Maithreyi Kamalanathan

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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“We did not want to move out. In the beginning,
we ignored them. Then, whenever the forest officials came, we would hide…. We
passed many days like this,” recalls Babulal Kuandhar, who used to live in Talgaon
village. “I think the decision was made around 2008. The forest officials told
us that the number of tigers in the forest has increased and we must move out
immediately.”

In 2012, after four years of refusing to shift, the Adivasis of Talgaon were forced to leave
their ancestral village and settle in Sarathpura hamlet, around 16 kilometres away. The hamlet, locally referred to as
Tara-Tek, is close to the highway that leads to Amanganj tehsil of Panna district.

In 2008-2009, when the Panna Tiger Reserve in
Madhya Pradesh had lost all its tigers, 12 villages were relocated to create
inviolate spaces for critical tiger habitats. Talgaon was one of them. A 2011 <a href="http://www.mpsbb.nic.in/pdf/BR.pdf">report</a>
says there were 16 villages in the core area of the reserve (11 in Panna
district and five in Chhatarpur district; the
present status of the four villages that were not relocated at the time could
not be verified).

Census 2011 records 171
families in the then Talgaon, most of them from the Raj Gond Adivasi
community. Of these, only 37 households remain in Sarathpura. The others migrated to towns like Satna, Katni and Ajaigarh.

However, this
relocation bypassed numerous norms and legal provisions. Section 4.9 of <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/revised_guidelines_css_pt.pdf">Project Tiger</a>, supervised by the Ministry of 
Environment and Forests, offers two options
for the relocation package: a family can accept Rs. 10 lakhs as compensation
and take care of the relocation on its own, or the forest
department and collector must undertake the rehabilitation process.

The people of
Talgaon were not given the second option, though they say they had land titles
and had been living in that village for generations. They identified another location themselves for resettlement. And now, in their new homes in Sarathpura,
the villagers don’t have land titles and worry about eviction.

“We spent half the [compensation] money on building our houses. For six
months, we lived in makeshift homes. We don’t even have the patta [titles] for this land, where will we go if they displace us again?” asks Shoba
Rani Kuandhar, Babulal’s
mother.

Many of the Talgaon families did
not even receive the entire compensation amount. “Some accepted the offer [of Rs. 10 lakhs] in the beginning and left for
towns and cities. But without land, what use is the money for our survival
outside the jungle? So, some of us refused,” Babulal says. The families that resisted – the 37 now in Sarathpura
– eventually received only Rs. 8 lakhs per family. It is not clear why this
amount was reduced. In return, they left behind in Talgaon their pucca houses and an average of six acres per family, including agricultural
and homestead land. 

Section 38 (V) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act,
1972, mandates the informed
consent of villagers before any resettlement. This too was ignored in Talgaon. “They [the forest
department] harassed us every day. On some days, they would bring old tiger
skins and threaten us that they will file a fake case against us for poaching
tigers. I was even imprisoned once for a few days because they said I killed a sambar
deer,” says Deelan Kuandhar, a daily wage labourer and Babulal’s neighbour. “One
day, they brought elephants to destroy our homes. What else could we do after
that?”

Another Sarathpura resident, Bharat Kuandhar, recalls a time when his skills
were crucial for tiger conservation. “I used to help the forest department with
bringing runaway tigers back to the reserve and fitting their radio collars.
The people of the forest are not scared of the tigers, we walk side by side.”

This cohabitation is protected by the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/resources/the-scheduled-tribes-and-other-traditional-forest-dwellers-recognition-of-forest-rights-act-2006/">Forest Rights
Act, 2006</a>. Sections
4(2)(b) and 4(2)(c) of the Act say it is important to establish that the presence of
forest dwellers is causing considerable damage to the wildlife species, and to
prove that other options of co-existence are unavailable.

It is unclear if any such options were explored before the relocation.
When I contacted the forest department, I was told that all the information is
available on the department’s website. But the website does not contain any information
about the resettlement procedures for the people of Talgaon or for other villages in the buffer
and core areas.

