bhil tribal mobilisation in alirajpur

The State Can't See the Tribals for the Land and the Trees – The Bhil Tribals' Search

for Justice in Alirajpur District of Madhya Pradesh

– Rahul Banerjee

Introduction

Tribal Development in India has been problematical from the time of independence. This has

been due to a conflicting situation arising from the opposition between the traditional

community based subsistence economy of the tribals and the modern market based growth

oriented thrust of the mainstream economy. The challenge has been to integrate the tribals

into the modern economy in a manner that was beneficial to them. This has generally not

been possible because the tribals have lacked the requisite skills for this and the government

system for equipping them with these skills has malfunctioned. Moreover, in order to save on

the costs associated with modern development the tribals have often not been recompensed

and rehabilitated properly for the displacement that they have had to face as resources have

been extracted from their traditional habitats.

Not surprisingly this has led to dissatisfaction on the part of the tribals. This in turn has given

rise to outright political revolt, rights based New Social Movements (NSM) of tribals and

also an emergence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) for bringing about better

tribal development. Decentralised and local community controlled development has been

acknowledged as a major desideratum for tackling tribal deprivation (Sharma 142). With the

award of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Elinor Ostrom in 2009, even

mainstream economics has come to acknowledge the importance of collective action for the

management of common pool resources (Ostrom "Governing the Commons" 21). This has

also gained in importance because of the benefits in terms of mitigation of climate change

that such communitarian natural resource management can achieve (International Institute of

Sustainable Development et al. 1). The present paper details the collective action undertaken

by the Bhil and Bhilala tribals in Alirajpur district to secure their rights and entitlements

under various provisions of the Constitution of India and other legal statutes.

2. Traditional Bhil Society

The Bhil tribals in West-Central India have traditionally had a communitarian culture based

on a subsistence livelihood pattern that ensured sustainable use of their natural resource bases

(Deliege 25). The important characteristics of traditional Bhil society are as follows -

1. Habitations of small communities linked together by strong kinship ties

2. Customs of labour pooling in all social and economic activities

3. System of interest free loans in cash and kind

4. Minimal interaction with the external centralised trade based economy

5. High dependence on forests for daily as well as agricultural needs

6. Social customs that ensured the redistribution of the surplus of individual families

among the community

There was thus a minimal role in this society for accumulation, trade and monetary profits

and so it continued for ages at a low level resource use equilibrium.

Rahul Banerjee (www.anar-kali.blogspot.com) 2

3. Colonial Dispossession

The Maratha invasion of the region in the late eighteenth century and later the advent of the

British colonialists in the early eighteenth century the situation changed drastically. The

penetration of the modern market economy and the settling of non-tribal peasant farmers

began in the Bhil areas. This put the Bhils in a precarious situation with the beginning of a

process of alienation from their natural resource bases and their integration as ill paid debt

ridden labourers in the centralised market economy (Hardiman 32).

The British enacted the Indian Forest Act in 1865 and took vast areas of community forests

out of the control of forest dweller communities and handed over their management to the

Forest Department created by it and this was the single most debilitating development for the

tribals in India. Even though this act was implemented only in the provinces directly

controlled by the British it nevertheless provided the new direction of commercial

exploitation of forests to forest management in the Princely States that largely ruled over the

Bhil areas and so they too were adversely affected.

4. Post Colonial Situation

Ironically, the coming of independence aggravated the livelihood situation of the Bhils

instead of improving it. Most of the Bhil areas that were under the governance of Princely

States prior to independence were assimilated into the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat,

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Indian Forest Act (1927) (IFA) was implemented.

Vast areas of forests which were earlier still being managed by the Bhils with the Princely

States only nominally in control, were converted into Reserved Forests.

The Bhils mostly were illiterate and so did not understand the legal procedures for conversion

of their habitats into Reserved Forests and so lost most of their lands (Varma 22). Under the

IFA, the government “can constitute any forest land or waste land which is the property of

Government or over which the Government has proprietary rights, a reserved forest, by

issuing a notification of this effect”. Settlement of rights was not carried out and large areas

remain unsurveyed even today. The history of forest management thereafter has been one of

continuous deprivation of the tribals and is briefly described below followed by a description

of the failure of economic and social development schemes in Tribal areas.

