Tripura forestry – Jesuit response

By Irudhaya Jothi

Agartala, Nov 16, 2021: Jesuit-managed North Eastern Social Research Centre (NESRC) in an attempt to understand the issues around forests in Tripura and to influence policies around forests from a tribal perspective as part of climate change management conducted a study.

The findings of the research was shared among forest officials, intellectuals, media personnel and Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council on November 15 at a Holy cross training center in Agartala.

The findings need to be discussed in a bigger platform and actions need to be worked out said Holy Cross Father Paul Puducherry who is also the director of the Association for social and Human Advancement (ASHA) Institute that hosted the program.

Bishop Lumen Monteiro of Agartala, who attended the conference, expressed happiness and said, “Such findings need to be read and understood by all the clergy and religious for better conservation of the creation in Tripura.”

Forestry in Tripura – Policy, Governance and People’s Participation was the area of research.

It is part of the three-state research on the Forestry in northeastern Indian states of Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura, said NESRC director Jesuit Walter Fernandes, an expert on human rights and environmental issues in northeastern India.

In his introductory address to the gathering Father Fernandes noted a keen interest in forest these days but it is focused only on greening the forest and not concerned about those dwelling in it.

He said, “50 to 60 percent of the medicine in the market today are acquired from the tribal knowledge but patterned by the others, hence, deprived of the tribal identity.”

For the middle class urban environmentalist, the octogenarian Jesuit said, “The forest is place of tourism, beautiful trees and animals but for the forest dwellers it is livelihood and this study.”

There is general opinion on the ill-effect of “jhum cultivation” or shifting cultivation in some of the northeastern Indian states. This myth among the urban educated needs to be countered with study and hence this attempt, Father Fernandes said.

Sanat Chakrabarti, an independent researcher who did the study in Tripura on behalf of NESRC, and presented the results to the officials present.

“The government has enough and more pro-active measures to protect the forest cover in Tripura and officially around 70 percent of the Tripura is under forest cover,” said Chakrabarti.

“But what is not defined is the term Forest,” said the researcher and continued, “any green cover is considered as forest cover but the ground realities is something different.”

Tripura is the second smallest state (10,491 sq. km) after Sikkim (7096) in the region, but it carries the second largest population (nearly 4 million) after Assam.

The population continues to increase while the land is static and hence assault on forest land is inevitable.

The ancient independent kingdom of Hill Tipperah was once rich in forest and wildlife, especially a large habitat of wild elephants.

But they did not take any interest in protecting the forest nor the forest dwellers. It was only after the princely state came under the British suzerainty that the royal administration adopted the British forest management system and introduced certain rules, regulating jhum in dense forest areas and various other usages of forest resources or forest produces.

The native tribal communities settled in the forest-clad uplands did not have legal rights over land, forest and their resources; kings were the absolute owner of Hill Tipperah.

However, the communities generally enjoyed their customary rights over land, forest and forest resources for their subsistence.

Subsequently, the last ruling maharajah had earmarked sizable forest lands as reserved for the five major native tribal communities.

But with the merger of the princely state with the Indian Union in 1949, all the territories and administration were taken over by the government. Thus all land and natural resources, including forest, belong to the State, and not owned by the indigenous tribal communities.

Here started the violation of forest and forest dwellers leading to deforestation and accusation of tribals as the violators of the forest.

Jhum cultivation was predominantly practiced in the northeastern Indian states.

It is an agricultural system where a farming community slashes secondary forests on a planned location, burns the slash and cultivates the land for a limited number of years.

The land is then left unused and the farming community moves to the next location to repeat the process till they return back to the starting point.

It has frequently been claimed that jhum has led to the loss of valuable natural resources of the regions caused major deforestation in north eastern states of India.

The experts refuted this accusation sighting how the Jhum cultivation is community activity and the land belongs to the community as large and not any individuals. The jhum cultivators also do not cut the trees for cultivation just as the timber mafia.

The government introduced rubber and subsidies were given to the villagers encouraging them to cultivate this cash crop.

Rubber does bring in the needed economic security along with the areca nuts and this economic security is temporary but the damage it has done to the bio-diversity is irrevocable.

Under the vast areas with the rubber tree cover nothing grows and besides the alienation of bio-diversity the medical herbs too destroyed for ever.

In 1985, a new autonomous administration – Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council – was created within the state under the provisions of the Sixth Schedule to provide for self-rule for the native tribal communities.

It was created in recognition to the long-standing demands of the tribal population of Tripura for self-rule and for the fulfillment of their sociocultural, economic, and political aspirations.

As per the provisions of the Sixth Schedule, the tribal council is empowered to enact laws and frame rules on a slew of subjects, including land and forest (excluding the Reserve Forest).

Two-third of the state’s geographic area – about 70 per cent of which is forest lands – fall under the jurisdiction of the tribal council. The constitutional arrangement, administrative, and functional relations between the state and the council have been broadly defined.

But simmering jurisdictional frictions between the two constitutional bodies remain an area of concern. For example, the management of land and natural resources, especially forest.

Legally, the state is the custodian of all the territories and natural resources. But most of its land and forest, including the ‘reserved forests’ and ‘protected forests’ falls within the tribal council.

This is another reason for the negligence of the tribal aspirations and protection of the tribal identity and culture.