Section 38 (V)
of the Wildlife (Protection) Act also says that “the State Government shall, while
preparing a Tiger Conservation Plan, ensure the agricultural, livelihood,
developmental and other interests of the people living in tiger bearing forests
or a tiger reserve.”

This too was overlooked. The move to Sarathpura adversely affected the Adivasis’ livelihoods, which
were linked to the forest ecosystem. In Talgaon, Babulal’s
family had cultivated urad and maize
on around five acres. In summers, like other families, they collected and
sold  mahua flowers (for a local brew), tendu
leaves (used for making beedis) and chironji seeds (usually used in kheers).
The Kuandhar
community’s traditional occupation was
collecting and selling the bark of the khair or catechu tree, an important
ingredient in the preparation of paan. 

The relocation ruptured these traditional livelihoods.
Now,
whenever work is available, Babulal Kuandhar earns Rs. 200-250 a day as a farm
labourer in the nearby village of Tara, or by working at construction sites across
Amanganj tehsil,
where contractors negotiate the daily wages.

“We had
everything back then in the forest – tendu, mahua, chironji, everything was there. In summers we collected and
sold them. But now the rangers don’t allow us to enter the forest to even
collect firewood,” Babulal’s mother Shoba says. 

After losing their farmland in Talgaon, Bharat Kuandhar and his two
brothers also leased five acres in Sarathpura, where they now cultivate urad,
wheat and maize. Bharat takes care of the farm and works at construction sites
in Amanganj and Panna town when work is available. His brothers are migrant labourers, working mostly at construction sites in
cities such as Delhi and Sonipat. Like them, after the
harvest in September, many from Talgaon migrate to other states in search of daily wage work.

Another
pressing issue for the people of Sarathpura is that the hamlet does not come
under any panchayat, though soon after the resettlement it should have been
integrated with the panchayat of  Tara village. So basic entitlements like rations are not
available. Shoba Rani has her family&#39;s old ration card, issued in 2009. “We have never
received any rations from the government for nine years,” she says. They should
get five kilos of wheat and rice per person every month, among other items.  But the families here purchase rations from
the market in Amanganj, which creates a huge dent in their modest earnings. “I filled the form [for a ration card] many times, but it’s of no use,”
Shoba Rani adds. “Nothing happens.” 

Not being part of a panchayat also means that Sarathpura does not receive any panjiri (supplementary food packets for 0-5 year old children) from anganwadis. “There is still no budget allotted for the children of Talgaon. Very rarely,
when panjiri is available in surplus, we give them. Otherwise, we
have nothing to offer,” says Gita Adivasi (this is how she prefers to use her
surname), the sarpanch of Tara.

Most of the kids in Sarathpura don’t even attend the anganwadi
because of the distance – it’s in Tara village, around 1.5 kilometres away. A few older kids manage to go to school
there, but education has taken a major hit.

Pyari Bai Kuandhar, 50, Bharat’s mother (in the cover image on top, outside her house in Sarathpura with her grandchildren)  points to a vacant plot at the end
of their settlement and says “This is where I will build an anganwadi if I become the sarpanch of this village one day.”

Meanwhile, the shadow of eviction continues to cloud the daily lives of
the people of Sarathpura, as do memories of their ancestral village in the
forest

Forced out of the forest and into uncertainty

জঙ্গল থেকে উৎখাত হয়ে অনিশ্চয়তার অতল খাদে

جنگل سے بے دخلی کے بعد بے یقینی کا دلدل

காட்டிலிருந்து விரட்டப்பட்டு நிச்சியமற்ற தன்மைக்குள் ஊசலாடுபவர்கள்

ଜଙ୍ଗଲରୁ ଅନିଶ୍ଚିତତା ଭିତରକୁ ବିତାଡ଼ିତ

वनातून हाकललं, अनिश्चितेत ढकललं

Talgaon

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Forced out of the forest and into uncertainty

The Adivasis of Talgaon, in the Panna Tiger Reserve's core area, had to give up their traditional livelihoods when they were relocated. They now live without land titles, rations and schools – fearing further eviction

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