4.1 History of Forest Management in Post-Independence Period

A brief history of the post independence period detailing the major happenings concerned

with the relationship between forests and tribals is given below (Thayyil 268). The first

independent Indian forest legislation was the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 that provided for

creation of inviolate Protected areas and Wildlife habitats whereby Adivasis and forest

dwelling communities lost access to their lands and livelihoods based on forests. Yet again

settlement of rights not carried out properly in most Protected areas. Forest Conservation Act

(FCA) is passed in 1980 and simultaneously the 42nd

Constitutional Amendment shifts forests

from the “State List” to the “Concurrent List”. The FCA prohibits non-forest use of forest

land without approval of central government. Also advocates “sustainable forest management

through participatory approach”, with “due regard to the traditional rights of the tribal people

on forest land”.


4.1.1 The Decade of the 1990s - The National Forest Policy of 1988 is formulated and it

recognizes the need for participatory governance of natural resources and forests as against

the earlier model of exclusion of communities. The Ministry of Environment and Forests

issues six sets of guidelines in 1990 in pursuance of the National Forest Policy. These deal

with „encroachment on forest land‟, „disputed claims‟, leases/pattas and conversion of forest

villages and settlement of old habitations. A Committee is constituted in 1991 by the

Supreme Court to investigate claims of adivasis for Regularisation of Encroachments and it

files its report concerning the evidence to be examined and the criteria for regularization. In

its order the court expressly directed that the competent authority, even in cases where claims

are not accompanied by documentary evidence, must inquire into the claim.

State governments thereafter failed to implement the 1990 guidelines. There was a lack of

clarity about the guidelines and verification procedures and the issues of “encroachments”

and disputed claims remain unresolved. The encroachments issue dominates MoEF attention

while the question of disputed claims and related matters are lost sight of. In 1995 T

Godavarman filed a case in Supreme Court (Writ Petition No 202 of 1995) urging the Court

to regulate the forest management.

4.1.2 The First Decade of the 21st Century - In 2001 the Amicus Curiae in this case filed

an interim application no IA 703 which sought to restrain “regularization of any

encroachments” as well as “further encroachments” and asks for “steps to clear the

encroachments in forests which have taken place after 1980”. The Supreme Court registered

IA 703 and stated that “there will be an interim order in terms of the above prayer.” However,

there was no Supreme Court order directing the States or Government of India to evict

“encroachers” from forest land. Nevertheless a letter of the Inspector General of Forests

(IGF) instructed state governments “to evict the ineligible encroachers and all post 1980

encroachers from forest lands in a time bound manner”. This letter referred to the Supreme

Court order of 23rd Nov 2001 in IA 703 and falsely created an impression that the Supreme

Court had ordered the States to evict “encroachers” from forest land. This triggered a wave of

brutal evictions around the country. This was met with widespread resistance from tribal

mass organisations and pressure was built up for a legislative solution to the problem.

This campaign finally resulted in 2004 in a decision by the Prime Minister's Office that the

Ministry of Tribal Affairs with the help of the Technical Support Group of the Ministry of

Environment and Forests would draft a Bill for recognition of Forest Rights. Eventually in

2006 the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act

was passed and the rules framed in 2008. Generally the implementation has been anti-tribal

leading to problems in tribal areas. The specific situation of the Bhils is detailed next.

4.2 Disempowerment and Maldevelopment of Bhil Tribals

The situation of the Bhils was made worse by the fact that government services like

education, development extension and health have not functioned properly and so the tribals

have been deprived of the welfare benefits that they were entitled to under various schemes

(Aurora 206). Finally the patriarchal nature of Bhil society led to the burden of increasing

poverty due to wrong development policies falling disproportionately on the women. The


necessity of bearing more children to get male progeny has also led to a population explosion,

increasing pressure on the natural resource base.

