How did the Indian Forest Rights Act, 2006, emerge?
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, (Forest Rights Act or just FRA hereafter), enacted by the Indian Parliament in 2006, did not emerge from unproblematic and consensual deliberations. Rather the struggle to pass the act, and to keep the key elements intact, was fraught with intense contestation. Central to the process of policy development in this case has been the use of collective pressure through an unusual coalition of interests spread across the states of India, which ultimately paved the road to the new institutional settlement. The case of the FRA throws light on the importance of