Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, India, Working Paper No. 85, February M. Gopinath Reddy and K. Anil Kumar (2010)

Scrutiny of the various policies of the state during the successive plan periods, including the new act - Forest Right Act, 2006, show that there is a need to address issues like traditional rights and livelihood patterns of the forest-dependent tribals in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India to bring about greater livelihood security of the tribal communities and ensure their inclusion into the mainstream.

Aboriginal population in different parts of the world often comprises the most vulnerable and deprived sections of the population. The state of the tribal population in India is no different. Even today, the tribal people of the country continue to remain economically backward and socially excluded.

While even in the pre-British period the tribal communities in India remained fully or partially isolated from the rest of the country, the policy of isolation followed under the British rule further marginalised these communities. Further, during the British rule, tribal people’s access to forest and forest produce - the mainstay of tribal livelihood- had been severely curtailed with large forest areas being “either declared as Reserve forests, or as sanctuaries and national parks”.

Since independence, the Indian government has adopted various policies and programmes to bring about the development of the tribal population as well as to bring them into the fold of mainstream population.

In this paper, M. Gopinath Reddy and K. Anil Kumar discuss the various policies of the state during the successive plan periods and try to assess their impact on the socio-economic development of the tribal people in Andhra Pradesh, India. In this context, they also discuss the new act - Forest Right Act, 2006- and its implementation till now, to understand how far this act can help further development of the tribal communities in the state.

The state of Andhra Pradesh has about 33 communities officially designated as Scheduled Tribes
(STs), including twelve tribes that are classified as Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs).

The authors extensively document the various programmes, laws and policies initiated by the government since the First Five Year Plan for the upliftment of the tribal communities. The first four plans adopted varied approaches ranging from providing educational schemes, equal opportunity to tribal communities to raising the standard of living for the overall socio-economic development of Scheduled Tribes. There was a noticeable shift in approach in the Fifth Five Year Plan when the Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) was initiated. According to the authors, one of the significant aspects of the TSP is that it stipulated allocation of Centre and State funds in proportion (at least) to the ST population of a State or a Union Territory (UT). Currently, the TSP strategy is being implemented in 23 TSP States/UTs. Over the years, changes have been made in modalities to make the approach more effective and beneficial to these communities.

These efforts notwithstanding, the lack of tribal development and security of their livelihood continue to be a major problem. There are several reasons for this. One reason is that despite some transition taking place, for most tribal communities land (mainly forest land) is the main source of livelihood. For communities living on the plains and near river banks, lakes, etc., in addition to settled cultivation, cattle rearing, basket making, fishing, comprise the main source of livelihood. The tribal groups living in hilly terrain depend on primitive form of cultivation (shifting cultivation) and non-timber forest produce (NFTP) collection for their livelihood. Lack of proper irrigation facilities and small land holdings means that even those doing settled cultivation have to fall back on collection of forest produce and wages for their livelihood.

However, over the years tribal people’s access to forest land and forest produce have got severely curtailed because of the nature of the forest laws. In the period prior to the National Forest Policy, 1988, the government’s forest policy by and large mirrored the colonial forest policy. Further, since 1976 the government was given extensive freedom to declare large forest areas as Reserve forests or as sanctuaries. The Act also gave the state right to refuse “legal right to the dwellers to occupy the land”. In effect, the authors argue, the Act was anti-tribal and has resulted in large-scale evacuation of forest-dwelling tribals from their lands.

The National Forest Policy 1988 marked a departure from the earlier policies as it sought to treat forests as common property resources to be managed for common use. In this context one of the aims of the policy was to associate tribal population in the protection and development of the forest. The policy also prescribed custodial rights to “participatory village communities for meeting their demand for forest produce” and aimed to provide gainful employment to such communities. However, even this policy is known to have resulted in large-scale eviction of tribal communities and restriction of use of forest.

Other than these, the authors point out, displacement of tribal families due to development projects, little done in terms of rehabilitation and tribal people’s growing alienation from land at the hands of non tribal people are other factors that further increase insecurity of their livelihood. Even the state policy with regard to non-timber forest produce (NTFP) which confers monopoly rights to the state agencies to set prices goes against the grain of protecting tribal population.

In this background, the Forest Rights Act 2006, the authors feel, can be a major step forward in providing legal provisions to protect tribal people’s right to land as well as to ensure more security in their livelihood.

Andhra Pradesh is among the first few states to implement the Act which confers forest-related rights to tribal as well as non-tribal communities traditionally living in forests for generations.

However, implementation of the act at the ground level is beset with a number of problems. Among other things, the process of granting forest rights title deeds to tribal and non-tribal people has been undemocratic and many claims have been illegally rejected by forest officials. The domination of forest bureaucracy continues and this hinders democratic implementation of the FRA.

The authors conclude on the note that effective and transparent implementation of the Act is the key to it becoming a progressive measure. They also make suggestions that other than better implementation, it is essential to respect traditional rights and livelihood patterns of the forest-dependant tribals when designing and implementing forest management programmes.