4.2.1 Decline of Local Self Governance - The most debilitating phenomenon immediately

after independence was the marginalisation of the customary community based local self

governance systems of the Bhils (Banerjee "Decline and Fall" 332). The third tier of

Panchayati Raj was not set up and instead the power in rural areas was transferred to the

bureaucracy and especially the Forest Department and Police. The Forest Department staff

took undue advantage of the restrictive provisions of the Indian Forest Act to demand bribes

from the Bhils to allow them access to the forests without which they could not survive but

which had become legally proscribed. The Police interfered with the traditional

communitarian dispute resolution mechanisms of the Bhils and instead forced them to report

their problems to the Police leading to unnecessary arrests and litigation. Even though the

Bhils elected their own representatives to the state and national legislatures due to the policy

of reservation this did not translate into power for the Bhils at large as the elected

representatives went along with the overall policy of marginalisation of the tribals.

As a result, the general Bhil population was completely disempowered and left at the mercy

of the bureaucracy. This disempowerment is the root cause of the mal-development of the

Bhil areas. The specific micro level needs and aspirations of the Bhils have not been

articulated and so macro level development policies that have been pursued have been

inimical to them.

Thus, the actual state policy that evolved for Bhil tribal areas was as follows - “ top priority

has been given to a programme of rapid industrialisation and extension of means of

communication to the most interior regions. Our firm view is that the development of land

and agriculture alone will not be adequate for the rehabilitation of the tribal communities.

Agricultural land is insufficient and cannot serve the needs of even half the tribal population.

The tribal areas are rich in industrial and power potential. There is no reason why in the wider

interest of the nation and in the long-term interest of the tribals themselves, industries should

not be developed and localised in tribal areas” (National Council of Applied Economic

Research vi).

4.2.2 Industrial Development versus Tribal Development - The assumption that industrial

development in tribal areas is in the long-term beneficial to them has been proved to be

totally fallacious (Mahapatra 56). Invariably tribals are not rehabilitated and compensated

properly for the loss of their traditional livelihoods and neither they are trained to gain

employment in the new industries that are set up. The industrial estate set up on tribal lands in

Pithampur in Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s is an example of this injustice.

The government provided cheap land and other subsidised infrastructure to the industrialists

along with tax-holidays but the displaced tribals were given only pittances as compensation.

Not being educated or skilled they did not get any of the permanent jobs that were created

and are even today working as casual labourers. Pithampur, Indore, Vadodara, Ahmedabad,

Surat and Kota, which are the main industrial centres in West-Central India in fact draw in

Bhils from the whole region as casual labourers.


The other fallacious assumption in the above NCAER policy statement is that agricultural

land was insufficient to provide suitable livelihoods to the tribals. Inadequate attention was

paid to developing the productivity of dryland agriculture on sub-optimal soils in upper

watersheds on which the Bhils are dependent. Instead stress was put on developing green

revolution agriculture on the plain lands with irrigation and chemical inputs. This was totally

unsuitable to the hilly dry land farms of the Bhils. Today the green revolution technologies

are proving to be unsuitable for the areas where they were started off with in the 1960s in

Punjab and Haryana primarily due to soil quality degradation and lesser and costlier

avialability of water and chemical inputs (Shiva 25).

A resource conservation policy for land, water and forests, a research and development policy

for the traditional organic agriculture of the tribals and appropriate technology for processing

agricultural and forest produce combined with a vibrant local government system with a clear

gender focus to counter the internal patriarchy of Bhil society would have worked wonders if

it had been implemented (Shah et al. 196). Appropriate education and health systems

incorporating tribal knowledge would have been a bonus that would have produced a new

generation of tribals able and ready to take on the development challenges faced by their

community. This was not done and so the human development indices in the Bhil tribal areas

have remained the poorest in the country (Madhya Pradesh Human Development Report

138). It will be relevant to study here the special legal provisions made in favour of the tribals

and their implementation to see how they have impacted on tribal development.

5. Special Legal Provisions for the Tribals

The Constitution has special provisions for the tribals in India. Those in the states of Assam,

Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are covered by the provisions of the Sixth Schedule while

those in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya

Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan are covered by the provisions of

the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. The basic philosophy behind these provisions was that

the tribals had a unique communitarian culture based on a subsistence non-accumulative

lifestyle that was at odds with the consumerism spawned by modern industrial development.

