the forest conservation act of 1927 to drive home his point.
But Ramesh
appeared to reject the argument outright today. “We can change the law,
the rules, but it’s time wechanged our mindset,” the Union minister
said in an apparent snub to the forest officials. “There is no need to
amend or make any other law to implement to give a community a right to
harvest or sell bamboo under the FRA. It is a violation of law if any
forest official is not giving the right to the villages that have been
granted the community rights under the FRA and we will legally proceed
against such officials,” he warned.
Chief minister Chavan worked over the past two months behind the scenes to convince the forest department to change its stand.
R.R. Patil, the
Maharashtra home minister who oversees Gadchiroli as “guardian
minister”, went a step further and said Tendu leaves too should be
handed over to the villages. Tendu leaves are used to make bidis and wrappers.
Village head Tofa
pledged to protect the forests. “Remember, with the power comes the
responsibility. It’s now our responsibility to protect our forests.”