Order of the Supreme Court in the matter of Sugra Adiwasi & Others Vs Pathranand & Others dated 29/04/2025. The bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the state of Madhya Pradesh as well as the central government through the the Ministries of Tribal Affairs and …
The Namibian and Angolan governments' joint plans to build a hydel-project dam on the Kunene river is threatening the very survival of the Himbas tribals living in the border area. The proposed dam will submerge 290 sq km of Himba country, including their grazing grounds and ancestral graves. Said Hikominue …
The Masais of Loita, semi-nomadic tribals who are jealously guarding one of the few remaining indigenous forests in East Africa, are in a state of despair. The Kenyan government's recent decision to turn their homeground into a reserve for the development of mass tourism has unnerved the entire community. In …
This forest is schizophrenic...it is a forest with 2 distinct personalities. One part of it is decked up -- like the drawing room of an impoverished lord -- exhibiting all that attracts applause, and funds, from international agencies. The other part is the dark, dingy and miserable home for the …
The forest department's dismal performance is in sharp contrast to the signal service rendered by a voluntary organisation, the Radhasoami Satsang. The people in the forest villages here had been settled by the British at the turn of the century to work on felling trees. They were allowed to cultivate …
It was a blazing mid-March afternoon in Ahwa, 130 km from Surat. Some "modern" men were enacting what seemed for all practical purposes a medieval drama. The lawns of the Ahwa collectorate, the headquarters of the Dangs district, were suitably decorated. The local maibaaps (virtual satraps) -- the district"s bureaucrats …
According to David Hardiman, a historian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, the Bhils came to the Dangs around the 14th century, almost simultaneously with the Konkanas, who were initially subjects of the Bhils. The Konkanas practiced rab cultivation in the flatter regions of the valleys. Forest …
The Dang durbar (court) that opened this year on March 13, and continued till Holi (March 17) is an annual pageantry coming down from the Raj days. What actually happens here clearly symbolises the plains-people's and the bureacracy's patronising, condescending, yet authoritarian attitude towards forest tribals. The Dangs durbar dates …
It is an anomaly: the privy purse was abolished 24 years ago, yet, here, in the Dangs, they still exist. The British ruled in the Dangs under the foreign territories regulations. In 1947 it acceeded to India by default. So when the privy was abolished for the former states, the …
In the pre-British era, the Dangis, part of a larger trade circle in forest products, dictated the terms of trade in forest produce. Merchants from the peripheral towns, bought permission to cut timber from the Bhil chiefs. The rate, in 1826, was Rs.2.25 per cart. Payments were often in kind, …
Gandhian leader Chotubhai Nayak had dreamed that they would be the key to the tribals' prosperity, these jangal mandalis, or forest labour cooperatives. They have been a feature of the Dangs since 1948 and operated till 1960, when the Dangs district was a part of Bombay state. They were dissolved …
THE seething controversy over local rights to collect forest produce in national parks and sanctuaries in Madhya Pradesh may force a review of wildlife legislation. These local rights were challenged recently in the Supreme Court by Vanya, a Panchmarhi-based conservationist group, following the revoking of a ban order on forest …
THE book is an attempt to theorise the relationships between the many factors responsible for the degradation of forests. Although it does not deal with the latest developments in India in forestry - Joint Forest Management and the new, proposed Forest Act - it nevertheless provides a useful backdrop for …
TO DAHELI and her husband Lalia, a conference of the order of the World Social Summit for Development has little significance. Daheli is a plump, middle-aged tribal peasant woman, belonging to the Mankar subtribe of the Bhils, residing in a village called Attha in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. …
THERE is a widely held view that migratory herdsmen, who are allowed to graze their stocks in the forested areas, are the prime cause of degradation. There is a constant clash between the forest department officials and the herdsmen. Bashir Khan Bakerwal is just such a herdsman. I met him …
THE public meeting was held on a wintry morning. "When the shops were closed, there was peace in our homes. We want that quietness in our ooru (tribal hamlet)," said Shanti, the tribal woman who addressed the meeting. More than 200 villagers had assembled for the January 2nd dharna before …
Four Franciscan Mary Missionery (FMM) nuns who have rebelled against the Church are in the forefront of a struggle for the restoration of tribal ancestral lands illegally occupied, mostly by Christian settlers. "We came here to conscientise the tribals and realised that we needed to be conscientised instead," said sister …
THIS book throws light on the framework of administration of Bihar's Santhal Parganas district. It to give a comprehensive picture of development efforts in a tribal area. The study begins with the factors leading to the evolution of development administration in India in general and specifically in the Santhal Parganas. …
There exists a canon of empirical literature on Indian tribes. But there has been no adequate explanation of the present status and the process of change of these societies. This well-written and well-researched book by Bikram Nanda has "tried to clear the ground for the search for a perspective with …
IN AN appeal to save the planet, law students of the Delhi-based Centre for Environmental Law enacted Vasundhra (Earth), at their convocation ceremony. The play, directed by Amitava Dasgupta, was a hit with the audience. A woman in AD 2225 travels back in time to find a tree for her …
UPROOTED 4 times in 3 decades. Thirty thousand villagers of Madhya Pradesh were first displaced during the construction of the Rihand dam (late '50s); later, again, when coal was found in the mid-70s; a third time, to make room for industry; and finally, when the Singrauli mega thermal power station …