Thus, it was necessary to conserve this culture by secluding it from the aggressive thrust of

modern development. The British administrator, anthropologist and social worker Verrier

Elwin was the foremost proponent of this view and it was he who influenced Nehru in this

matter and was the brain behind his "Panchsheel" for tribal areas which spoke of their

development keeping in mind their uniqueness recommending both a seclusion and a gradual

assimilation (Bose 32). However, given the tremendous powers of the centralised state

system as compared to the tribal communities these noble ideas remained a pipe dream in

reality. The imperatives of resource extraction at a low cost invariably prevailed over the

affirmative sentiments of the Panchsheel and the tribals were summarily displaced. Especially

so in the central Indian region where the level of education and awareness was much less than

in the North East. No attention was paid for the upgradation of the skills of the tribals to help

them to adjust to the new economic and political system. Neither were social development

services like education and health provided extensively. Nevertheless the special legal

provisions remain a strong instrument that can be used to ensure justice for the tribals.


5.1 Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India - Section 5 of the Fifth Schedule reads -

(1). Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, The Governor may by public notification

direct that any particular Act of Parliament or of the Legislature of the State shall not apply to

a Scheduled Areas or any part thereof in the State or shall apply to a Scheduled Area or any

part thereof in the State subject to such exceptions and modifications as he may specify in the

notification and any direction given under this sub-paragraph may be given so as to have

retrospective effect.

(2).The Governor may make regulations for the peace and good government of any area in a

State which is for the time being a Scheduled Area. In particular and without prejudice to the

generality of the foregoing power, such regulations may –

a) Prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes in

such area;

b) Regulate the allotment of land to members of the Scheduled Tribes in such area;

c) Regulate the carrying on of business as money-lender by persons who lend money to

members of the Scheduled Tribes in such area.

(3). In making any such regulation as is referred to in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, the

Governor may repeal or amend any Act of Parliament or of the Legislature of the State or any

existing law which for the time being applicable to the area in question.”

Thus, theoretically it is possible for the Governor of a state, on the advice of the Tribes

Advisory Council consisting of the tribal MLAs of the state, to prevent the application of or

repeal the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act. The most important aspect of

these provisions is that the Governor may implement them so as to ensure "peace and good

government" in tribal areas as the framers of the Constitution felt that this could be possible

only if the tribals were allowed to develop according to their own laws and customs.

However, this has never happened because it is not a binding provision and only a suggestion

like the Directive Principles of State Policy, which finally has to depend on the executive for

its implementation. So the situation for the tribals has been bad. Only in one instance an NGO

in Andhra Pradesh, Samatha, fought all the way to the Supreme Court and got a mining lease

to a company in a scheduled tribal area cancelled and this has proved to be a landmark

victory in the struggles of the tribals (Supreme Court Cases 191).

5.2 Other Legal Provisions - Over the years there have been some other legal provisions in

favour of the tribals. Section 170 B of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code which

provides for reversion of the land of tribals which was transferred to a non-tribal by fraud.

Section 165 of the same code prevents transfer of the land of a tribal to a non-tribal. The most

powerful legislation is the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996. This provides

for the Tribal Gram Sabha in Fifth Schedule areas, defined as a small hamlet in which the

tribals customarily live, to be the deciding body for all matters concerned with the

development and governance of the hamlet. Especially powerful is the provision that the

consent of the Gram Sabha must be taken for any displacement that is to be caused by a

development project. Finally there is the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional

Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act (FRA).


Thus, in tandem with the provisions of the Fifth Schedule and the other laws in their favour

this legislation can allow the tribals to decide on their own path of development and methods

of governance. Finally there are various laws for the stringent control of moneylending in

tribal areas which puts the onus on the administration to take pro-active action against

moneylenders practising usury and. However, all these provisions too have not been

implemented leading to the emergence of alternative approaches to development.

6. Mobilisation of Tribals in Alirajpur District

A few tribal and non-tribal social workers began mobilising the Bhil tribals of Alirajpur

district in Madhya Pradesh from 1982 onwards primarily for their basic constitutional rights.

