Blinkered critics
The Scheduled Tribes and Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005 has drawn much flak. Its detractors argue that the proposed legislation is based on the faulty assumption that tribals are still integral to the forest ecosystem. The fast decreasing forest-people/livestock ratio is not amenable to traditional lifestyles, today, and even routine movements by forest dwellers jeopardises the cause of conservation, they excoriate.
I agree that today the forest-people/livestock ratio is adverse. But this is not because tribals want to cling on to their centuries-old lifestyles. Most tribal communities do want change but strictly on their own terms. For example, many communities in the northeast want to give up jhum (shifting cultivation). But do they have alternatives? No. For, outsiders control the region's economy and treat the northeast as a supplier of raw materials