Later this movement spread to include the integration of the Bhils into the modern market

system without exploitation by moneylenders and corrupt government officials. The

movement gained a formal identity by 1987 when it was registered as a trade union named

Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS). After this the organisation took up the promotion

of the Bhils' traditional community development systems and natural resource conservation

techniques. Seeing that agitations alone were not yielding enough results an NGO was also

registered as a public trust named Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra (DGVK) to access grant funds

for initiating development projects. Thus, a mix of rights based mass mobilisation and grant

funded development initiatives were used to improve the situation of the tribals.

The introduction of the special Panchayat Raj for Scheduled Tribal areas under the provisions

of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 (PESA) gave a boost to the work of

the KMCS. This act was enacted keeping in mind the provisions of the Fifth Schedule. The

KMCS was part of the national campaign to get this law enacted. The provision in PESA Act

that the tribal Gram Sabha is to be the final arbiter on all issues of local development and that

this Gram Sabha could be as small as a hamlet of a village made it easier for KMCS to

implement development programmes. Often it is not possible to carry the whole village

together on some development programme because the tribal hamlets of a village are situated

at a distance from each other. Another law that promises to have far reaching consequences is

the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006

(FRA) which gives rights to the land that the tribals have been cultivating and also

community rights to the forests in which they have been residing. The KMCS was part of the

national campaign for the passing of this Act also and has taken active steps in getting it

implemented. Finally there is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee

Scheme which if properly implemented can in addition to providing employment to the

tribals also improve the natural resource base of their habitats.

The specific mobilisational strategies adopted by the KMCS that have got the people to act

collectively for getting their entitlements and the conservation of natural resources are –

1. Problem analysis workshops in which the people have participated in open

discussions to pinpoint the problems they were facing.

2. Legal and rights training workshops in which the people were taught the basics of the

liberal democratic framework.

3. Collective Action for assertive rights through public demonstrations and sitins.


4. Revival of traditional labour and resource pooling customs.

5. Special women's meetings to get them involved in resource conservation work and

also public demonstrations.

6. Legal and policy advocacy to change the laws and rules in favour of the tribals.

7. Gaining Access to Forests and then Conserving them

The KMCS organisation began with the problem of ensuring access to the encroached farms

of the tribals in the reserved forest. As a solution to this problem it was decided to protect the

remaining forest area and prevent it from degradation. This was done to counter the claim of

the forest department that the tribals were destroying the forest. Consequently in all the

hamlets of the study watershed social protection of the forests to ensure their regeneration

was undertaken. Small groups patrolled the forests by turns through a labour pooling system.

This protection is taking place in more than fifty villages affiliated to the KMCS covering

more than 10,000 hectares.

The fodder generated from such protection is cut and bought by the members at the end of the

monsoon season and the money thus generated is kept in a fund for carrying out plantation

work. This forest protection has considerably increased the availability of fodder, fireweood

and non-timber forest produce in the study watershed and this has especially benefited the

women and children who are the main collectors of forest products. It may be mentioned here

that tribal children treat the collection of forest produce as a playful activity and it is not

labour for them. This is how they come to know their natural environment. Greater fodder

availability has facilitated goat and buffalo rearing and so increased the supplementary

incomes from animal husbandry which provides an insurance against livelihood shocks to the

tribal households. It is not possible to quantify the increase in forest product availability

because of a lack of records but people say that they now enjoy much greater forest product

availability and have bigger herds of goats and cattle than earlier. Contrastingly the landscape

in villages which are not part of the KMCS is barren and the forest product availability is low

because no cooperative effort has

been made for forest protection.

This indicates the importance of

community forest conservation and

the crucial catalytic influence of a

people's organisation in bringing

this about. The picture of a patch of

regenerated forest in Alirajpur is

shown in Fig 1 alongside.

Fig. 1: Regenerated Forest in

Alirajpur


8. Soil and Water Conservation

The KMCS organised the villagers in the study watershed into small groups of ten to twelve

farmers each who then pooled their labour and cooperated with each other to perform their

agricultural operations together and also undertake soil and water conservation activities.

This was a revival of the traditional labour pooling custom of the Bhils called Dhas from

which the name of the NGO is derived. In this system people used to work together to do

agricultural operations on each others' fields, build each others' houses, and improve the

quality of the farm fields through soil conservation work. However, this traditional labour

pooling custom is dying out because of their integration into the mainstream money economy

and the exploitation by the forest department staff.

Thus, this was a crucial intervention on the part of the social workers that has over the years

resulted in huge investments being made in the form of labour in natural resource

conservation in the watershed. Apart from this external funding was also sourced on two

occasions for soil and water conservation work through the sister NGO, DGVK .

A major feature of this cooperative soil and water conservation work is the participation of

women in it. As has been well documented the ravages of natural devastation caused by bad

development are mostly borne by women (Shiva 1). Consequently it is not surprising, that

when offered an opportunity to cooperate to reduce their drudgery, women come forward

enthusiastically. The social workers of the KMCS have pro-actively sought the participation

of women to ensure gender justice. This has not only ensured that women have participated in

the community actions and improved their status in society but they have also as a result,

changed the gender relations at home. A picture of women working on a gully plug to create

a new farm out of the deep gully in a village in Alirajpur is shown in Fig 2 below.

Fig 2: Women working on a Gully Plug


The intensive soil and water conservation work and the forest conservation have together

ensured that both natural and artificial recharge in the watersheds have increased

considerably and as a result the streams are flowing throughout the year. The farmers have

used this enhanced water availability to cultivate dryland varieties of wheat which require

less water. The greater availability of animal manure has resulted in the farmers using treated

organic manure in larger quantities and improving the quality of the soil. The soil and water

conservation work has also ensured the greater availability of soil moisture and so double

cropping has become possible even without irrigation in some of the upper fields where a

crop of gram is taken. In some cases the kharif jowar crop after being harvested, regenerates

to give a small rabi yield from the soil moisture.

9. Implementation of the FRA

The FRA has been plagued with problems right from the beginning. Even though the Act was

passed in 2006 it took another year for the Rules to be framed and passed by parliament.

Even after that the Madhya Pradesh government was very tardy in setting in motion the

process for application and verification of the rights of the tribals. The KMCS has had to

organise many demonstrations to first get the process started and then for it to continue. Even

now the implementation is faulty and tardy and the KMCS has filed a complaint with the

State Level Forest Rights Monitoring Committee regarding the non-implementation of the

Act. The KMCS is also preparing a detailed list of eligible applicants and lease right

awardees as part of a petition to be filed in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. Nevertheless

compared to the rest of Madhya Pradesh, due to the pressure created by KMCS, the

implementation is far better in Alirajpur where over 8000 claims have been accepted and the

rejection percentage is only 5% as compared to 50% for other tribal areas as a whole. As

many as 62 claims of Community Forest Rights have been accepted. What is most heartening

is that the process is still under way. The KMCS has also pro-actively used the MGNREGS

to carry out soil and water conservation works on the lands for which the tribals have gained

lease rights under the FRA.

A recent review report of the implementation of the FRA by a committee appointed by the

Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs of the Government of

India has also severely indicted the state governments and especially the forest department

staff for very poor implementation (Manthan 1). The major criticisms are as follows –

1. Most states have concentrated almost entirely on implementing the provisions for

individual forest rights (IFRs). About 83% of these claims have been disposed of, and

35% claims have been approved, with titles issued for most of them. There are,

however, major errors of omission. Even in states where implementation began more

than two years ago, many pockets have not yet been covered, and many potential

claimants have not managed to submit their claims.

2. The biggest problem is with the many cases of faulty rejections. Rejections are being

done without assigning reasons or simply for lack of evidence or „absence of GPS

survey‟ (lacunae which only require the claim to be referred back to the lower-level

body), or because the land is wrongly considered as „not forest land‟, or because only

forest offence receipts are considered as adequate evidence.


3. In an overwhelming number of cases, the rejections are not being communicated to

the claimants and their right to appeal is not being explained to them and its exercise

facilitated.

4. Community forest rights have not been recognised in most places and the lack of

awareness about this among the tribals is even higher than for IFRs.

An associated achievement of the KMCS is its success in getting the proposal by the

Government to set up a Wild Life Sanctuary in the Katthivada Forest Range of Alirajpur

cancelled. Under the provisions of the PESA Act and also the Wild Life Protection Act any

displacement of people in a scheduled tribal area has to be sanctioned by the Gram Sabha.

Hard mobilisation by KMCS forced the Government to implement this provision and the

Gram Sabhas unanimously rejected the proposal because of its many infirmities and it had to

be shelved. This is the first time that a proposal for a Wild Life Sanctuary in this country has

had to be shelved due to strong legal and mass action by the tribals.

10. Conclusions

The KMCS and DGVK have together used the favourable legal provisions to ensure that the

Bhils of Alirajpur are able to secure their rights and entitlements and gain justice from the

modern economic and political systems that govern this country. In conclusion a critical

assessment of this process of community mobilisation will be undertaken within the

evaluation framework for institution building for successful common pool resource

management proposed by Ostrom ("Governing the Commons" 90) as follows -

1. Group boundaries are clearly defined.

2. Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and

conditions.

3. Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules.

4. The rights of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external

authorities.

5. A system for monitoring member's behavior exists; the community members

themselves undertake this monitoring.

6. A graduated system of sanctions is used.

7. Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.

8. For CPRs that are parts of larger systems: appropriation, provision, monitoring,

enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple

layers of nested enterprises.

The first principle is very important and the KMCS was able to inspire the tribals to assert

their identity and clearly demarcate their sovereignty over their habitats. The laws and rules

for utilisation of the forests were that laid down by the government and administered by the

Forest Department and were not matched to the local needs and conditions in violation of the

second principle above. The KMCS succeeded in mobilising the people through regular

meetings and trainings to stand up for their rights against the forest department staff and


design their own rules for governing the use of the collective natural resources. A section of

the people initially braved the opposition of the traditional Patels who were agents of the

Forest Department and even went to jail fighting for their rights and established the

organisation. Once the organisation was established and natural resource conservation work

began, the benefits began to flow and this acted as a reinforcing factor in the continuation of

the process and so later even the Patels, who were initially opposed to the process, later

became a part of it.

The mobilisation process resulted in a fairly strong people's organisation spread over a large

area of fifty villages and hence the KMCS members were able to ensure that the Forest

Department was forced to allow the villagers to manage their common resources according to

their own rules. The monitoring of the forests as well as the soil and water conservation work

is done by the members themselves and that is why the system has worked very well for over

two decades. The members of the KMCS have developed a system of sanctions beginning

with fines for small infringements of the rules and going upto ostracism for more serious

violations and this is administered by the people themselves. The traditional community

conflict resolution mechanisms of the Bhil tribals have also been revived and these are also

working very well.

The final principle is the most important as far as community mobilisation on a large scale is

concerned. Unless the government ensures a participatory framework of rule making and

monitoring at several levels it is difficult for a small organisation to build up a larger

movement of conservation. Since the government through the forest department and police

has actively opposed the people's mobilisation it has taken place only in about fifty villages in

Alirajpur district and it is difficult to expand its reach. The laws and policies that favour

tribals discussed in detail in the beginning are not implemented primarily because they are

not aware of these provisions and the Government is not serious about them. The KMCS and

the DGVK by raising the awareness of the tribals in this regard have brought about a positive

transformation in Alirajpur. This unique combination of an NGO and Trade Union, by

synthesising social activism and development intervention, has improved the situation of the

Bhil tribals by creatively using the favourable legal provisions for tribals.

The PESA Act was a first step in the direction of preserving and promoting tribal culture and

thus ensuring a saner world involving more sustainable resource use and equitable inter-

personal relations than the one we are living in (Rahul 87). The KMCS has relied on the

inherent tribal culture and synergised it with developmental efforts to improve the lives of the

tribals who are its members. The passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act and

the Right to Information Act in 2006 has considerably enhanced the effectiveness of the

PESA Act. Many tribal mass organisations have conducted long drawn campaigns which

have resulted in the enactment of the FRA which complements the Fifth Schedule and

nullifies the historical injustice done to the tribals through the implementation of the Indian

Forest Act. The KMCS has leveraged the provisions of this Act too. Thus, despite its

limitations, the mobilisation process described above has ensured justice for the Bhil tribals

of Alirajpur and provided them with a better livelihood situation.


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